Boomtown's Music Video Competition a huge hit

It was standing room only at the screening of the freshly made entries for the Boomtown Film and Music Festival Music Video Competition Monday night at the Logon Café in Beaumont. Some people were standing outside, looking in the windows. Kudos to this year's festival director Stephanie Orta.

The competition was part of July's "Halfway to Boomtown" event. On July 26, they held a concert event with three music acts and had the music video challenge kickoff in-between acts. Nine different bands offered original tunes for the competition, including Fresh Grind,

Team member signed up, picked their song and had 10 days to come up with a concept, shoot and edit their video to be screened Aug. 5 at the Logon between a classic double feature of "Phantom of the Paradise" and "The Ice Pirates."

Seven teams completed the challenge. "Kosmic Dreaming" by Kosmic Funeral was created by Orangefield resident, Penny LeLeux, aka, The Barefoot Director.

"I really hadn't originally planned to enter, but Stephanie Orta contacted me and said she needed one more team to cover all the bands," said LeLeux. "I really didn't have time to shoot new footage, so I did a deep dive in my cell phone archives and used road trips, family events, footage from past 48-hour films, I basically threw the kitchen sink in it."

LeLeux said since it was about dreams and sounded a little 70s psychedelic, it didn't really matter if it made sense. She used some of the footage as it was and threw special effects on other clips. There were mermaids, athletic competitions, cows flooded from Harvey, and even singing jack-o-lanterns.

"It was kind of fun putting it together," she said. "But it didn't hold a candle to the others. There were some amazing entries tonight."

First place was won by team PVO for the song "Glow" by 2Throwed Mindz-InnerG, a hip hop rap song the featured a group watching "The Last Dragon," then they become part of the story with Kung Fu action and damsels in distress.

Team Hostile Cinephiles took second place with "One Purpose" by Maxifads. They offered a music performance with band members in garbage bag masks and improvised instruments, such as a base cut out of cardboard and lead guitar made from a gas can.

Maurice Ableman of Team Warm Oats took third with its animated rendition of "Damn Tired" by Hot Grits. Maurice teaches graphic design at Lamar State College-PA and has painted some of the murals in Orange, including ones for the Lions Club.

Prizes for the top three videos were supplied by the Collab Studio in Beaumont.

Other teams that competed were: The Stellar Team with their creation of "Heavy" by Ariel Bush; Team 37 Pieces of Flair for the vision of "Bad Vibes" by Fresh Grind; and Team Creative Alchemy for "Teach Me" by Hot Grits. Four teams did not cross the finish line.

"Just completing the challenge makes you all winners," said Christopher Dombrosky of Boomtown Film Society, before the screenings. It is not easy to complete a video in 10 days. The event was a huge success.

After the screenings, one of the audience members was overheard saying, "There wasn't a bad one in the bunch."

"If I had known the turnout would have been like this, we would have gotten a bigger venue," said Dombrosky. The festival has held a music video competition in past years, but it has been a while, and the participation has never been this great, not only in the number of teams participating, but also the attendance at the screening.

Watch out for Orta, she beats the bushes and shakes them out of the trees. Stay tuned for the Boomtown Film and Music Festival scheduled for February 2025. It should be stellar with her at the helm.