Incoming Senior Dalen Brazelton takes home Short Form Fiction Award
During the Spring 2020 semester, when Colorado Mesa University student Dalen Brazelton was making a video for his Advanced Video Production final, he assumed he’d get a grade and that would be the end of it. Instead, his professor submitted the video to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Heartland Chapter, and to Brazelton’s surprise, he won.
“Growing up in small town Wyoming, my goal was just to get people to see my stuff,” remembers Brazelton. “I have been making videos by myself since 2014, so being a one-man show was not new. But it was the experience I got from my classes and being a part of CMU TV that elevated my skills.”
Similarity to universities across the country, the pandemic shut down campus in Spring 2020. Being home and feeling alone is what Brazelton said inspired him to create Kovid. That, and his seven-year-old brother, Brody McCoid.
“My little brother wanted more than anything to be in a short film of mine. So when I was thinking though it, he was the first thing that came to mind,” said Brazelton. “I was trapped in my house with nothing but creativity and a seven year old.”
Brazelton’s video won the Student Production: Fiction Short Form award, which is the first time CMU has won in that category and is the first time an individual student has taken the trophy.
“I was ecstatic when I found out, especially because everything you see or hear in the film was made in-house,” he said. “The rain in the scene of Kovid on the porch is CGI, and was made by me. I also recorded foley sounds of thunder using the side of my washing machine to complete the feel of a stormy day.”
A friend of his from back home created the soundtrack. The trophy will be displayed in Escalante Hall.
The soon-to-be senior said he’s “overjoyed that a short film of mine would win an award like this.” His new goal— create a full-length movie before he graduates.