By: Dr. Andrew Yox, NTCC Honors Director
Would NTCC even do a film? At a dinner last 23 July on the terrace of Nardello’s restaurant, ten members of the local NTCC Webb Chapter, which is largely coterminous with Honors Northeast, met to discuss this and other questions. It was hot, and the pandemic was peaking. Most members were in shorts. At a crucial moment, Brian Ramirez, an incoming NTCC freshman from Mount Pleasant, raised his cell phone to display his Snapchat App. In the blink of an eye, every student was connected. Ramirez went on from this quick network fix to become the primary advocate of actual filming. Soon he was the film’s unit production director, and the film’s producer. This past 6 February during the State Webb presentation on zoom led by the Education Director of the Texas State Historical Association, Lisa Berg, Ramirez received a Webb Award for representing the freshman-sophomore Chapter that had performed the most significant activity in Texas history. The NTCC Webb chapter has also won this award in 2013, 2017, and in 2019 for its Barbara Conrad film.
The feature-length film Ramirez has produced, Pilgrimage: A Story aBOout Northeast Texas, has just recently been given a green light to premiere on the NTCC campus, 26 March. It is the story of Bo Pilgrim, the great Northeast Texas chicken magnate. It was a project apropos for the Webb Society which is the collegiate auxiliary of the Texas State Historical Association.
Sophomore Presidential Scholar, Jalyn English, served as the film’s director, relaying what he could from last year’s film experience when he also was a unit production director. It was an interesting contrast. English observed, and only occasionally questioned, helping to keep actors and cinematographers functioning, and cognizant of technical needs. Ramirez, by contrast was the driver, who kept the tempo of filming close to soap-opera film standards, and was able to finish 51 of the film’s 53 scenes in a week of filming last August. He also edited over 400 minutes of film into an eighty-minute production this past fall, and coordinated a sharing of the footage with composer, Kenny Goodson, from Hughes Springs, who is again providing the film’s music score.
Ramirez attained his first real leadership challenge as a section leader, playing the clarinet in the Mount Pleasant High School band. He admits this challenge was different and in a way more daunting, because he could not simply tell other honors students what he wanted. He had to “coordinate, and convince,” while keeping an eye on what the filming would mean for his subsequent experience as film editor. Ramirez noted, however, that it “was a fun challenge, a challenge I took on with full force, and determination.”
The film project ran into many challenges last summer, including a cancelled research trip, and last-minute difficulties securing actors. Ramirez, however, remained upbeat. He notes, “I never felt intimidated by the pandemic last summer because I knew that as long as I religiously followed the CDC guidelines, there would be nothing I need to worry about.” He also found the film project new and stimulating. He notes, “I don’t really have time for any of the traditional kinds of hobbies, as I am always studying or helping out around the house. But I enjoyed staying busy, because if I am not, I feel like my time is wasted.”
Ramirez originally planned on attending NTCC just to finish his basics, and transfer out as soon as possible. But he notes, “after some deliberation, and thorough discussions with various professors, I decided to stay for the full two years, and take advantage of all of the opportunities the Honors Program, Phi Theta Kappa, and NTCC have to offer.”
When considering where his film experience and extensive course work at NTCC might take him, Ramirez notes that he is fascinated with automation. He has enjoyed various opportunities to design and test drones and rovers, and hopes one day to pursue work in robotics.
Honors Director, Dr. Andrew Yox notes that “Ramirez combines a rare blend of avid leadership with responsible attention to detail and timetables. He held basically in his hands the work of hundreds of hours of work involving over twenty individuals, and came through to deliver the end result, intact, and glowing with cinematic flourishes which he created. We are very thankful for his service to this community and college in helping to provide the first cinematic overview of a very influential and controversial leader of our area.”
