On the evening of November 21, the lights of Umble dimmed to present the culmination of four years of work in Goshen’s film department. As the capstone project for his major, Tim Litwiller invited the public to attend his senior film show.

A double major in communications and film production, Litwiller’s project has been a long time coming. He first seriously started planning while on SST in Peru the fall of 2016, where he developed an original plan to create new short films and typography animation videos. However, due to time constraints and struggles in writing a short film script, he had to start fresh.

David Kendall, professor of communications and Litwiller’s advisor for the project, connected Litwiller with Joel Pontius, director of the Sustainability Leadership Semester (SLS). Pontius and the SLS students have embarked on a project of their own, hoping to help create a bike path connecting lake communities in Noble County.

“Joel was working on a project that he thought was film-worthy so I hopped on the bandwagon and ran with it, finally deciding to make a documentary for my capstone project,” said Litwiller.

The documentary, which ran roughly 10 minutes, was the grand finale of the whole viewing, which had a total run time of about 45 minutes. The show involved a variety of short videos documenting Litwiller’s progress throughout his time at Goshen.

“I designed the show to demonstrate that I’ve grown and gotten better at my craft,” Litwiller said. “I feel that I accomplished that fairly well.”

Having completed his film requirements on campus, Litwiller plans to join fellow seniors Riley Mills and Takoda Friesen at the L.A. Film Studies Center next semester prior to graduation in April. The program has well-integrated Goshen’s communication program, and will consist of two main classes, an elective and an internship. Students will have the opportunity to work on multiple film projects at once.

Following graduation, Litwiller hopes to work with smaller, corporate-type videos during the post-production process. Beyond that, the future is a mystery.

“Making videos is something that I’ve done for a long time and I plan to make a career out of it one way or another,” said Litwiller.

Reflecting on his time at Goshen College, Litwiller points to the opportunities offered to him at FiveCore Media as preparing him well for post-graduate life.

“The atmosphere, equipment and work we do there is so professional and top-notch. It has really helped me build a resume of videos,” Litwiller said.

It is through expertise gained via opportunities such as FiveCore that Litwiller was able to create a capstone piece he was proud of. The project was highly independent, with guidelines only in place to keep steps of production on track.

“I feel like the show went really well. A whole lot of work went into the show, but it really paid off. I’m so thankful to everyone who came and helped make it happen,” said Litwiller.

Mills and Friesen also will be presenting their senior shows on dates yet to be determined.