Escape Velocity

Dan Mundt's original movie wins Iowa awards.

"Escape Velocity," an original film by Dan Mundt, an adjunct professor in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, has won several Iowa Motion Picture Association Awards.

The annual awards ceremony was held the weekend of June 15. "Escape Velocity" received three first place awards and two "Awards of Excellence."

"Escape Velocity" is a full-length motion picture produced during the summer of 2000 in central Iowa. The film had its local premiere Friday, Feb. 15 on the Iowa State campus, The fictional screenplay looks at one female U.S. Army pilot during World War II (Claire, played by Iowa State performing arts graduate Kim Hale), whose plane is stolen. Claire decides to take it upon herself to find out on her own who took the plane and why.

The rest of the nearly two-hour film takes Claire across the country and then onto Europe at the end of the war.

Mundt received a best director award for "Escape Velocity" while Hale won best actress. The best lighting award went to Aaron Siskow, a graduate student in the Greenlee School.

"Escape Velocity" received "Awards of Excellence" for special effects and for Iowa State actor Joe Siple.

This isn't the first awards for "Escape Velocity." The film won first place in the narrative category of the Broadcast Education Association's 2002 International BEA Festival of Film, Video and Media Arts.

Two other films associated with Iowa State and the Greenlee School won "Awards of Excellence" from the Iowa Motion Picture Association. "Persistence of Vision: The Making of Harbingers of the Realm" received an award in the "Entertainment, Long Form" category. That film was made by Andy Langager, a graduate student in the Greenlee School.

Senior journalism and mass communication majors Rua Pokladnik and Cody Jans also received an "Award of Excellence" for their student production entitled "54."