One of the side effects of the “poor college student” epidemic is that ambition is often sacrificed due to lack of finances. Students working on the film “Siber” have tackled the challenge of finding creative ways to form a middle ground between the producer’s ambitious vision and the student film’s financial limits.

The film illustrates the relationship between humans and nature in the past, present and future and in multiple terrains by focusing on the universal connections between humans.

The Cost of Ambition

Erika Pontius, a senior film major and executive producer of “Siber," stated that the film's financial need has grown since they first began filming.

“‘Siber’ started out as a smaller project and when we started working on it it got bigger and bigger, and of course more expensive,” Pontius said.

The total cost for “Siber,” excluding the post-production costs, was just under $7,000 Wheeler said. Local businesses, film students and their friends and family all contributed finances for the film's production.

As writer and director of “Siber,” former Chimes A&E staff writer and Biola alumnus Caleb Wheeler explained that usually a lack of money forces film majors to sacrifice their visions or at least put them on hold.

“It’s a common thing in the film program at Biola that people with ambitious ideas kind of stray away from those and either settle for ideas that are less complicated or focus on writing screenplays and hope that someday when they make it into Hollywood, if they make it into Hollywood, they can make those movies,” Wheeler said.

Thinking Out of the Box on the Set

Wheeler said that he had to compromise some of his plans for “Siber” due to budgeting limitations. After California fire code prevented the crew from shooting a scene with a fire in the middle of a grass field, Wheeler had to go back to the drawing board and think of a new location.

“We ended up going to the beach, and that worked out famously. I couldn't imagine that scene any other way now,” Wheeler said.

Even through the cinematic and monetary restraints that the student film posed, however, he refused to compromise his overall vision.

“It might not be what you wanted originally, but it could be better,” Wheeler said.

For example, the “Siber” crew had to find original ways to construct their props and compose their costumes. Alex Quiroz, sophomore film major as well as art director and production designer for “Siber,” described some of the time consuming demands of designing.

“With my role in particular, everything was creative — every costume you see was deliberately planned, even the blanket that one of the characters uses — I sat for seven hours making sure that blanket looked authentic,” Quiroz said.

Leaving a Legacy

Pontius explained that she wanted to bring back the tradition of on-campus student film premieres again after two years of absence.

“I’d like to leave Biola with a big legacy and leave a big thing behind me by doing those [premieres],” Pontius said.

Pontius and Wheeler hope that reinstating the premiere will foster thoughtful discussions afterwards.

“My dream is to imagine little groups going off somewhere — to a coffee shop or Eagles or wherever afterwards and just talking about it,” Wheeler said.

Despite the compromises and changes that they have had to make, the producer and director agree that they maintained the vision for the nature film within the financial limitations.

“It turned out better [than I originally imagined], which is crazy because I don’t think a lot of people say that about their films,” Pontius said.