A Passion for Filmmaking
By Leslie Lalonde, '16 While growing up in St. Augustine, it was always a dream of Trevor Worley's to move out to Los Angeles and get into the film industry. After graduating from Flagler College with a bachelor's in Media Production in 2007, and getting a master's degree at the American Film Institute in 2014, he is now living out that dream.
In 2014, a short film he produced called "Martian American" won 11 awards from film festivals across the country.
Worley now operates a small production company in Southwest California. "Our company currently focuses on unscripted content as of right now. That's our bread and butter," he said. He also plans to explore more serious topics through comedy, as he did on the film, "Martian American"
"The director, Lee Citrom, and I met at AFI and had a blast working on a film together," said Worley. "Going into development of this film, we really wanted to explore some more serious issues like immigration assimilation, and making a connection."
The short film is about a lonely Martian who travels to California to start a new life, but with culture shock and adversity working against him, he has to find the courage to stay.
A year's worth of work went into producing this 20-minute short film, and Worley's effort has been rewarded. "Martian American" won multiple film awards at festivals and gatherings across America. In November 2014, it was awarded Best Short Film at the Ft. Lauderdale Film Festival.
"The most important thing to remember is: the secret is there is no secret. Everybody knows nothing," Worley said. "It's a pretty abstract concept, but it's supposed to be inspiring." For Worley that means that as you grow in your career, you learn that everyone's ideas are equally relevant.
He also offered advice to students wanting to work in Hollywood: "Good people in this industry just want to help each other out. Our most successful collaborations were with really great people with a solid moral compass."
Worley said he owes his successful undergraduate career at Flagler to a former Media Production professor, Jim Gilmore. He said the college motivated him to take his career path. "Flagler College gave me a taste of production, from directing to editing to writing. It really helped me focus on the things I liked and weed out some of the things I absolutely did not want to do."
He said many new and continuing projects are in the works and his partnering production company, Bonus! Perhaps the most exciting is a story of the man who literally owns the moon and his connection with an unknown alien race.