Mike Wolanin | The Republic CSA New Tech senior Piper Parks, center, poses for photos with Pigasus Pictures co-founders John Armstrong, right, and Zachary Spicer, left, after they announced she won the Project Pigasus Film Project during a student assembly at CSA New Tech High School in Columbus, Ind., Monday, March 28, 2022.
A recent graduate from CSA New Tech will soon see her writing come to life.
Pigasus Pictures will work with Piper Parks from Oct. 28 to Oct. 30 to shoot her short film, “Blue.” According to Pigasus Pictures co-founder John Armstrong, filming will take place at various art and architecture landmarks in Columbus, such as the Crump Theatre, and local students will shadow crew members during production.
“We have had tremendous support from the Columbus community to see it done,” he said. “So I am really excited about what we are going to create there.”
In March, Armstrong and co-founder Zachary Spicer announced that Parks had won the fifth annual “Project Pigasus” screenwriting contest (later renamed “Project Constellation”). The Indiana-based film company had invited high school students in the state to write short screenplays — 12 pages or less — based on their own experiences in Indiana.
Armstrong said that Parks’ film is about “finding beauty in the world around you in times of struggle.”
According to a synopsis by Parks, “Blue” is inspired by her own experience struggling with loneliness and depression amid the pandemic. She wrote that going outdoors and looking at the “art and beauty” of Columbus helped with overcoming her depression.
“Opening up is hard, I know it is,” she said. “But with a little help, you can see the color in your life again. I know I have, this is because of the help I got and looking at my beautiful surroundings. I mean, why make things harder on myself when there is such a colorful world around me?”
Pigasus Pictures, which will collaborate with Parks to produce “Blue,” is an Indiana-based film company. Their work has included Indiana feature films “The Good Catholic,” “Ms. White Light” and “The Miseducation of Bindu.”
A nonprofit created by the company, Pigasus Institute, was previously the producing entity for the Project Pigasus screenwriting contest. However, the institute has since merged with Cardinal Stage and the Bloomington Playwright’s Project to form a new organization, Constellation Stage and Screen.
Pigasus Pictures still exists as a separate entity and continues to collaborate on the contest, which is now known as Project Constellation. Submissions are open for the 2022-23 competition, and Indiana high school students are invited to submit a 10-12 page screenplay, a one-page description and a video introducing themselves to projectconstellationfilms@gmail.com by Jan. 20. More information is available at seeconstellation.org.
