Veterans Chip Hale & Mikaela Supulski will host fifth annual program July 14-18 //
PRESS RELEASE – Student filmmakers will be hitting the streets in Kilgore again this summer during the 2025 Summer Intensive from REEL East Texas.
It’s the fifth annual indie film outreach hosted by filmmakers Chip Hale and Mikaela Supulski, a hands-on experience for high schoolers. There are still a handful of spots remaining for the intensive, set July 14-18 in downtown Kilgore.
During the course of the week, participants will craft their own short films from start to finish: scripting, location scouting, casting, filming and editing before premiering the works for the public that Friday evening in the Texan Theater.
Hale is executive director of the nonprofit REEL East Texas Film Festival, based in Kilgore. The annual summer intensive is a key part of the organization’s mission.
“One of our focal points as a nonprofit film festival is education. This lines up really well with that element of our ethos,” Hale said. “It also opens doors for us to be able to create other education outreaches.”
REEL has hosted a Screenwriting Class in the past and will do so again in Fall 2025. Coming soon, the nonprofit will host its first Acting on Camera workshop June 28. The film festival has also been grateful to partner with Kilgore College Theatre students for live performances of excerpts from competition screenplays each Fall. The ninth annual REEL East Texas Film Festival is set Nov. 6-9.
Hale and Supulski have been spearheading the week-long summer intensive since launching the outreach in July 2021.
“I’ve been a professional filmmaker now for 21 years, Mikaela has been for 12. In the past 10 years, we’ve worked on eight or nine projects together,” Hale added. With his experience as a writer/director and Supulski’s expertise as cinematographer/editor, “I feel like we both do a good job of explaining to the students how to make sure they cover all the bases that you need to make a film, from sound to camera to directing because the pair of us are well-versed in all those elements.”
In 2023, participating students had the opportunity to work in various roles on the set of Through the Ghost, the first film produced by the nonprofit’s REEL Studios arm.
“The students got to apprentice under the professionals. That was very well-received by the students themselves and by their parents,” Hale noted. “They learned to make a film one week, made their own and then got to work on a professional set the next week.”
Spots in the film intensive are funded by REEL’s generous sponsors, and Kilgore restaurants contribute the students’ lunches.
“It’s just Mikaela and I and this crew of young filmmakers cutting their teeth on their own stories that became scripts that become films,” Hale said. “It’s intense.”
One of the intensive’s standout students will be invited to work as First Assistant Director on the next REEL Studios production, a short spy/techno thriller titled “Sub-13,” written and directed by Hale for production in late-Summer.
“We have a casting call for two actors on May 24 for the characters ‘Esme’ and ‘Branscomb.’ I’ll be auditioning potential cast members myself and then consulting with Mikaela,” Hale noted. “In particular, we’re looking for SAG actors for those roles, women with experience on-set or actresses who are aiming to get to that SAG-AFTRA distinction.”
Just 10 spots are available in the film intensive for students going into their junior or senior year of high school in addition to Class of 2025 graduates. To apply, log on to REELeasttexas.com/summer-intensive/
About the Intensive’s Filmmakers:
- Chip Hale has been actively involved in independent film for 21 years, from feature to short films – documentary and narrative – to web series, music videos and commercials. At an early age Chip developed a love for movies and it was that love that led him to Los Angeles in 2001. Hale’s feature directorial debut came in 2007 with Mulligans, but his follow up feature film Sweethearts of the Gridiron (2015) received regional critical acclaim and went on to become a multi-award winning film.
Subsequent projects included Everyday Heroes (2016), an award winning short documentary about the Kilgore Fire Department and their annual event for people with special needs, SAFFE Day. The Tomato Bowl (2016), a celebration of the WPA era football stadium in Jacksonville, TX. MLK Day (2017), a short doc about Kilgore’s first ever Martin Luther King Celebration. In 2019 Chip directed Texas Shakespeare Festival Roadshow, following the talented group of thespians as they travel across Texas performing Shakespeare plays. All films are East Texas-based, specifically Kilgore. In total Chip has directed/produced over 20 independent films.
In recent years, he completed Voices from Forgotten Streets – Boomtown Kilgore, a two-part documentary about the great East Texas oil boom of the 1930’s, followed by the first short film from REEL Studios, Through the Ghost, still on the festival circuit.
Chip is in the ninth year of REEL East Texas Film Festival which uses historical landmarks, the Old Post Office, and Texan Theater in downtown Kilgore. He currently resides and operates Overton Films and REEL East Texas Film Festival in Kilgore.
- Mikaela Supulski is a Dallas based cinematographer, editor, and documentary filmmaker. She started her film career working as a producer, camera operator, and editor for the feature documentary, Sweethearts of the Gridiron. After the film’s completion, she joined Chip Hale at Overton Films, where she shot and edited over a dozen short form projects, including the short film Through the Ghost. Her love of visual storytelling led her to USC School of Cinematic Arts MFA film production program, where she focused on cinematography. Mikaela has had the honor of being mentored by female cinematographers Alice Brooks, ASC (Wicked), Nicola Marsh (20 Feet from Stardom), and Jenna Rosher (Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind). Inspired by the camera lens, Mikaela aims to capture the complexities of life with powerful imagery. She stands behind gender diversity and equality in the film industry, specifically in traditionally male dominated areas, such as camera, grip and electric. Her work on the short film, Callback, has been featured in WomenCinemakers magazine, as well as BBC’s 2018 Oscar coverage.
