While many Millersville students spent their summers lounging by the pool, Owen Byrnes was involved in an Indie film production. Byrnes began his summer teaching children the basics of documentary filmmaking at camp.

However, this was short lived do to unintelligent management of the camp. He started work on a film about a coal miner’s son who accidentally hits and kills a stranger with his car. The movie is aptly named Coal.

The main character hides the body in an abandoned mine shaft and it remains undiscovered for 20 years. He is eventually confronted with his past and must choose between the life he knows and running away. Byrne was Production Assistant and Boom Operator for this project.

The main character did not show up after the second day of shooting so Byrne brought MU alumni, Garret Queer on board to play the character. The film crew consisted of 12 members and five cast members.

“The film will premiere in Frackville Pennsylvania, where it was shot, and then be shopped around for festivals. With indie filmmaking it is almost never certain where the films will be seen,” said Byrnes

Byrnes worked on a few other projects before starting his most recent one called As The Dust Settles, which is a documentary on the Burning Man Festival.

“I don’t think I can properly describe what burning man is, but I’ll try. Just imagine over 50,000 people in a desert. It is basically a model utopian city. The only things money can buy are coffee and ice. Everyone helps everyone else out. The economy is based upon gifting, the act of just giving away goods just to help each other out. But the desert is very harsh. The first and last days we were hit by monster dust storms,” elaborated Byrnes.

Everything at the festival is meant to be symbolic. In the middle of the city is a giant wooden man. The cars are made to look nothing like cars and there is a temple built from all recycled material.

This temple is a place to mourn loved ones, a place to let go of what they do not like about themselves and to simply connect with their spiritual sides.

The film itself is supposed  to portray a very emotional, intense idea. However, the production turned out to be just as dramatic.

“The nature of the festival is that everything is incredibly visual, so every moment we weren’t shooting was a moment we were missing something that was worthwhile,” said Byrnes.

The whole cast was flown out to Reno, Nevada. They met up to discuss the project and to decide just how they wanted to go about shooting it.

Most of the crew then drove down to the festival while four members ended up hitchhiking the three hour trip.

“Another interesting part of this project is that the crew is also the cast. It was a strange experience knowing that everything I did could go into the film,” he added.

As the Dust Settles is in the post production stage of development. Since there is a great deal of footage to sort through Byrnes estimates it should be completed in about three months.