LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Community College film team almost found themselves disqualified at a recent film competition, if it weren’t for the selfless act of one of their team members quitting the team.
Back in October, the team ran into a small problem during the recent Project Accessible Hollywood (PAH) Nation competition at the school. Inadvertently, they entered the competition with an extra fifth person on the team, which is not allowed in a four-student competition. But film student Percy Leon wanted to help his team win and volunteered to quit the team to help them qualify for the four-student competition.
“I just met a student, who though in some ways the most driven graciously backed out of the PAH-FEST Filmmaker’s Challenge contest which clearly states only a team of four can represent their school,” wrote event founder Christopher Coppola on his blog. “Because of his noble selfless act, I wanted him to do something special for me. I asked him to create a DigiPortrait of my father to be screened during the final PAH-FEST ceremony this Sunday night. He needed to do his research. He embraced this task with gusto and reverence."
During the week-long PAH Nation event Dr. August Coppola passed away and his son Christopher, of the famous Coppola film producing family, instead gave Percy a special project for his selfless act. The end result brought the family and theater viewers to tears and brought Percy future cinematic career opportunities.
“Marc Coppola, shook my had and told me it was amazing and they had just had their service for their father a few days ago and didn’t have the images we had,” Percy said. “He asked how I did it. I told him I did a lot of research.”
Dr August Coppola was the father of actor Nicholas Cage and brother of Francis Ford Coppola. Dr August Coppola taught comparative literature at Cal State Long Beach in the 1960s and '70s and served as a trustee of the California State University system before moving to San Francisco State in 1984. He became dean of the School of Creative Arts there and was also professor of cinema until 1992.
“It was a great honor to be able to do something like this for one of the most respected families in the film industry,” Percy said. “I had two total days to complete it, which included one day in preproduction, the next day in production and the following day the postproduction. I immediately called my friend and co-producer Artemio Caballero and friend Editor Anmol Karnik to help me put something together nicely. I had notes written down about his father that Christopher had given me and I wanted to add the right images that best described the great professor he was. I spent all day and night putting it all together and Artemio added the narration.”
Percy’s tribute to August Coppola brought tears to the eyes of the two Coppola brothers, Mark and Christopher, who were both on stage and watching the video for the first time.
The special project for the team member that selflessly quit his team to help them compete had put himself on the map.
Since that day, Percy and his team have been busy.
“Our next projects and film contests will be creating several spec commercials for Snickers and other brands as well as creating video clips for Lady GaGa's Monsters Ball World Tour,” he commented.
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Media Contact:
Percy Leon
Phone: 213-700-7570
