For most students, Thanksgiving break is a time to enjoy the three F’s: family, friends and food. But for EWU senior Travis Lien, it was 14 hours a day of visual effects editing on campus and multiple helpings of his favorite type of F: film.

Lien’s hard work and talent for filmmaking has led him to have not one, but three films featured in the Spokane International Film Festival (SpIFF) and won him the Most Promising Filmaker award.
Two of his films, “Without an Ending” and “She Only Wants Me for My Body,” were nominated amongst the top films in the festival in the Best of the Northwest category. “Trio,” a non-verbal film created out of his love for jazz music, was featured in the Emerging Filmmakers Showcase.

Lien only planned to submit one film to the festival, but his EWU professors urged him to submit more. “It was a surprise. I entered one film called ‘Trio’ and my professors liked the other two films and they kind of entered them for me,” Lien said.

Adam Boyd, a film professor at EWU and the festival director of SpIFF, knew about the other two films from Lien’s classwork and a 50 hour slam video competition he helped organize. Boyd said he typically knows the quality of films that get entered in the Best of the Northwest category and that Lien’s films were good enough to qualify.

Lien directed “She Only Likes Me for My Body,” which is about a woman who is married to a corpse, with a team of people at Spokane’s annual 50 Hour Slam competition, where groups are given secret criteria and 50 hours to create a three to six minute movie.

One of Lien’s top skills as a filmmaker is working post-production special effects. That skill is on full display in his Mark Twain film adaptation “Without an Ending,” in which a writer is tasked with tying up loose ends in the series finale of a hit sci-fi drama.

EWU student-actor Kellen Morgan has been amazed at what Lien can do when the camera stops rolling. “It’s kind of funny, I’ve worked with a lot of the film students over the last couple of years and Travis’ style to me is a little more unorthodox,” said Morgan. “Most of the time we get like four or five takes of a scene. Travis, he films once maybe twice. He goes, ‘Yeah it’s whatever, it’ll work.’ Then he goes into post-production and you’re like, ‘Jeez man that looks incredible.’”

Lien’s abilities in post-production seem to resonate with many who have worked with him. Andy Wickwire, an EWU student-actor in the film “Trio” also said he was amazed by Lien’s editing. “When we’re on set it’s kind of crazy and out of control,” said Wickwire. “But it always turns out well because his editing is pretty insane.”

Morgan described a conversation he had with another film student on campus. “This kid was like, ‘He’s not only the best filmmaker at Eastern right now, I think he’s the best filmmaker at Eastern ever.’ And I don’t disagree with that whatsoever,” Morgan said.

Boyd noticed Lien was gifted from the first time they came across each other. “Last year, winter quarter, I remember he was quiet,” said Boyd. “But he was clearly capable and good at screenwriting.”

Lien said his mindset when directing films is to do things that are a little different, things that people haven’t seen before. For Morgan that mantra demanded a full male nudity scene in “Without an Ending.”

“At first when [Lien] hit me with that idea I was like, you know, ‘Does that have to be in there,’” said Morgan. “Then I was thinking about it and I totally respect [Lien] as a filmmaker and like working with him a lot and I trust him. If he told me to run into a brick wall, there’s probably a good reason to do it.”

As a self-proclaimed filmmaker, musician, photographer and cat scientist, Lien is well on his way to breaking into the business. He said special effects is an area he might explore when he gets out of college, but at the moment his Senior Capstone production is what he is focusing on.

All Lien’s work can be viewed on his website at travislien.com.