NIU student filmmakers captivated audiences this summer at a Rockford film festival.

Ryan Breen, a communication major, Chuck Abate and James Kearns, both communication majors, stunned viewers at the Rock River Alternative Film and Video Festival with their 15-minute documentary, “Our House: Life Beyond Rave Legislation.”

“It was a good experience,” Kearns said. “It was a class project that we turned into something more.”

The film went on to win the “Best of the Fest” award at the festival. The film was screened by a panel of judges composed of industry professionals.

“Our House” also won best documentary, best editing and best overall production last spring at the NIU Golden Reel Awards, sponsored by Students Who Are Non-traditional.

The film explores the subculture of Chicago ravers and the laws designed to put a stop to their parties.

“We wanted to just sort of show people the rave culture,” Kearns said. “It was a culture that kind of had to die unfairly.”

Filming the rave scene was Abate’s idea.

He said he got his inspiration from his interest in music, such as jungle and house music.

The film originally was intended for a class project, Abate said.

“We just expected a good grade,” he said. “And the next thing we know, we’re winning all of these awards.”

The trio worked on the film under the supervision of communication professor Laura Vazquez.

“I thought that the ‘Our House’ documentary was well-constructed both visually and in terms of the content that it conveyed,” she said.

The film was difficult to produce in terms of editing, Breen said. It originally had about eight hours of footage that had to be cut to 15 minutes.

“It took about 88 hours in the editing lab,” he said.

Editing was not the only difficult task for the project.

Abate said a lot of the buildings that hosted raves conducted regular business during the day. The owners were worried about tarnishing their image by holding illegal parties.

“We knew we were going to have some problems getting cameras into the raves,” Breen said.

Other than the success of the film, the project also proved to be surprising in another way.

“To my surprise, not much drugs,” Kearns said. “A lot of dancing. It’s a really special-type atmosphere, there’s people just having fun.”

Breen agreed that drug usage seemed to be lower than expected, but he said it still existed.

“It was kind of interesting to see people using ecstacy,” he said. “It was interesting to see it firsthand.”

Kearns and Breen both currently are working on their own projects.

Kearns, Breen and Abate have plans to continue in the filmmaking business.

“I just want to do independent stuff on the side,” Kearns said.

“Eventually, I’d like to make narrative films,” Breen said. “Move to California, try my luck there.”

“I’m aiming toward media,” Abate said.

Vazquez is very pleased with her students success.

“It’s very rewarding for me to have students that go beyond me,” Vazquez said. “I’m thrilled and very proud of all three of them.”