Redwater student wins fourth place in UIL film competition
REDWATER, Texas — Redwater High School Junior Zoe Knighton was recently awarded fourth place at the UIL State Film Festival in Austin and is about to travel to California for the Student Television Network National Convention.
Knighton’s regaled documentary focused on the perspective of Kaylee Callicot, the youngest of the Callicot siblings, who lost their mother, Shelli, to colon cancer in 2019.
Knighton said she met Kaylee through Redwater Baptist Church and the two girls became fast friends.
“Everyone has heard her brother’s side because he met Dak Prescott … he’s been on the news and everything. And they asked her two older sisters for DTV a couple of years ago, but nobody had heard her side as the youngest daughter,” Knighton said.
Knighton said getting to hear her friend’s perspective and how she has been doing in comparison to her siblings was compelling to her.
“Her mom got to see her sisters graduate and all that stuff in high school, and her mom isn’t going to see her graduate,” Knighton said.
Knighton has had an eye for media studies since she was in seventh grade and has impressed her audio/visual teacher, Victoria Pearcy.
“I knew right off the bat when she was in that first-year class that she was special, because not every kid has a passion for this and you can tell right away,” Pearcy said.
Pearcy said Knighton has been producing content since she started as a first-year student for Dragon TV, and that it isn’t the norm.
“When we see the potential that some of these kids have, we’re not going to stop them,” Pearcy said.
Knighton said she has a dream to eventually be an executive producer of Good Morning America and hopes to make a difference in the field of media.
“I want to bring more of a Christian aspect to mainstream media because I feel like it’s so worldly and so mean, and I just feel like it could be more wholesome,” Knighton said.