From Sketches to Scripts
Written and Photographed by Hope, March 20, 2025
Mary Vandersteeg
“I grew up being really talented in art, and my family said I should have a career in it, and I was like ‘yeah’ because I listened to everything my parents told me to do; but art has always varied a bit to me, but movies always stayed at the same level.”
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From a young age - around five or so - Mary Vandersteeg, a junior film studies major, grew up creating films on her iPhone by using the old-fashioned iMovie app. When Vandersteeg used to live in Springfield, Missouri, she would always be outside creating stories that she had made on the spot.
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“I remember I did a lot about spy stuff and of course your traditional princess stories,” Vandersteeg said.
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Vandersteeg explained that her interest in film had sparked when she was 11 after she had watched “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” in 2016. It opened her mind to what she could do, and this is when she had started making scripts.​
Even though she would create videos, that was not the path she originally followed when she entered college.​
When she volunteered to illustrate a book for a charity her sister was a part of, Vandersteeg saw a glimpse of what she could be doing in the future - such as be a graphic designer - but to her a graphic designer wasn’t enough to be its own career.​
Before coming to union, Vandersteeg had attended her first and only semester at the University of Mississippi as an art major. When she ended up transferring to Union, she also transferred her focus to film.
​In a funny way, Vandersteeg did a similar thing when it came to our majors and minors. At the start of college, we both thought we wanted to go down the route of a graphic designer, but that changed - for her I am not 100% sure why, but for me it was because of the constant multiple sleepless nights and lack of time management.
​While we both ended up doing a different yet similar path - hers being film studies, mine being digital media communications (DMC) - we both also decided to go down to an art minor. Even though she changed her major and found Union, her old school still helped pave a path for her.​
Though her time at University of Mississippi was short lived, she ended up writing a script for class. Two years later, she turned these words into a short film as a class assignment while at Union. Her film was called ‘The Crash.” In this film, she ended up creating mini sets that her and her dad had made. By doing that, Vandersteeg was able to create a crashed car site without damaging anyone or anything.​
In ‘The Crash’ her logline was:
After a drunken night leads to a car crash, a group of high school students must decide whether to face the consequences or not as buried secrets reveal themselves.​
I remember when Vandersteeg was looking for actors in this film, I tried auditioning for it, but unfortunately I was cut. But, I auditioned for fun, so I wasn’t too defeated. ​
After I finished auditioning, we ended up talking about what the film was about. Oddly enough, some of the points in her film lined up with a car crash I had in September 2024.​
4 people were in the car - 2 were female, 2 were male. They were driving a red car; I drove a red car. Their car crashed in the tree, mine crashed into a tree. The only main difference is - SPOILER ALERT - the kids were teenagers and ended up dying. We were adults and we made it out alive, or else I wouldn’t be writing this.​​
Photo taken by Brylee Williams
We both joked about how Vandersteeg predicted my crash two years before it happened. Even though that isn’t true, it was just quite coincidental.​
Regardless of the events, this film was experimental and quite creative. In order to not harm her actors in an actual crash, Vandersteeg ended up using a miniature set in order to make a crashed car.
​“Dr Camp was kind of iffy about it because she’s like ‘how are you going to do this,’” Vandersteeg said. “Me and my dad made a mini set of the road.”
​Now with this experimental film under her belt, and one more year left at Union, she already has identified two different paths she could go down post graduation.​
The first is either working for Kankuk - a Christian Camp located in Branson, Missouri. Vandersteeg already has a connection with this place because she is planning to work with them during the summer.​
“I worked for them for the past two summers as a videographer,” Vandersteeg said. “I don't know how long they would want me for, but if they offer me a job after I graduate, I would be there for maybe four years.” ​
Now that was the first pathway that I heard. The second way involved an even bigger opportunity. While working at her current internship, she discovered her boss has connections to big film companies, even working for Disney under the video marketing team for years.​
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If that doesn’t work, Vandersteeg has another back up plan, which would be doing an internship that the film studies department has lined up at L.A. Film Studies Center (LAFSC).​
“They would accept film students to either take a semester-long program or an internship to where they would network their interns to specific jobs in L.A. studios,” Vandersteeg said.​
From what she said, this school has many opportunities such as having a famous director there who had worked on the 2016 Marvel hit, “Doctor Strange.”​
With those being her planned paths, she also figured out that as a side job she could do graphic design in order to become financially stable. ​
No matter what path starts, in the end her goal is to have her own film studio.​
“I’m going to grow because I want to grow a studio myself,” Vandersteeg said. “ I might work for other studios, but that’s my end goal.”​
From having the dream to planning out her career to growing and getting to her end goal, she is on the road to success.