EagleVision Productions won the silver medal at the UIL Young Filmmakers State Championship with their documentary “Sweet Legacy: Preserving the Art of Hand Pulled Candy”. The competition was held at the UT Austin campus Wednesday and Thursday.

“This film explores both the actual art of the candy making itself and the personal legacy that Jim Withrow started,” EagleVision Sponsor Neda Morrow said. “It’s really a staple of the culture and community of Lindale itself.”

Senior director Miles Hill and junior assistant director Brandon Brock produced the documentary along with help from class videographers Esther Tidwell, Logan Blackburn, and Ashlynn Brice.

“The students in my Advanced Production class all work together on multiple projects,” Morrow said. “For this film, the videographers and directors went on site to the Candy Company and filmed everything from scratch.  Then, it went into post production, which is where the directors edited the footage and made it come to life.”

The film featured the Lindale Candy Company and its legacy for the past 75 years. The film featured drone shots, interviews of the current owners,  and community members.   The process of hand pulling candy from start to finish was featured. 

“Filming a documentary usually has a few major steps, but the hardest is the story,” Hill said. “You can shoot a perfect documentary but with a lackluster story- finding the story is the hard part. For the Lindale Candy Company, we had heard that they were one of the only places in the world still practicing the art of hand pulled peppermint.”

The film takes an in-depth look at founder “Candy Jim” Withrow and the impact he and his candy shop left on the community here in Lindale. This film also focuses on the legacy of hand pulled candy as used in the shop instead of machines. It has been continued in the store all 75 years and is still being done today with the new owners, the Cagles. 

“He really had a vision for it being a community business,” Morrow said. “He had more than just a candy-related legacy.”

This is one of 4 films submitted to the contest. The class also produced a stop-motion animation, a narrative with help from the theater department, and another documentary film, all of which can be viewed on the EagleVision youtube channel and on the Eagle Eye at https://lhseagle-eye.com/category/documentaries/.

“People have stopped me in the streets and at school to mention how professional the film was,” Morrow said. “The two directors who went, Brandon and Miles, did a great job. They also had a lot of help, really the Eaglevision class itself all had a part in the film.”

This film can be found on the Eagle Vision youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCYLtlwwXgA