St. Thomas senior and accounting major Chris Bales’ most recent short film, “Yellow,” was nominated for Best Score and Best Student Film at the 2018 Z-Fest Film Project on March 2.

Bales is the co-founder and co-owner of Northern Nights Productions, a video production company that makes everything from short films to promotional videos. He helped found the company in the summer of 2016. Today he and University of Minnesota senior Jake Mierva co-own the company.

In addition to running the business side of the company, he is also director and editor. Bales said he likes directing because he can focus on the creative aspect of filmmaking and forget about the business part of it.

“The hardest part is just logistics,” he said. “The fun part is seeing what comes out of it.”

Mierva is the writer for the company and occasionally contributes as an actor as well.

“The process usually works with me bringing Chris a script and asking him, ‘Can we make this?’ He’s the one that figures out how one of my ideas could come to life,” Mierva said.

Although they fell short Z-Fest this year, they have won multiple other awards, including Audience Favorite, Best Musical Score and Best Writing at the 2016 48 Hour Film Project, and Best Student Film and Best Fight Scene at the 2017 Z-Fest Film Project.

According to Bales, collaboration drives their success.

“It’s hard to run a business with friends, but I also think that’s why we’re successful, because we’re just two guys hanging out,” Bales said. “We make films that we want to see.”

Mierva added that another contributing factor is their passion for what they do.

“As our own company, we are able to explore ideas that we’re interested in, and make the work that we feel inspired to make,” Mierva said.

Despite the accolades, Bales said that the best part is being able to create films with his best friend.

“It’s really exciting to see something that you and your friend created come alive on a screen; that’s super fun,” Bales said.

Bales said their goal is also to inspire others to care about their films.

“We used to make skits when we were little, but now we’re just doing that on a bigger platform,” Bales said. “I think people connect to that kind of sincerity.”

The duo doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. They hope to continue adding to their list of completed projects and plan on taking on new challenges.

“A feature film is for sure the next big goal,” Bales said.

Kat Barrett can be reached at barr1289@stthomas.edu.