We were four days into the contest and already behind. My team had worked on the script for four hours the night before, debating over our screenplay and veering off on all sorts of tangents and ridiculous scenarios. Something about cavemen or The Odyssey; I couldn’t keep track of their thoughts. And since the only one of us who knew how to use the camera or Final Cut was going to be in Chelsea during our first day of filming, we had a lot of work to do.
Our chaotic first days of writing and filming capture the spirit of Campus Movie Fest to a tee.
Provided with a video camera, all the accompanying accoutrements, and a MacBook Pro, students across the country are given a once-a-year opportunity to create a five-minute movie about any subject, of any genre. Recipients of the top awards for Best Picture, Best Comedy, and Best Drama are rewarded an iPod and Final Cut Studio. They are also invited to the International Grand Finale in Los Angeles, California, where there will be workshops, panels, screenings of short films, celebrity presenters, networking opportunities, studio advance movie screening – pretty much any aspiring filmmaker’s dream weekend. No experience is required to enter, and all amateurs are welcome. Barring profanity and nudity, the world was our cinematic oyster. The catch: we only had one week.
We made some rookie mistakes. After our first day of shooting and four hours of footage, we realized that at some points we forgot to turn on the microphone. On the second day of shooting, we couldn’t figure out how to film a leaf and spent half an hour sitting in the dirt on Voorhees Mall deliberating. We spent our third day editing and arguing endlessly about the script. On the fourth day, sleep-deprived and still annoyed at each other from before, we compressed and decompressed the .mov file four times and finally submitted our movie, relieved of the whole thing.
The night of the finale came, and the Livingston Student Center was buzzing with the anticipation of hordes of hopeful college filmmakers. The selected films were impressive, and some of the technical and visual elements blew me away. Some highlights include Lead and Stuffings, an action movie created by Wonton Creations. It was nominated for the AT&T Rethink Possible Award for Best Editing. Suffix, a sweet story of a girl who falls for a boy in her poetry class, was visually stunning. Malone and Mulloy: Legends of the Laugh won Best Comedy, and Live was awarded Best Drama. And then there is The Busker, winner of the top prize of the night for Best Picture. It is an artfully-crafted, wonderfully-acted, and socially-significant film that addresses the stigma of poverty from the perspective of a business-man-turned-busker. It almost made me cry. Overall, it was a wonderful and exciting experience to be a part of the world’s largest student film festival. With over 136 participating teams and many excellent short films to tout, it is a real shame that Rutgers does not offer Film Studies as a major.
Photo from Ugo.com
Elaine Tang