A breakup, an organic chemistry exam, a street musician – these are just a few of the subjects of the 29 short films Northwestern students submitted to the annual Campus MovieFest competition Tuesday.
Participating students worked in teams to write, film and produce a five-minute video in one week for the chance to win Best Picture, Best Comedy, Best Drama or the AT&T Wild Card Award for the movie with the most text votes from the public. Students with an award-winning movie will also receive an iPod, Final Cut Studio editing software and the chance to compete in the CMF International Grand Finale.
The films can be seen online at campusmoviefest.com. Results will be announced next Tuesday at the festival’s finale at 8 p.m. in the Tech Ryan Family Auditorium.
Communication sophomore Brandon Daley said his film, “Bob,” which he co-wrote and directed with Communication sophomore Spenser Gabin, took less than the allotted week to complete. The film is about a man proposing a menage a trois to his love interest with his repulsive roommate.
“Other films focused on larger casts and intricate twists,” Daley said. “Ours is just a short little sketch but it looks really nice.”
Campus MovieFest is the world’s largest student movie festival with 46 participating colleges and universities including DePaul University, Columbia University and New York University. The festival tours the country from August to April, visiting one campus per week.
Gabin said the festival is an opportunity to help students not only with their movie-making skills but also with their teamwork skills.
“It brings the campus together in some ways,” he said. “There’s a lot of teamwork going on, and there’s a single goal that everyone’s working towards.”
Campus MovieFest started almost 10 years ago at Emory University when four students provided other students with cameras and laptops to make a movie in one week. This year, approximately 100,000 students across the country will submit films to the festival.
Many of the movies submitted were made by film major students, but non-RTVF majors were encouraged to participate as well, Daley said.
Communication junior Nick Gertonson and Communication senior Aaron Eisenberg wrote and directed “620 Clark,” a film about a student who spends a Friday night trying to find his crush at an off-campus party.
Gertonson said his theatre major did not put him at a disadvantage in the competition, but his busy schedule did. The team filmed whenever they had time throughout the week, sometimes meeting for only 30 minutes at a time.
“I had an insane amount of work to do for my classes,” he said. “But one thing I’m proud of is that we stuck to the time limit.”
