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NewsvineLined in red carpet and under bright lights, Memorial Auditorium was adorned with all the glitz that accompanied a Hollywood movie premiere Sunday night. But instead of coming to watch the latest blockbuster, a packed audience was in attendance to see the top sixteen student films submitted to Stanford’s first-ever Campus MovieFest (CMF).
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The night’s big winner was “How to Make a Classic,” filmed by Team Pazzi Ragazzi over four days.
“We didn’t think a film with ninjas, gorillas and lesbians would win, but sometimes random things happen,” said senior Cole Paulson, who co-directed the film with senior Teresa Ingram.
“How to Make a Classic” and the other category winners will now be screened at the Bay Area Grand Finale on Oct. 20 at the California Theatre in San Jose, where they will compete against student films from Santa Clara University, San Jose State, Sonoma State and UC Berkeley.
For the competition, CMF loaned 96 Stanford teams an Apple laptop and a digital video camera for the week of Oct. 4 through Oct. 10. The teams received training to complete a film of five minutes or less in length. Over fifty teams submitted entries, and with the help of Stanford faculty and student judges, CMF selected the best 16 for audience viewing last night.
“The Stanfaria Hunter,” dedicated to Australian television star and conservationist Steve Irwin, won Best Comedy. “Doin’ the Laundry” by Team Herbology won Best Res. Hall film.
“The Red Balloon,” an animated film produced with the drawings of Joyce Pan, was also honored by CMF and received the Turner Classic Movies Short Film Award. The film may eventually be featured on Turner Classic Movies.
“[‘The Red Balloon’] is a story about life, where you are searching for something, you chase it, and then you realize that you don’t need it any more,” said a representative of Team Meldoico, which produced the film, upon receiving the award.
The other films showcased were “The Poster”, “At Least the Robots Spoke English”, “A Ghost’s Story, Assassins”, “Occup”, “Hummingbirds”, “Pages”, “Inside the Gymnastics Life”, “Numismatic Inquiry”, “Careful Dreamer”, “Zero Sum Game”, and “Hole”. Audience members have until Friday to text-message votes for their favorite film, which will be tabulated to determine the winner of the Audience Choice Award.
Co-Presidents of the Stanford Film Society, juniors Ben Henretig and Lisa Gunn, said that CMF was one of the most successful events that SFS had ever hosted.
“CMF is an important event for fostering film involvement on campus,” Gunn said. “SFS is hoping to do similar events to allow a wider pool to participate in the campus filmmaking community.”
Henretig was “very pleased with the wide range of film submissions” and noted that “the judges had a great deal of trouble narrowing them down.”
According to Jeff Orlowski, SFS equipment manager, lead organizer of CMF and recent Stanford alum, SFS originally had reserved Cubberley Auditorium for the Stanford finale, but had to change the location when over ninety teams signed up.
“CMF was an incredible success and we are planning to do it again next year with even greater participation,” Orlowski said.
School of Education graduate student Donna Winston spent approximately 25 hours filming and editing her short movie, “The Gift.”
“CMF was an amazing opportunity and a lot of fun,” Winston said. “It took more energy and time than I originally thought it would, even though I was lucky in not having to do too many takes to get decent footage.”
CMF began as the brainchild of four students at Emory University in 2000 and has since become the world’s largest student film festival, providing over 50,000 students nationwide with movie-making technology and training.
All movies submitted to CMF at Stanford will be available online at www.campusmoviefest.com after the Bay Area Grand Finale.