Students had five minutes to create their films.

By Mary McLean, Staff Writer

Published in print Nov 19. 2014

Generally, someone trying to give free electronics to college students shouldn’t be trusted, as they are either crazy or running a scam of some kind (trunk perfume anyone?) But the yearly exception to that rule rolled around once again last week; the Campus MovieFest.

If you’ve seen people trudging around campus with cameras and asking people to please, please stay out of their shots, now you know who is to blame.

CMF is the world’s largest student film festival, and this was its fourth year coming to UNCG. The event kicked off on November 4 in the EUC Cone ballroom, where the CMF staff handed out Panasonic HD cameras, Apple MacBook Pro laptops and portable hard drives, all in the name of movie making.

Perhaps disappointing to a few people, students couldn’t keep this equipment, but instead had to utilize it to make a five minute movie in just one week. Some, like Jon Carlee, heard about the competition just in time and managed to snag a set of equipment.

“I had no idea it was a thing until someone mentioned it,” he said. “I had two different people tell me about it and wanted me to join their group. I believe it was four days prior to the start of the event.”

Signing up and receiving equipment is the easy part though, as Carlee learned while trying to shoot his dystopian thriller, entitled “Hunt.”

“There was a lot of work that went into the production just so that we could film. Reserving locations took a while but made the film possible,” he said. “There were times where lighting was a problem or that we forgot to record the sound portion and had to record the sound on another day.”

Clearly CMF wants to expose students to the less glamorous, behind-the-scenes side of movie making as well. Carlee’s group wasn’t the only one who had some long days of shooting though.

“We shot it in total in like three days, with 7 or 8 hours on Friday,” said Junior Craig Supples, who was the main actor in the film “Burdens,” about a man weighed down by everything life throws at him. “We filmed in her apartment, out at a graveyard … the Gatewood building, DMC in the library and Rosenthal pool.”

They both must have been satisfied then, when they saw their films screened in the top sixteen on Friday, November 14.

While over forty teams entered this year, only the top sixteen got the opportunity to be screened at the finale, and the filmmakers don’t know beforehand who was chosen. This meant a nerve-wracking night for many of the contestants.

“We felt like we had [gotten into] the top sixteen, so that kind of shook us when it was three quarters of the way through and ours still hadn’t been screened,” said Supples. Carlee had a similar experience.

“Going into the final showing, we were really unsure. Our goal at the time was to just be a finalist,” he said. “When ours came up on the screen, we were ecstatic.” Fortunately for Supples and Carlee, the films that they were involved in were not only screened, but were chosen as two of the top four winners.

There were plenty of perks for people who came just to view the show as well. By raffling off door prizes like a portable hard drive and a giant box of Doritos (one of the event sponsors), CMF encouraged all the attendees to get involved.

Since the only requirements for the short films were that they were under five minutes, students were free to let their imaginations run wild. In the top sixteen alone, there was an Alice in Wonderland spinoff, a short filmed entirely from the point of view of a pooch, and slumber party set up that turned a lot more sinister.

While cinematic quality varied, the creativity of UNCG was definitely on display. In fact, one of last year’s films was voted the best drama in the entire nation after being screened in L.A. at the 14th annual CMF Hollywood Student Film Summit.

Now four new films have a shot at that title, and have been invited to next year’s Summit.

“Its crazy to think that something we made here is going to be seen by some industry people out there,” said Supples, who plans on going to 15th annual Summit to network and meet producers and actors within the industry. Equally excited is Jenna Schad, who was the driving force behind the film that Supples starred in.

“This is the first film I ever wrote, produced, or directed, and I did all three,” she said. While CMF is a fun outlet for UNCG students to express their creativity, there is always the chance that the short filmmakers of today could be the movie stars of tomorrow.