More than 100 teams of students filled up the line at the red carpet for Campus MovieFest as the competition kicked off last Wednesday, Sept. 25, at SF State for a chance to win cash prizes and the opportunity to make a short film.
“What we do is we provide students for free for one week a Panasonic HD camera, tripod and Macbook Pro and they have a whole week to make a 5-minute film or less in whatever they want to do,” said Ismael Castillo, CMF event assistant manager. “We always get random submissions at SFSU, especially with the diverse community that we have here.”
The deadline for students to submit their films at Jack Adams Hall was Oct. 1. The top 16 films are then selected by a panel of SF State students, staff and faculty chosen by the Associated Students, Inc. Those films will then be showcased Oct. 17 at Jack Adams Hall.
Previous SF State winners include “The Proceedings” by Jason Zavaleta for Best Picture and “Choice” by Dolan Chorng for Best Comedy.
“From the top 16 we give awards for Best Drama, Best Comedy, Best Picture and we also have an Elfenworks Social Justice category for $20,000,” Castillo said. “Also if you win Best Picture on this campus, you win a whole year of Adobe Creative Cloud and your film will be shown at the Cannes Film Festival.”
Some students, such as Sam Langshaw, 20, cinema major, are more than ready to compete at CMF.
“There’s really nothing like this at all in Australia, it’s a completely amazing opportunity,” said Langshaw, who is from Australia but is living in the U.S. for the semester.
Also from Australia is Sam Osborn, 23, a double major in broadcasting and electronic communications arts and cinema, said he is working with Langshaw and some other friends to create a film for CMF. Osborn said the film will be a comedy based on their brief time adjusting to life in America in comparison to Australia. He added that they wanted the film to be relevant and will also show their outside look of American society.
“We’re making a story about us basically based on our daily life. We live in Daly City and it’s going to be about us being obnoxious versions of ourselves being white and thinking we can’t fit in because we’re too white,” Osborn said.
Castillo said the SF State winners will then go on to compete in the national CMF event.
“The awarded films will then be competing with more than 70 schools all across the nation in the next level at CMF Hollywood,” Castillo said. “And that’s where the bigger cash prizes are.”
As the world’s largest student film festival, Castillo said CMF is able to bring in many celebrities and film studios for students at the Hollywood event.
“We’ve had people like Emma Stone, Jeff Goldblum, Woody Harrelson and Josh Peck be host to our film festivals in the past,” Castillo said. “We’ve had people from Fox Studios, Universal Studios and RED be there to give you high-pitched meetings and training as well as opportunities with paid gigs so it’s pretty awesome.”
