And The Winner Is...

A couple friends and I attended the showing of the finished films at 6:30 p.m., Sunday, February 8, 2009, at Memorial Auditorium on Ohio University's North Green. There were 27 films shown with either the genre of drama, comedy, pure horror, suspense/thriller, mystery, science fiction, action/adventure, instructional, documentary, or mockumentary. Each team was given a prop: a flannel shirt, three eggs, aluminum foil, a banana and a frying pan were among the more random items chosen. Along with a prop, each team was given a line that had to be used at some point in the film; "You look like Helen Keller," was one of the more humorously used ones. Other lines were silly sayings like, "That's what she said," or more serious ones like, "I can't even look at you."

This year had perhaps the most frustrating results. First prize went to "A New Frontier" by ClayNation Productions. The film genre was science fiction, their prop was a flannel shirt, and their line was, "I curse the day you were born." The film was claymation which involves making clay figures and moving them centimeter by centimeter, taking still frames, and then making them all flow together into a smoothly running movie. ClayNation was very successful with their time-consuming project--the movie was practically flawless for how difficult it is to make a film in claymation in such a short period of time. Although I did not find it to be the most stimulating short film, and it was no where near being one of my favorites, it did successfully meet all the requirements and a lot of time and effort and thought process went into the making of it. I will let you be the judge.


The second place prize was perhaps the most dissappointing for me. I, by no means, found it entertaining and believe it was only chosen because the director is a senior film productions major who is active in the communications school and Athens Video Works. It is unfortunate that I feel this film was chosen due to the head of Athens Video Works being biased toward his favorite students. The dialogue is very generic and the idea of having a group of friends sitting around playing charades and arguing about each persons sexual experience with another person in the group is nothing that takes too much time or thought process to write, produce, or direct. It rips off the idea of "The Office" and tries too hard to use the same style, but if you like when artists recycle other people's ideas, then this film might just be your thing! Here is "Game Night" by TDW Productions. Their genre, comedy; their prop, a notebook; their line "It's not my problem."


The third place winner was a tie between OU Siggraph's hilarious instructional video on on different ways to wake oneself up in the morning and Boogie Array's quasi-action/adventure film. There were a few editing glitches in the flow of the OU Siggraph's movie that caused it to pause or seem to skip during the showing, but this video remains one of my favorites because of the original idea of making it animated; it was overall the most entertaining with its use of slapstick comedy and the truth of how hard it is for college students to wake up each morning. The movie follows an animated, yellow man who trys a new way of waking himself up in the morning using tactics anywhere from blaring your music to getting a pet that will bug you in the mornings to putting a spring on your bed that releases and slams you against the wall each morning. It was a cartoon that most of the students in the room, or anywhere on campus for that matter, could identify with. Unfortunately, the film is not available for me to post on my blog, but the title of it was "Wake Up." Their prop was a clock and their line was, "Can you get that for me?"

Boogie Array's film "What A Racket" was a about a man working at a retail store. During the film, the man's crush invites him to her birthday party in the park. He wants to buy her a tennis racket, but someone else buys the only one in the store. The movie follows with the man chasing the racket all over campus as it gets passed from person to person. The movie was mildly entertaining, but it did not meet the genre of action or adventure. The team did properly use their prop, which was a tennis racket, and their line, "I can't even look at you." The video cannot be embedded into my blog, but it is available for your viewing pleasure on YouTube.