James Franco and Aaron Sorkin may have been the notable speakers at last week's Ivy Film Festival, but Brown Television is making strides to ensure that University students themselves take up the mantle of great filmmaking for the future. Last semester, BTV created a competition in response to a lack of opportunities for screenwriters to showcase their work, said Seicha Turnbull '11, executive producer for the competition. The three winning scripts — "Appetite," "The Undergraduate" and "Whole Grain" — were developed into short films that will screen at Avon Cinema this evening.
The screenplays were judged blindly, with only one person on the panel knowing who wrote each script. Criteria included characterization, dialogue, plot development and level of entertainment.
Only then could the work begin. "Everything had to be written and reworked," Turnbull said. "We workshopped all the scripts afterwards. Turning (a screenplay) into a movie requires so much fiddling."
"Appetite," which runs roughly seven minutes long, was written by Nik Gonzales '12 and directed by Sam Eilertsen '12. The film begins with Danny, a college kid "moping around about the fact that he's in love with this girl but hasn't asked her out yet," Eilertsen said. Because Danny's roommate, Abe, is dating a girl out of his league, Danny decides to ask him for advice. The rest of the movie focuses on Abe's response, which reveals his creepy, stalker-like tendencies.
"It's more like a sketch than a typical short film," Eilertsen said. "The whole thing kind of builds up to a punch line." Eilertsen compared the humor found in "Appetite" to South Park: "It will make people laugh and also kind of uncomfortable over the fact that they're laughing."
"The Undergraduate," which runs approximately 11 minutes, is a drama that explores the relationship between student and professor. It was written and directed by Hannah Levy '13 and Herald Design Editor Gili Kliger '12. The two directed a similar production as a final project for MCM1700B: "Approaches to Narrative," but it required "extensive re-writes" for the competition, she said.
"Living in college, our perception of adults is very warped — they're either professors or people cleaning your bathroom, and there's not a lot of in-between," said Michael Stewart '13, who plays a student named Jake in the film. "You kind of end up building up these professors and what they are. Once you start scratching the surface, you start realizing what is there is not always pretty."
"Whole Grain," written by Kathleen Braine '11 and directed by Calvin Main '12, is what Turnbull called "the big mama" — a 35-page script that turned into a 40-minute movie.
"A lot of graduating seniors worked on the project," Main said. "It kind of became the last hurrah project for them."
"Whole Grain" deals with the transition from high school to college, exploring "the pains and insecurities and ambiguities of high school and romantic relationships," Main said. Because the movie is from the perspective of college students, "it's from a viewpoint that's both nostalgic and good riddance," he added. "Directing this has taken all of us back to our high school days and how much we miss them and how we're so glad they're behind us."
"It was pretty easy to flash back and pull from my high school experience," said Emily Kassie '14. Like her character Alexa, who is the only one of her friends to leave Ohio in the movie, Kassie left her peers in Canada to attend school in the Northeast.
Kassie said she encourages students to see "Whole Grain" not only because the story is "relatable," but also because "it's a pretty great experience to see how students can craft a film."
Though "Whole Grain" was the largest production, "the amount of work that has gone into all these works is enormous," Eilertsen said.
"We've had a lot of people pretty much devoting their entire spring semester to these projects," Turnbull said. In fact, many involved in production did so as independent study projects, allowing them "to focus on it without feeling like they're skiving off their work," Turnbull said.
BTV is "hoping to make this an annual thing," she added. "We'll see how this goes."
"This screening is a big step forward for BTV and film making at Brown," Eilertsen said.
