The fifth annual Student Short Film Showcase drew dozens of attendees to the film showings in Talley Student Union and Hunt Library Feb. 11 and 19.
The short films, which were produced by NC State students and graduates of the College of Design and the Department of Communication, ranged in length from 30 seconds to three minutes and were either computer-animated or filmed in real time, digitally or on 16mm film.
Each of the students was also given the opportunity to share a little about the production and inspiration behind their films.
Stephen Minervino and Margo Jordan, recent graduates from the College of Design, explained the processes that went into creating each of their films, Progression and The Generative Edge.
“With a 2D short, you start off with your story idea. You lay out the most important moments in single drawing form, creating almost a comic book of your ideas,” Minervino said.
This is the earliest version of a filmmaker’s short. From here, the filmmakers choose an animation program and then begin the process of creating moving pictures.
The process differs for creating 3D animations.
“The part that becomes different is translating [storyboards] into a 3D program rather than hand drawing everything out,” Jordan said. “The very first thing that I did was started to create the character that was in my film. I modeled her from scratch and that was the bane of my existence for probably three-fourths of the whole semester. The last portion was just locking down the animatic so that it would follow through with the motions I wanted it to make.”
Minervino also said that creating his short film was also painstakingly long.
“As for time, it takes forever,” said Minervino. “I think Progression was probably between 1,500 and 1,700 hours of work. I was doing 20-hour days for about a month and a half. But it looks pretty good at the end.”
Kyle Pysher, a recent graduate from the Department of Communication, explained what it was like producing a short film using a 16mm film camera.
“The actually filming was a little different for this because you can’t actually see what you are filming when you use a 16mm camera,” Pysher said. “So we have to make sure we know exactly how the lighting is going to look, and exactly how out framing is without seeing before the film is returned to us.
Pysher, who produced a horror-short titled “Blind Date,” described the entire experience as nerve-wracking.
“You have to have everything to a T before you turn the camera on, and from there it’s just about praying that all of your calculations have turned out right. And I believe mine did,” Pysher said.
All of the students who participated in the film showcase agreed that filmmaking is a collaborative medium.
“In the NC State the film program, there isn’t a lot of us,” said Jenn Stilley, a recent graduate. “It’s still relatively small, and the classes we take are only made up of 11 or 12 people, so you become friends with these people. I met my best friends through NC State film production, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”
