Film club hosts Snapshot Film Festival
Lydia Hignite
Issue date: 5/6/09 Section: Expressions
"And the winners of Best Picture, as awarded by our judges, are Taylor Whitley and Ben Gibson for 'The Happy Ending.'"
The first ever Snapshot Film Festival took place last Friday night in the Christenberry Planetarium. The Samford University Film Club hosted the event, which served as both a fund-raiser and an opportunity for students to showcase their film-making skills.
The premise of the festival was as follows: as an individual or as a group, students would commit to making a film. On Friday, April 24, film club president junior English major Josh Crute e-mailed each group a photo, or "snapshot," at precisely 5 p.m., and each party had 48 hours to make a film based on or somehow incorporating that image.
The image was different for each group, and if a director's final film wasn't turned in by exactly 5 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, that film was disqualified from the competition. Each film was to be short, four to six minutes in length.
Whitley, sophomore religion major, directed the winning film "The Happy Ending." He said he only got three hours of sleep during the 48 hour production period.
"It was ridiculously hard, it was ridiculously fun and it was ridiculously awesome," Whitely said.
Sophomore biology major Gibson and sophomore interior design major Caroline Fortson starred in "The Happy Ending," a film about a wealthy young man who pursues a woman in an effort to have it all. When his beautiful fianceé discovers that his interest in her is only as a trophy wife, she walks out on him, leaving him to accept that the perfect life is unattainable.
The group's inspiration photo was of an apathetic-looking family, each member of which is wearing a pair of wide-rimmed glasses. Gibson wrote the script.
"In the picture we saw the American flag, but it was incomplete, with some stripes missing," Gibson said. "And there was a family in the picture with everyone wearing glasses, but there was no mom. So we thought of the American dream, which is to get a huge house, marry right away, get a car and be a successful family man.
The first ever Snapshot Film Festival took place last Friday night in the Christenberry Planetarium. The Samford University Film Club hosted the event, which served as both a fund-raiser and an opportunity for students to showcase their film-making skills.
The premise of the festival was as follows: as an individual or as a group, students would commit to making a film. On Friday, April 24, film club president junior English major Josh Crute e-mailed each group a photo, or "snapshot," at precisely 5 p.m., and each party had 48 hours to make a film based on or somehow incorporating that image.
The image was different for each group, and if a director's final film wasn't turned in by exactly 5 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, that film was disqualified from the competition. Each film was to be short, four to six minutes in length.
Whitley, sophomore religion major, directed the winning film "The Happy Ending." He said he only got three hours of sleep during the 48 hour production period.
"It was ridiculously hard, it was ridiculously fun and it was ridiculously awesome," Whitely said.
Sophomore biology major Gibson and sophomore interior design major Caroline Fortson starred in "The Happy Ending," a film about a wealthy young man who pursues a woman in an effort to have it all. When his beautiful fianceé discovers that his interest in her is only as a trophy wife, she walks out on him, leaving him to accept that the perfect life is unattainable.
The group's inspiration photo was of an apathetic-looking family, each member of which is wearing a pair of wide-rimmed glasses. Gibson wrote the script.
"In the picture we saw the American flag, but it was incomplete, with some stripes missing," Gibson said. "And there was a family in the picture with everyone wearing glasses, but there was no mom. So we thought of the American dream, which is to get a huge house, marry right away, get a car and be a successful family man.
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