Mary Beth Bjork
Equinox staff
The main question was “Who ate my leftovers?” at the Second Annual Seven Day Film Festival Competition featuring Penelope the Pineapple.
It was a full house at The Colonial Theatre on March 20. While the audience was primarily comprised of Keene State College students, there were parents and many other community supporters in the audience.
Walking into the Colonial Theatre there was a sense of grandness and excitement among all.
Michael Murphy, junior film major said, “Having it in the Colonial I feel there’s this sense of class about it. You’re coming into a theatre; it’s grand, it feels good my film played at the Colonial and my film played in an actual movie theatre, while still in college, my student film. This film I made with my friends played in an actual movie theatre.”
Murphy also said he was helping to co-run the event this year and that he was also part of the original staff.
Murphy said, “[It is a] very low stress environment. Everyone is here for the same common good, to have a good time, show what they’ve done, have a good laugh, and just overall have a good time.”
Emily Montplaisir, senior and creator of the competition said, “Everyone gets a screening and then awards are given out. It’s a fun thing they can participate in that’s away from schoolwork and the stress of school.”
Along with the fun elements of the competition, there were also some obstacles participants in the competition faced.
John McNeal, a freshman, worked on “Whirlpool by The Big Green” and said, “[When] you do something like this, it takes so much frustration and time to do certain things. We had to do a lot of stop motion in our video and that took so many hours of screaming at a computer screen, so when it’s finally over you can sit back and laugh at it and maybe enjoy the movie if it’s good.”
Alex Sunderland, a senior, who worked on “Heist” by Victoria Street said, “Having lives, we all work, and we all go to school. Coordinating time was ridiculous. We all had literally two hours we were free all week. It was nuts, it was chaos.”
James Gillum, a sophomore who worked on “Men From Mars by the Pterodactyl Transit” said, “That’s kind of the challenge of it. You’ve got school and then the trouble is just fitting the pineapple in and the line and that’s part of the fun of it and then we did it!”
Gillum also said, “Believe in yourself. That’s the main message here. Believe in yourself and you too can make a film in seven days.”
Although challenges were faced, the students met the film challenge.
Michael Murphy said, “Stretching it a week long to go from creation, conception, writing, editing, and then actually passing it in, in a week, we feel that’s very reasonable but it also has its challenges getting the process going and making time for what needs to be done.”
Creativity was a big factor in the competition. Montplaisir said, “We try to think of the most random things we can. Last year it was a piñata, this year it was a pineapple. We sit around as a committee, the five of us and we’re just like okay guys, how can we out do a piñata and then we came up with, Penelope the Pineapple.” Montplaisir also said, “It’s great to see how creative they can be with these crazy genres and props and characters that we give them.” Michael Murphy said, “This an open event, we’re judging things on creativity…on how well you can use these props and dialogue we’re giving you, (and) how creative you can be.” Murphy also said, “There is no wrong way to do any of this, it’s just to have fun, that’s the biggest driving goal behind this.”
Montplaisir said, “The bottom line is, it’s something for the students, for all majors, not just film majors It’s their artistic freedom there’s no rules, they’re not graded.” Montplaisir also said, “If anyone wanted to do it they could use any medium people have used digital cameras they can use iPods, iPhones, anything because I just really wanted to stress that it was open to everyone.”
Along with creativity another aspect that the organizers considered was cost. Montplaisir said, “We don’t charge a fee for anyone to submit, we don’t charge a fee to come, even the shirts we’re giving away tonight, everything is free. It’s all about the creation process and having that opportunity to be creative and not worry about failing something because you can’t fail.”
Future plans are in action for next year’s film competition. Junior Chris Ruble said that he worked with Montplaisir last year with the Seven Day Film Competition, is this year, and also is making plans for the competition next year. Ruble said, “I look forward to seeing more films, getting more people involved I’d like to change [the competition], making it run smoother [with] preparation and making sure we know what we’re doing”
Montplaisir said, “I’m grateful, I’m proud of everyone. I hope it happens for the next like ten years after I’m out of here. That’s my biggest hope. If it does, if it happens next year and the year after that’s an accomplishment.”
Mary Beth Bjork can be contacted at
mbbjork@keene-equinox.com