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Chico State's independent student newspaper

The Orion

Filmmakers try to make ‘Smash’

Published 2006-03-09T00:00:00Z”/>

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Brian Kennedy

Ever wondered about the intricate day-to-day operations of taco trucks? How about the construction of a song from idea to completion? And what does a homegrown horror flick with Chico State zombies look like?

All of your questions will be answered tonight at 7 p.m. in the Bell Memorial Union auditorium during the Students in Media Arts Showcase Awards. The free show will screen 20 short films that have been created by Chico State communication design students with the option in media arts.

The SMASH Awards will present a wide array of projects including music videos, documentaries, commercials, mockumentaries and photomontages.

Professor Teresa Bergman teaches “Video Production Workshop” and has been involved with the SMASH Awards for the past three years. She said the contest, which takes place every semester, had 47 video submissions that were eventually narrowed down to 20.

Bergman said that there are only a few rules for the contest. Videos must be made by media arts majors during the time between each contest, and the videos must be less than seven minutes and be submitted in VHS or MiniDV format.

Bergman said she thinks just entering the SMASH Awards will help students on their way to bigger and better things. She said students can put these films on their sample reel and show prospective employers the kinds of skills they have learned in college.

The year-end competition will bring the thrill of showing off hard work to a group of peers.

“I hope my students get the pleasure of the recognition and enjoy the fact that other people are enjoying their work.”

Senior Jessey Riley created the short horror movie “Pure Evil: Hills of the Dead” for the SMASH Awards and hopes to be recognized for his hard work. Riley said he won the “best commercial” award last year after entering a video clip for Redding RC & Hobby.

“Pure Evil” was made by Riley in his spare time with the help of a few friends. He said the movie took a week of preparation to “figure out everything and get set up with props.” The movie was inspired by the film “Dawn of the Dead” and took one weekend to shoot.

Riley said he thinks “Pure Evil” will stand out at the awards show because of its professional look. He said he used a computer program called Media 100 to edit the movie and another program called After Effects to add film motion and film grain to take away the “home movie” feel.

“It looks really good and we have a lot of cinematic features with sound effects and fake blood,” he said.

But Riley was quick to say that he wasn’t alone in the project, naming off more than 10 people in the cast and crew whose hard work contributed to the movie.

“We even had some of the zombies help out with moving equipment when they weren’t on camera,” Riley said.

And if six minutes of bloodlust isn’t enough for you, Riley said a “Pure Evil” sequel is in the works. He said he will try to fix all of the problems with the first movie and improve upon everything else.

“I really enjoy the creative part of it, the editing and the production,” Riley said. “We could have had more female zombies though.”

The SMASH Awards have such a diverse group of films competing that a flesh-eating monster movie is pitted against a documentary about rappers and songsmiths.

“Beatology” follows Ben “irthwirm” Mitrovich through the growth of a song from creating the beat to adding lyrics. The movie was shot using the “participatory mode” of documentary which, according to www.mediaknowall.com, is when the filmmaker actively engages in the situation they are documenting by asking questions and sharing experiences.

Senior Cathleen Pacelli is a student in Bergman’s class and worked on “Beatology” as an assignment. She said it was one of the four documentaries she worked on during the semester and that entering it into the SMASH Awards “just happened to be a bonus.”

Over a period of two weeks, the group, including director Mitrovich, spent a total of 45 hours putting the movie together, with 30 of those in post-production.

Now that the finished project has been submitted, Pacelli can’t help but beam. She said she isn’t nervous about the movie being shown in front of a big crowd.

But there can be only one “best movie,” and when the lights come up, some groups won’t have a SMASHy, but budding filmmakers will still be proud of their work.

“It makes me feel really good, and I worked really hard on it,” Pacelli said. “It feels like a victory, even though we haven’t won it yet.”

<em>Brian Kennedy can be reached at <a href= “mailto:[email protected]”>[email protected]</a></em>

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