The winners of the College of Charleston’s Fifth Annual Student Film Festival represent the diversity and creativity that the medium allows.
Myles Walsh won first place with “Relativity,” a brief stop-motion animation done with clay and set to music. “Thailand,” a documentary about the filmmaker’s experience as an exchange student in Thailand earned second place for Nicole Lagrone. And a comedy took third place. Stephen Massar’s “My Band” details the trails of a group whose drummer is a mysterious clone of himself.
The Film Studies program is made up of faculty from a variety of departments in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and the School of Languages, Cultures, and World Affairs. Although the emphasis of the minor is on the history, theory, and criticism of film and not hands-on training in film production, students are introduced to the basics of film craft, such as cinematography, mise-en-scene, and the principles of editing. Film Studies minors are well-prepared for jobs in the filmmaking industry – Jesse Berger ’09 premiered his first feature-length film, “Republic of Pete,” at the 2010 Charleston International Film Festival, winning the “Audience Choice” award. Jesse’s short film “The City Green” won top prize at last year’s Student Film Festival, and it can be viewed on the College’s iTunesU page.
For more information, contact John Bruns, director of the film studies program, at 843.953.4657.
