Student films featured at film festival Saturday

The second annual University Board Student Film Festival will take place Saturday as a part of their Student Showcase Weekend.

Up to two hours of Eastern student-generated videos will be shown throughout the festival and prizes will be given out to the top three filmmakers selected by a panel of judges.

Audience members will also be given a chance to win a prize as well, in addition to having the chance to vote for their favorite films.

Since there is no set bracket, filmmakers are free to create any type of film that they choose.

Ryan Kerch, movies coordinator for the UB, said that last year there were even some documentaries and artistic movies.

“We’ve got some comedies, music videos… really anything and everything will be shown,” Kerch said.

Films will also be pre-screened and given a rating ranging anywhere from PG to R so that families attending will be informed of adult content.

There will be $500 dollars split between the three winners given out in the form of gift certificates to help further their cinematography careers.

Judges consist of a panel of the UB members and faculty from the film studies program.

Movies will be pre-judged prior to the showing, and winners will be announced at the end of the show.

Robin Murray, an English professor and the films studies minor adviser, said that she intends to look at all of the films with a holistic evaluation and how they work as a whole.

“I’ll have to work on a gut reaction because we don’t have any evaluation sheets, so we’ll have to look at style and cinematography and all of that stuff,” she said.

Participating students range from seniors to freshman of any major, not just film studies students.

Levi Bulgar, a senior psychology major, said he just entered his film for fun.

Shot in the Booth Library in the time span of two hours and edited in four, Bulgar hopes that the audience will enjoy the comedy and have a good time.

“I don’t even know what the prizes are,” he said. “I just think it’d be fun. I’ve always wanted to do this.”

Formats can range anywhere from YouTube-esque quality to professional, high quality videos and can be of any length.

“We don’t want to scare away anyone who isn’t in a film studies major. It’s whatever people want to show,” Kerch said.

Admittance will be free of charge for all ages and the films will be shown in the Buzzard auditorium from 4 to 7 p.m.