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"Seeing Stars"

March 2, 2007

Rachel and I all dressed up

Campus MovieFest: The name pretty much describes it. Campus MovieFest is the world’s largest student film festival, drawing participants from colleges across the globe. But it’s also a spirited competition. After a crash course in film-making, each student team is given a laptop and a camcorder and set loose to create their own original film. Sound like a breeze? There’s a catch: Teams only have a week to complete their movies. Imagine working a project like that around normal homework, activities, and sleep and the real scope of the challenge becomes evident.
But that challenge is clearly not insurmountable, because nearly three dozen finished movies were entered from Rollins teams alone. Of these, 16 were shown tonight at the aptly named Campus MovieNite. This well-publicized and much-touted event is the culmination of Campus MovieFest at Rollins, and it is here that my story actually starts.

Campus MovieNite was “award-themed,” which meant an excuse to get dressed up fancy. I am all for excuses to get dressed up fancy, particularly since I had neither prom nor homecoming in high school (a minor drawback of being home-schooled). When I learned that prom dresses would not be out of place at Campus MovieNite, I immediately decided to go. Who knew when that kind of opportunity would come again? Besides, it sounded like fun, something I’m trying to get a little more of. Campus MovieNite was not an event to miss.
So, when this evening rolled around, Rachel and I got dressed up and headed off to the sports center, where the screening would take place. There was quite a to-do outside. A long line of students in everything from jeans to suits, capris to little black dresses snaked from the entrance almost to the parking lot. A white limousine was parked at the curb, and spotlights pierced the night sky, sweeping columns of light over the patchy clouds. As we slowly approached the entrance, a scaled-down red carpet became visible between the people in front of us. Inside, a mini Walk of Fame boasted illustrious stars like Lewis Duncan (the college president) and Roger Casey (the provost), and student volunteers were taking free Polaroid pictures for those in attendance. The student organizers had really gone all-out.

Fireworks over Lake Virginia - the picture doesn't do them justice

More impressive than the decorations or the student turnout were the films themselves. They were quirky, sweet, hilarious, touching, and just plain weird, and all the more remarkable when you remembered that the teams only had a week to make them. After all the films had been shown, awards were bestowed on five of them: Best Drama, Best Picture, TBS Very Funny Film Award, and TMC Classic Short Film Award, with the addition of an audience choice award. The films that won awards will proceed to the next level of competition, going up against teams from across the state.

After dressing up and seeing all the great films, it seemed the evening couldn’t get any better. But the student organizers had put together a grand finale: fireworks over Lake Virginia. I can only imagine what they must have gone through to get approval for fireworks, but the effect was absolutely amazing. These weren’t the feeble pyrotechnics that families purchase around New Years and Independence Day and which, when set off, sound more like popcorn popping than anything else and release only a few sparks. These were professional-grade fireworks that went off with rib-vibrating explosions and illuminated half the sky with brilliant starbursts of color. It was the perfect ending for a wonderful evening, a welcome extension of the reprieve from studying provided by Campus MovieNite. And believe me, with midterms fast approaching, we need all the reprieves we can get.

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