On April 12 at midnight the Hamilton College Film Production Guild ran its spring semester 24-Hour Film Festival. Taylor Coe ’13, the president of the Guild, along with Kayla Safran ’13 and Evan Van Tassell ’13 organized the event. Nine teams initially signed up, and four films were completed and submitted by the deadline. At midnight the genres for each groups’ film were decided by a lottery, requirements were revealed (the films could be a maximum of six minutes), and everyone was released to go write, film and edit their clips. This year the film genres were silent, action, detective and documentary.
The winners of the festival were determined by an audience vote. “Behind the Scenes,” created by Coe, Safran, Van Tassel, and a group of their friends, came in first place. “Behind the Scenes” is a documentary about the making of a documentary for the 24-Hour Film Festival, starring Van Tassel concluding the film by his lip-synching rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream.”
Coming in second was “The Search for Federalist No. 86,” created by a group led by Beau Brians ’13. This film is about two Hamilton students who go searching for a rare treasure on campus, culminating with a climactic battle against Aaron Burr. “It was fun to work within the constraints we were give, the biggest being time,” said Brians. “I’ve wanted to participate in the festival for a while, so I’m glad that I was finally able to do it.
“The Kirkland Spirit” by Lucas Phillips ’16 and Michael Dyer ’16 came in third. Phillips and Dyer, second-time 24-Hour Film Festival participants, call their film a silent horror-comedy. Phillips heard about the 24-Hour Film Festival when he was a prospective student at Hamilton, and decided that it was something he was interested in doing. “I’d never really made movies in high school, but I thought it would be a cool thing to do,” said Phillips.
Although she had some technical problems and was not able to screen her film, Sarah Meissner ’13 created a stop-motion film about the adventures of a toy pirate. “I’ve been looking forward to the festival for a long time, so I was disappointed that I didn’t get to show it,” said Meissner, “but it was lots of fun, as always!”
Coe has been president of the Film Production Guild for the past two years, and says that it has been a rewarding experience. “The festival is a great opportunity for students to be creative outside of an academic setting, which isn’t something we see enough on the Hamilton campus,” said Coe.
Participants agreed that they enjoyed the opportunity to be creative. “I entered because I love the creative process,” said Brians. “Making characters and a story and filming and editing the film was a lot of fun.” The 24-Hour Film Festival will return once again during the fall semester of 2013.
