4 Hours of Filming + 20 Hours of Editing = One Great 5 Minute Short (VIDEO

Here's a story of an undergrad who based his film on another undergrad's succesful film. And both are great!

"The Rainbow" is a film Alex Berger (Eng'10) made during a Video II class at Penn. The idea of the assignment was to make a visual poem—where image and words come together without the use of formal dialogue.

Per Alex,

"I had seen Kevin McMullin’s film, "The Boy and the Star", and I thought it was amazing. The story was simple, yet eloquent, and the stylistic elements he employed fit so well. In addition, the film fit my style as a filmmaker. Black and white, high contrast, close-up imagery, are all stylistic elements that I often used. After receiving the assignment, I set out to recreate Kevin’s film. I wanted to use the assignment as a way to experiment with the style and to attempt to figure out exactly how Kevin made this. In the stylistic sense, I did base my film “The Rainbow” on Kevin’s film. I have never met Kevin, so I felt it was appropriate to give credit to his work, because it closely influenced mine."

The premise of Alex's film is that this boy has presumably lost everything in his life that matters. He yells and yells so loud that the fire blows out, and the smoke forms clouds up above. The clouds lead to rain, and eventually a rainbow is formed. The story then becomes the quest to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Alex continues,

"I wanted to depict the feeling of losing something and the artificial journey that can ensue after one has this type of experience. It was not meant to be a light-hearted, joyous story, and I think the whimsical style counters this nicely. I think the filmed turned out well, but it was not something that I enjoyed making. It was one of those projects where I filmed for 4 hours and edited for another 20 hours to make a 5-minute movie. As Kevin can attest to, it was largely made in the editing studio."

Other impressive Class Project films

More posts from my "Penn's REEL deals" series

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With His Award Winning Script, He Graduated a Year Early to Pursue His Filmmaking Career (VIDEO)

Hollywood alumni.. set up a meeting with this young filmmaker, because he's going places...

Kevin McMullin (C'09, in picture below in tanktop) is another story of talent combined with motivation and perseverance with all the potential of lots of Hollywood success.  With his Penn award winning script and some great short films under his belt, Kevin decided to graduate Penn a year early to pursue his dreams.

(l to r: Kevin McMullin (C'09), lead actor John Blakeslee, and cinematographer Sean Emer)

Thanks to the digital revolution and through lots of favors, Kevin has been able to make his feature film Exit 117 for less than $850. The film is an ensemble comedy-drama in the spirit of Rob Reiner’s “Stand By Me” and Richard Linklater’s “Slacker” about a group of recent high school graduates coming to terms with where they are and where they’re going in their lives.

...If you forgot, early last year, Kevin's short film "The Boy and The Star" was my #3 pick in in my series: Top Penn Videos that will give you the chills.  As you'll see in Kevin's trailer above, this film also has a very special artistic feel that will be sure to move you!

How did Kevin get his start and what's his plan now?

Per Kevin,

"I have been making short films since I was a 12 years old with friends and after high school I chose Penn over film school to get a broader liberal arts education. While I was there I won first place at the Greater Philadelphia Student Film Festival two years in a row, which funneled my shorts into the international Philadelphia Film Festival.

I decided to condense my time at Penn into three years to pursue filmmaking and put money toward this endeavor. I wrote the screenplay for this feature in my Intro to Screenwriting Class with Kathy Van Cleve and kept rewriting over the next year. It won the 2009 Flesch Screenwriting Award at Penn. With this prize money and some savings I shot “Exit 117” for less than $850 on lots of borrowed equipment and natural sunlight.

This is another example of Penn undergrads working together. Kevin teamed up with friends:

• Rodrigo Suarez (C, ENG’10) and Blake West (C’09) who contribute music to the soundtrack
• Andrew Stern (W’10) who acts as the Radio DJ’s voice over
• Jessica Brown (Grad Education ’09) who has been the pre-production manager and a production assistant
• and Jon-Marc Balint (C'10) who has a supporting role in the film and is associate producer. 

Hollywood Penn alumni, feel free to get in touch with Kevin here: kevinjamesmcmullin@gmail.com



More on Kevin's Exit 117 site HERE

Join Kevin's Exit 117 facebook group HERE

More of posts from my "Penn's REEL deals" series

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READ MORE - With His Award Winning Script, He Graduated a Year Early to Pursue His Filmmaking Career (VIDEO)

Top 4 Penn videos that will give you the chills: #3

Yesterday's #4 pick for my "Penn videos that will give you the chills" demonstrated a nice combination of stylized photography, use of music and special effects.

As heartfelt as that video was, today's #3 pick is even more moving.

Click here for my #3 pick!

Remember that great music video featuring Nikhil Dhingra (C'10) that I posted about back in November?

Well, filmmaker Kevin McMullin (C'10) just debuted another beautiful video called "The Boy and the Star" that combines a unique style of photography, animation and music which will give you the chills.

Per Kevin,

"I've always wanted to do a black and white fairy tale-- about a week before starting my sophomore year at penn i got back from studying up in boston (where I came up with the idea), and i filmed it with a buddy of mine who goes to Villanova in a couple hours in my foyer. The way the sunlight hits my house, we only have about 2 hours of usable light since our makeshift green screen, a large green bed sheet, is so thin and therefore extremely delicate in terms of how it appears on camera in certain lights. Anyway, I had a draft done by October and just now put it online. The story is a parable about forgiveness. I loved the idea of using a child's narration with what looks like a child's animation because it provides the film with a certain innocence that is necessary in a fairy tale, especially one that deals with the subject of death. I edited the film in Final Cut Pro (green screen keying and animation sequencing), using still animations I drew in Adobe Photoshop. I filmed the project on a Canon GL2."

Check out Kevin's moving video, "The Boy and the Star"

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This musician's gonna "be like that" and I'm loving it

You'd think that after running Pennfest for 6 years, I would have heard of most musicians out there. However with this site and facebook, I keep on discovering great Penn talent out there!

Nikhil Dhingra (C'10) is quite the latest find.

Click here to check out his debut music video for "Be Like That" (directed by talented Penn undergrad Kevin McMullin C'10)

Nikhil has performed at many venues in Downtown Dallas and Philadelphia including Club Dada, The Door, Legacy Shops, World Cafe Live, and his single "Be Like That," has aired on the Texas radio station, The Ticket 1310.

Be on the lookout for this guy. I think he's going places...

Click here to learn more about Nikhil

Click here to check out all DT featured Penn musicians!

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