Senior Showcase & 2008 SCADemies

Crazy happenings!

Exciting news! My college, The Savannah College of Art and Design, has announced the Spring Quarter Senior Show selections and have also nominated the top films picked for the annual "SCADemies" awards.

Spring Quarter 2008 Student Showcase

Every quarter students will complete their senior films and submit them as a completed senior project. Due to odd and sometimes complex reasons, SCAD does not offer every film a public screening at the end of the year, but instead the top films are chosen and shown at the quarterly Senior Showcase. This Spring Quarter, somewhere around 25 film and television students completed their student films. About 8(?) have been selected for the senior show, 12 or so total total counting the graduate films not mentioned previously.

Last quarter, all of these projects were in production. I came on board as Director of Photography for three of the 25+ projects: A Song for Anna, The Cows, and Kiss Goodnight. All three films were great experiences and all were so very different from each other which allowed me to explore different types, styles and approaches to cinematography.

All three films turned out great, and I have never been happier with student productions. I just found out this weekend that all three films made it to the Spring Quarter Student Showcase! I would like to congratulate Eli Katzoff, Baruh Benjamins, and Jason Zeni for their hard work and recognition.

The SCADamies

This horrible play on words is just what it seems: SCAD's annual student film awards. At the end of Spring Quarter every year, a panel of professors will select the best student films from over the course of the school year. There are multiple categories including Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Score, Best Editing, Best Costumes, Best Etc, Etc, Etc.

Each category has about five nominations, which will be screened at the Trustee's theater. This afternoon, I was very happy to find that I had been nominated for Best Cinematography for the picture A Song for Anna. I was also very pleased to see that it is also up for Best Editing (Jenna Craig) and Best Special Effects (Sandro Blattner).

Reflection

Other films of note would be a film I also served as a cinematographer: Dan Dowding's Reflection. At the time I joined this film during preproduction, Alex Winter was on board serving as Director of Photography, and I really wanted to get in on the Escape Entertainment cinematography team. Dan and Alex were nice enough to believe in me and create a made up position called the Assistant Cinematographer. My made up position allowed me to work with Alex on designing lighting plans, helping to develop a shot list, and bring some ideas to the table. It was really great for them to let me get in on the creative process and contribute to the cinematography of Reflection.

Reflection is up for Best Director, Best Narrative, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Design, Best Special effects, and Best Editing. It's very tough to be up against such good friends, and a film you helped DP! The irony is hilarious, and if I were to lose to Alex, I would really be losing to myself, so I wish Reflection the best of luck for the Cinematography Award.

On that note, I would like to mention that not all awards can always seem fair. To state what is purely my opinion, a good friend of mine, Nathan Blair, the most talented DP in our graduating class, seemed to go over looked by the deciding committee, but not his peers. I heard many talk of his lack of nomination, and the penciled in writing of his name on the nominee sheets are proof enough of popular opinion. I want to put on the record that I think I would be in good company to be in competition with Nate.

-rpo

Post awards addition to previous article:

Friday: As it turns out, A Song For Anna did not take first prize for cinematography, (Congratulations to Chris Flowers for On Homeostasis) but it did win for special effects. I was excited that it screened on a better projector (Lucas theater the previous night was a bit dark). Congratulations to Sandro for the win, and we will be sending A Song for Anna to festivals soon. In other news, the film Reflection won for Best Sound (Steve Papagiannis) and Best Director (Dan Dowding). Another film, My Deer Friend, on which I was the camera operator won best screenplay.

-rpo