Adrenaline Film Project Wows Crowd
Crowds of students, a red carpet and the flashes of paparazzi style photographers surrounded the entrance to UO’s Columbia Hall late on Saturday evening, April 9. It was the 2011 Adrenaline Film Project screening, presented to a sold out crowd of over 500.
The Adrenaline Film Project is an annual intensive narrative film production workshop in which university students and local filmmakers write, shoot and edit their films in just 72 hours. Groups are given one line of dialogue, a genre and a prop; three-days later a finished short film must materialize. Hosted by the Cinema Pacific film festival, students are mentored and monitored throughout their three-day movie-making blitz by visiting industry professionals before screening their projects on the final evening of the festival. This unforgettable journey concludes with an awards ceremony featuring the annual Kalb Jury Award, honoring the best of these films, and a “Viewer's Choice” audience award.
The evening was the perfect vehicle for making the announcement that Red Giant Software, a Portland based company that makes visual effects editing software, had just donated over $138,000 worth of software to the UO’s new Cinema Studies program – not to mention three additional software suites to be used as awards for the students that evening. The energy and intensity of the Adrenaline Film Project and the excitement surrounding the gift from Red Giant are emblematic of the Cinema Studies program. In less than two years, the program has attracted almost 250 majors and will be graduating approximately 25 of them this spring.
Cinema Studies at UO is the only program of its kind between Vancouver, B.C. and the Bay Area that offers a fully integrated approach to the discipline, requiring students to study film theory as well as gain hands-on production skills. The program draws its faculty and support from three different units on campus: the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Journalism and Communications and the School of Architecture and Allied Arts. Alumni are discovering Cinema Studies and coming back to Eugene to get to know the program and its students. Greg Snyder, an editor at Pixar; Michael Andreen, Sr. Vice President at The Walt Disney Company; Bill Bowling, Worldwide Locations Executive for Warner Brothers; and international producer Terence Chang have all visited campus recently to offer their industry expertise to Cinema Studies students.
Red Giant’s discovery of the Cinema Studies program happened quite by accident. John Kerr, Red Giant’s Director of Business Development, was watching the “I love my Ducks” video produced by a group of UO student that achieved viral fame online when he noticed that it utilized some Red Giant technology to achieve its effects. With several Ducks on its staff, Red Giant decided to make the connection official and contacted the UO to donate its software to the Cinema Studies Lab. John Kerr explains: “I really wanted a way to show our appreciation to the U of O for the great experience it gave me as a student and for giving us such a talented group to help run the company. When Red Giant started to grow and hire aggressively, naturally I turned to my Alma Mater to fill those spots. What none of us expected was the level of passion and skills we would end up with. Two of our young Ducks now are heading major product development groups, and another is in charge of making sure all of our software is perfect before it becomes a selling product. We plan to be charitable partners for a long time with the University.”
With great forward momentum and the continued support of alumni and corporations such as Red Giant, Cinema Studies is poised to become a signature offering at UO. Kathleen Karlyn, the Cinema Studies Program Director, states: “This all came about because of a wonderful team of faculty, administrators, students and staff who shared a commitment to building a strong Cinema Studies program at the UO. It’s been thrilling to watch our program take off the way it has, and to be a part of planning for its future.”
To learn more about the Cinema Studies program and view the Adrenaline Film Project’s award winning films, visit: http://cinema.uoregon.edu/.