U.Va. students past and present will be granted the opportunity to display their movie-making talents Friday night as the Filmmakers Society holds its fifth-annual Final Cut Showcase, a small festival of short films to be shown free of charge in the Amphitheater.
The showcase accepted submissions from both current U.Va. students as well as alumni who wish to gain more exposure for recent work they have completed. Final Cut was open to anyone who wanted to submit an entry, whether it was their first movie or their 50th.
In the past FMS charged an admission fee to view the showcase, as well as an entry fee for all participants. This year, however, the event will be shown for free in the hopes of gaining a wider audience, and, consequently, more exposure for FMS and the various projects it organizes.
"We have a more competitive festival in the spring that you have to apply for and qualify, but [Final Cut] is for everybody," said Laura Scott, FMS vice president of publicity. "You don't have to be in a certain class or any certain major -- you can just put a movie in."
Entries are usually between five to 10 minutes in length, and many are projects students completed for a class but want to show to a wider audience. A lot of the submissions this fall came from students who are not members of FMS at all; the event's creators hope some of these entrants may decide to join FMS after learning more about it through entering their work to Final Cut.
FMS received more than 12 entries for the event this year, an impressive number considering all of these movies were made completely on the students' own time. Because U.Va. currently does not offer a structured filmmaking program, aspiring student-filmmakers must pursue their projects without earning any class credit. Without a film department to guide them, they must learn all of their skills from older students and interested faculty, usually through projects with FMS.
"We get very little professional guidance," student filmmaker Ayesha Ninan said. "Everything has to be done yourself, and you learn from other students. [The older students] teach what they know, but obviously we don't know everything."
Time commitments aside, the fact that the filmmaking is done independent of class forces students to pay all expenses out of pocket. Anything from feeding cast members on set to the costs of equipment maintenance must be paid by the student or students leading the project.
"It really forces you to get into the true nature of independent filmmaking -- finding your own funding, finding your own resources, raising money to buy equipment," Ninan said. "It's your time and your money that goes into it."
FMS members manage to make the most of their situation by viewing their lack of a structured program as a learning experience.
"A lot of us think that not having much guidance pushes you to learn every aspect of [filmmaking] for yourself, and makes you really love it because it's your blood and sweat going into it," Ninan said.
Despite these hurdles, interested students still manage to find the time, money and resources to put their ideas into action.FMS added its greatest number of new members this year and also have its highest-ever number of planned productions.
Besides Final Cut, other opportunities exist for students to showcase their work. In the spring many FMS members submit their work to Salmagundi Film Festival, a more formal, competitive showcase that is open to the work of any student in Virginia. The event employs professional judges and offers prizes (and bragging rights) to winning entries.The Virginia Film Festival also allows students to participate in a three-day film competition that will take place in early November. To see the works of fellow students and alumni, come to The Final Cut Showcase, Friday at 8 p.m. in the Amphitheater.
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