By Jordan Nicole Taylor
Trevecca’s 72-hour short film festival winner “Bigfoot on Campus” smashed through the theater, leaving audiences roaring with approval.
“For us, it was kind of a group effort,” said Sarah Bonham, who was voted Best Actress for her role as Bigfoot Hunter in the seven-minute film.
The 72-hour Film Festival is an annual, free event put on by Trevecca’s Student Government Association. Contestants are assigned a genre and must create their short film in less than 3 days—writing, filming and editing. This year the event was held in the Belcourt Theater, a local independent movie house, because all event halls on campus were booked.
“We’ll probably end up doing that again next year, because it’s so affordable,” said Adam Crum, the 72-hour Film Festival’s organizer.
Students have 72-hours to create a story line and shoot and edit the scenes before submitting their less than 10-minute film to be voted on by an assembly of students for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress.
“Bigfoot on Campus” won Best Picture, and Bigfoot himself, a.k.a. sophomore Jordan Michael Taylor, carried home Best Actor.
Shortly before the show, “Bigfoot on Campus” director freshman Stephens Hiland said, “We’re hoping for a win; Yeah, we’re going for gold.”
And win they did.
The night showcased a total of eight short films, each representing a different genre. Students split into teams of four to 10 members, and were assigned at random a genre, such as “chick-flick” or “drama.”
“All the films were good, there wasn’t a bad film,” Crum said.
This year, each production had to incorporate four elements to make an official entry: The line “Life’s hard, get a helmet” had to be used; a minimum of one actor had to wear overalls; an automobile wheel had to be shown and there had to be a scene involving a crying, hysterical woman.
Each film produced a variety of results from the 150+ well-dressed audience, though the anxiousness of each crew was detected as easily as the heavy scent of Belcourt popcorn.
“I’m going to feel really stupid if no one laughs,” said senior Amy Taylor, an actress and member of the “Bigfoot on Campus” team, before the showing.
The two-hour event got underclassman classman home late, but dorm RDs were lenient for such a special occasion and no fines were given.
