I have been photographing Campus Movie Fest for 4 years now. Campus Movie Fest, founded in 2001, is the world’s largest student film festival. It’s for the next generation of filmmakers and with more than one million students at colleges and universities worldwide getting the chance to tell their stories through film. The best part of the CMF is that it is completely free to the students thanks to the sponsors.
CMF begins the festival by having a launch at the school. Here the students are provided loaner Panasonic cameras, Sennheiser mics, tripods and laptops loaded with Adobe software. Everything a student filmmaker needs to create a movie. Oh did I mention that the students only have a little over a week to create the film? To assist the students the folks over at CMF/We Make provide technical assistance and feedback on the short films. After the students submit their films, the top 16 films are shown at the Premiere. Students love this, invite all their friends and some ever get all dressed up for the red carpet finale event! During the screening, students are encouraged to tweet, snapchat, and scream if they are one of the lucky 16. There is also a wave and a T-shirt toss and drawings during the breaks – someone went home with a Drone!!!. How cool is that.
