Basking in the Halloween spirit, the Horror-bly Short Film Festival consisted of four short and surprisingly comedic horror films created, executed and produced by four groups of students. The Undergraduate Theatre Alliance held the small film festival on Friday at the Music and Dramatic Arts building.
Students used professional lighting and video equipment to create the films. Theater junior Tori Briggs acted as her group’s director.
“It was a pretty fun learning experience,” said Briggs, who hopes to be a director one day. “It was a little overwhelming and intimidating…but, as time passed by, it became a pretty comfortable environment.”
Part of their assignment was to incorporate three specific criteria in their film — the line, “blue M&M’S give me anxiety,” a rubber ducky and someone waking up to a blood-curdling scream.
Professor Issac Pletcher said the film festival started last year as a way to get amatuers to make films. This year, the film committee, a student organization under the UTA created to bridge the gap between film and theatre students, stepped up their game by allowing students to use professional film equipment and making it a fun competition with a small prize for the audience’s favorite film.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s horrible or short,” said film committee president Cole Barranco. “Some people even recorded on their iPhones.”
Briggs’ group’s film, entitled “RBDK,” followed a serial killer who murders women and leaves behind a rubber ducky.
They hatched the film’s distinctive concept by allowing the writers to write freely and “go with the flow” while incorporating the three requirements.
Briggs said the students were only given two to three days to write the script, shoot the film and have everything edited.
Theatre senior Charles Davis III played the lead role in a separate group’s film entitled, “The Mandela Effect.”
“I’m mainly a theater person, so to transition to being on a film set was different,” Davis said. “It was nice — [his group members] were really helpful with getting me accustomed.”
Other events the film committee and UTA have coming up include the “No-Theme” November Film Festival, the Take 3 Film Festival next spring and the group’s annual trip to Sundance.
“The trip to Sundance is more so just an experience for the students. You never know who you can meet,” said film committee vice president Brandon Bruno, whose group won the Horror-bly Short Film Festival.