Have you ever made a student film?

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I did this really hideously crappy film as part of my college course - it was a comedy sketch about an artist who is being interviewed about her bizarre art. It was meant to be this kind of Pythonesque thing but my script was wanting and someone took over directing (they actually started ordering everyone around on the day of filming, and I'm so shy I let them take over instead of telling them to fuck off) and the main actress fell ill and the replacement was rubbish and everything went wrong. I painfully remember when the finished edit was screened in a little room before we handed it in, and this guy (who actually worked on it!) sniggered and said "this is SO shit!". I died inside.

The following year of study the chance to make another short film arose again and I was determined to do it properly this time. The idea I came up with was a film about a woman who had a sock puppet living in her womb. I didn't do too well in the pitching process - as I said, I'm very shy and not any kind of public speaker, so I ended up drying up halfway through and just staring at my notes. Everyone thought it was a really good and funny idea though, except for the teachers who just had this ominously blank look on their faces. I think they were really annoyed with me for being so daft. I didn't get to make it in the end, as my pitch wasn't good enough, and I had to be part of the crew that made this somewhat lame comedy about an Elvis impersonator.

Anyway, I'd like you to post your own misadventures in student filmmaking, if you had any.

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Saturday, 2 August 2003 15:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I starred in a student film. The actor who was supposed to star in it had a heart attack the night before, and so I was the only one available.

It was 12 hours of un-fun.

― Chris P (Chris P), Saturday, 2 August 2003 15:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Several brief (and art-damaged) shorts. I was a film-school drop-out.

― Sean (Sean), Saturday, 2 August 2003 16:03 (twenty-two years ago)

In a word... yes... Sterl can give details if he so chooses.

― JMmmmod, Saturday, 2 August 2003 16:21 (twenty-two years ago)

yes! The best was called FAT TONY'S CANCER! and I'm thoroughly proud of it, and I'd show it to anyone who wants to see it. It's some bonafide fucked up shit.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Saturday, 2 August 2003 16:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes and it fucking rocked. It was a James Bond movie, where Bond was bi-sexual, and being chased by a man-hating feminist. It featured death by condom strangulation (after the spunk was emptied on the luckless chap's face), death by stick up the backside and death by gun fellatio. It had a soundtrack consisting of The Divine Comedy, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, some bad Jamaican funk and the theme from Octopussy and it was fab and I still piss my laughing when I see it.

― Calz (Calz), Saturday, 2 August 2003 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I was an extra. I sat at a table in the background of a scene in a friend of a friend's student film. There were only three of us extras and two sat together at a different table, so I dubbed myself "LONELY SOCIAL OUTCAST," though I was not credited as such. And I annoyed the director by asking if I should cry, or perhaps dribble food down my chin to demonstrate why I was so alone. By the end of our filming session I'm pretty sure everyone hated me, but that was good for my character, and the results spoke for themselves.

― jewelly (jewelly), Saturday, 2 August 2003 16:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes. But I was sort of pushed out of the class because I confronted the teacher about, um, her being a really bad teacher and she was unnerved. So I never got to project it in front of the class, and had to make it to the screening room when it was empty and project it for a few of my friends. It looked nice but didn't have much in the way of a story.

― amateurist (amateurist), Saturday, 2 August 2003 16:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Um yes. 4 of 'em

and im proud

― Vic (Vic), Saturday, 2 August 2003 17:32 (twenty-two years ago)

my first is my asian-stripper-lesbian extravaganza. it has like, major continuity and technical problems, plus u can see my tripod in it!! but i think u will agree that it is my magnum opus if u fapped me i would show u it uncensored

― Vic (Vic), Saturday, 2 August 2003 17:46 (twenty-two years ago)

I once played Philip Larkin in a college video based on the poem 'Vers de Societé'. I was especially pleased with my delivery to camera of the opening lines:

My wife and I have asked a crowd of craps
To come and waste their time and ours: perhaps
You'd care to join us? In a pig's arse, friend.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Saturday, 2 August 2003 18:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I made a film about a girl who hears her phone ringing, and the moment she answers it she wakes up, cause it's actually her alarm clock. It was very short.

I also played "him" in a series of filmed scenes from the play of the same name by E.E. Cummings. I smoked and played chess and tried to get the girl. None of it came out right so the director did a bunch of chromakey effects and set it to something by The Orb.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Saturday, 2 August 2003 18:23 (twenty-two years ago)

(She "answered" the alarm clock btw!! "GENIUS!!" I thought)

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Saturday, 2 August 2003 18:28 (twenty-two years ago)

In high school I made a "making of" something called 'Sea Trek' which didn't exist. It was basically my friend filming me musing about directing a big hollywood blockbuster underwater movie and showing me putting firecrackers into plastic models. Then various family members/pets would interrupt - it was actually kinda hilarious.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Saturday, 2 August 2003 19:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, if high school counts, for one project we had to do part of Dante's Inferno.

It was bad. Very, very bad.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Saturday, 2 August 2003 19:16 (twenty-two years ago)

A few weeks ago my friend and I were playing basketball at some public hoops. A group of young girls kept staring at us, looking like they wanted to come over and talk to us. As we were leaving they finally mustered the courage to shout "Hey!".
I have no idea what their film was about, I don't even know if they were actually filming one or if the just used it as an excuse to talk to us. But they wanted one of us to fake-punch one of them in the face. My friend obliged--he came REALLY close to actually hitting her and must've gave them some good footage. I ad-libbed a high-five afterwards and we walked away triumphantly. The other people just saw us hitting her and celebrating. They were a bit befuddled.

― oops (Oops), Saturday, 2 August 2003 21:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I've done
a 30 min. video short (blegh)
a 5 min. b/w 16mm silent short (eh)
a 90 min. color 16mm feature (hoohah!)
a 10 min. video short (pretty ok)

Not all of these were assigned projects, per se, but being as I just graduated from college, they might as well be regarded as student work, right?

I also shot a bunch of live concerts, and some of the footage is on/will be on/is being considered for several live DVDs. You can see some of them at www.savonarolamustburn.com/music/

Right now I'm working on a music video using 8mm telecined and video processed though a Max program called Jitter.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Saturday, 2 August 2003 21:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I've done a couple. Actually a version of Under Milk Wood I'm still quite proud of (it was excerpts of dialogue set to various visuals, and it worked quite well).

― Matt (Matt), Saturday, 2 August 2003 22:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I only made two movies while I was in (and that were specifically for) school, though I've made a bunch since. Both were group projects, as these things go. In one I played a student obsessed with our teacher, and we stole shots of him (and shots of me watching him) without his knowledge. By the end of the movie I was dressing like him and adopting his mannerisms. The other was an adaptation of a Julio Cortazar story.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Saturday, 2 August 2003 22:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I edited a music video together for that Plaid song Sqance out of old cartoons. It sounds stupid but it's actually pretty cool.

― Dan I., Sunday, 3 August 2003 00:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I starred in my friend's pretty poor comedy, In Front Of The Box:

http://factorfiles.factorfiles.com/bollocks/ifotb/pics/pic2.jpg

How graceful:

http://factorfiles.factorfiles.com/bollocks/ifotb/pics/pic3.jpg

― Andrew (enneff), Sunday, 3 August 2003 02:50 (twenty-two years ago)

On the upside, I got to almost-kiss this really cute chick. So there.

― Andrew (enneff), Sunday, 3 August 2003 02:51 (twenty-two years ago)

In grade 12 we did a short adaptation of "Of Mice And Men", a silent piece (the mic on the school's camcorder was broken) reset in a northern mining town and filmed from Lenny's viewpoint. There was a lengthy monologue by George (me) as he gazed into the distance. Lenny ripped the head off the foreman's wife (a Barbie doll). Climactic ending on the run from the law: George punched Lenny and knocked him out, then started their truck and drove it towards a tree, then leaped out just before it crashed and caught fire.

― Poppy (poppy), Sunday, 3 August 2003 03:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh right, so since no one could hear anything, we did a bumbling job of reciting the script along with the tape when it was shown to the class. Someone commented on how white my teeth looked onscreen.

― Poppy (poppy), Sunday, 3 August 2003 03:13 (twenty-two years ago)

That sounds awesome.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Sunday, 3 August 2003 19:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I edited a music video together for that Plaid song Sqance out of old cartoons. It sounds stupid but it's actually pretty cool.

OMG, GIMME! did you send it to Warp? i'd love to see this as i love that Plaid track.

― stevem (blueski), Monday, 4 August 2003 13:30 (twenty-two years ago)

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