the abominable student films i have seen

The entire "Holocaust revenge fantasy" subgenre of student films to thread.

This is actually a genre? Things must be worse than I had thought.

Actually I've only seen one student film that meets such a description. But Steven Spielberg's influence has meant countless student films set during World War II, such as my cousin's terrible film about a sailor on leave trying to meet his sweetheart in Grand Central Station. He somehow managed to rip off The Clock without his having seen it (or so the story goes).

The best was a student film described to me by a friend, where a family converses over dinner, against the background of the Cuban Missle Crisis. How do we know? Because every few seconds one of characters says something like, "How can we be talking about the chicken, when there's a missle crisis going on!" etc. Unfortunately it wasn't a parody.

It's still better than the "and in the end it was all a dream/protagonist woke up!!!" subgenre. Too many students these days are motivated by fooling the audience (since their fav films include the usual suspects, etc)

Someone at my film school made a film about a skinhead nazi who changes his mind and turns his gun on his co-horts. On the steps of The Metropolitan Museum Of Art! It was atrocious.

Someone is going to link to D.U.M.P.S. eventually, so it may as well be me.

Also, I don't know how many tampon movies you've seen, but I have certainly sat through enough.

What about the "lone artist seeking inspiration in an empty white room" sub-genre?

I've seen a lot of haircut/hairball flicks, some skinheads, empty white rooms by the spooky seaside, and far too much Elvis

The only student films I've ever seen succeed at all were comedies and short docs.

Another favorite: a Spike Lee-goes-queer short from NYU (it won an award; the last credit was "Next stop Hollywood!" in bold type) where the moral was delivered in the form of a beefy gay guy who knocks the homophobe to the ground and begins to kick him in the ribs. Again, not a parody.

I found descriptions of some of my "favorites":

http://www.nohofilm.org/festival/2000/images/big-final.jpg

The Final Resolution

Dirs. Gregg Simon & Brent Katz, 1999, 16mm/color/15 min.

A Holocaust survivor sees a fellow passenger who looks distressingly familiar. His memories lead to a sudden rage that impels him to face the most important decision of his life.

Gregg Simon, a graduate of the University of Rochester, has worked as a producer’s assistant for Paragraph International at Pinewood Studios in London. He has also worked as a director’s assistant for Brett Ratner.

Brent Katz has been a professional actor since the age of three months. His credits include Amityville 2: The Possession, Deathmask, and Last Exit to Brooklyn. He has also written three feature length screenplays and four television spec scripts.

*

http://www.nohofilm.org/festival/2000/images/big-dontlook.jpg

Look Back, Don't Look Back

Dirs. Randy Bell & Justin Rice, 1999, 16mm/b&w/30 min.

Fascinated by the mysterious power of D. A. Pennebaker’s film on Bob Dylan, Don’t Look Back, and with the wit, charisma, and energy of Dylan, two student filmmakers head to New York hoping to meet Dylan himself.

Randy Bell and Justin Rice met at Harvard University in a class taught by Ross McElwee. They shared a passion for both Bob Dylan and documentaries. The result of that passion is Look Back, Don’t Look Back. Bell is currently working on a documentary about tattoos while Rice is working on a film about Wal-Mart.

These were from the 2000 Northhampton Film Festival. The good short on the program was Sarah Burns's Two Degrees: "This short film focuses on a man trying to get into his car on a frigid winter day. The story has no dialogue, only sound effects and music, but no words are needed to tell the tale."

I've seen some very good student films. A good approach to a production class is the one taken by Hal Hartley (I know! I know!) in his courses at Harvard, where he gives several groups of students the same prepared script--the differences in the treatments become a lesson in how similar material can be handled in wildly diverging ways. It also gives newbies a focus they might otherwise not have.

oh my god

He has also worked as a director’s assistant for Brett Ratner.

says it all

Have you seen Ratner's famed student short, Whatever Happened to Mason Reese?

No, what's the deal?

I have! I got my certificate from the NYFA - Brett Ratner is their star alumnus! "Mason Reese" is a totally bizarre film, ao far into bad it's probaby coming out the other side as great. Ratner is an asshole in interviews, too.

Amateurist, those descriptions above cracked me up.

The Dylan film was so well-meant, and yet so hopeless. There was one really nice shot though, of the bumpers of several taxicabs stuck in Broadway traffic, glistening in the rain--it was the last shot, and had nothing to do with the rest of the film. I think they only put it in because they knew they had a nice shot and didn't want it to go to waste.

Oh dear.

hahahaha!

Have you seen Ratner's famed student short, Whatever Happened to Mason Reese?

Yeah, isnt that the one on the RUSH HOUR 2 dvd? Crap.

I'm very much sick of student films in which little kids face bullies or are misunderstood by mean parents or mean people in general. Many of these get made. I'm always surprised that people in their twenties are still workin' through shit that happened to them in junior high.

student films are the reason why i am scared to even consider making films. or at least only make animated films.

or at least i'll only make animated films. i made one last year for a class based on Gerald McBoingBoing. it was about a girl who had a Merzbow voice.

Rules of Attraction

"Mirror...Father...Mirror."

Awl man, a lot of these were ideas I had for movies,

what about the rose pedals falling off slowly subgenre? that ones usually pretty bad.

I wish the link to my student film (FAT TONY'S CANCER!) still worked so you could enter my sick, sad world. Plus the star is fellow PSU film school graduate and ILF poster Theodore Fogelsanger!

oh shit, I forgot he worked under the alias Gipsi. Hope you're not pissed the cat's out of the bag, dude.