Student Short Film Showcase wows peers

NC State Libraries hosted the sixth annual Student Short Film Showcase Tuesday night at D.H Hill. The event gave NC State students in the College of Design and the Department of Communication the chance to share their short films with a broader audience. 

For the past five years, this event has only taken place once a year in February, but because attendance has been so heavy they decided to have this additional showcase in November, with plans to have another one in February.

Marian Fragola, Director of Program Planning and Outreach, collaborated with College of Design and the Department of Communications to host this event through NC State Libraries 

“This is the first time we have ever done this in the fall, because we wanted to include students that were graduating,” Fragola said. “Based on this turnout, we would love to continue to have the showcase in fall and winter, if there is enough participation.” 

Fragola said many NC State students have come forward to her shocked by the level of talent their peers have produced in these films.

“The College of Design students don’t always get a chance to show their stuff to a wide audience,” Fragola said. “Every year people come to us and say they were inspired by the work their peers have made and they did not know about this.” 

The night was portioned into two sections by category: film and animation. The first portion showed 12 short films; each was shot in live-action and used a narrative plot but adhered to the no-dialogue rule, relying on music to emphasize drama. 

The second portion consisted of eight short animation videos. In contrast to film, the animation portion included dialogue and had completely digitized settings and characters. Both shorts under the film and animation category had to be less than two-and-a-half minutes long.

Natasha Marrero, senior studying art studies, created the short film called “It’s Been a Long Long Time.” Set during World War II, this film depicts a somber woman preparing an extravagant dinner for her husband who was just killed in the war.

Marrero said that because they could not use sound when filming, she decided to pick the song first, eventually landing on “It’s Been a Long Long Time.” She then created her short film around the 1940s song. Marrero was inspired to use this song when she heard it in a Captain America movie, even watching the movie multiple times to understand the tone. In addition to choosing a song, Marrero hand-made all of her props to make sure everything would be historically accurate and give a real 1940s flair. 

Marrero agreed with other students during the crowd questions that there were challenges they had to work around when filming. 

“Our tripod broke while filming, so we made a tripod out of a desk. We still couldn’t use a lot of the shots because of the broken tripod, but we figured it out,” Marrero said. Despite filming difficulties, Marrero’s film made the audience erupt with applause.

Sarah Stein, a film production professor, explained that shooting in film is difficult because it takes a lot of pre-production planning. Students have to prepare costumes and go through edits in which their professor critiques them. In addition, students have to meet the requirements given, such as the two and half minute limit, and expect things to go wrong during production, like dealing with a broken tripod and switching out film without harming it.

“Students learn to not give up, or let their ego get involved, as well as being able to receive critiques,” Stein said. “It is unforgiving. For me the film students are so remarkable, because it’s just tough.” 

“All the films have something different to offer,” Stein said.