Though West Philadelphia is hardly Hollywood, Penn hosts a thriving student film scene. Just look no further than this year’s iteration of the College Houses Film Festival, held March 21–24. Of the 52 short films that were screened in the festival’s first three days, 15 finalists emerged. And while all 15 films were screened at the Rave, four winners separated themselves from the pack. Street interviewed three of the future auteurs.
First prize: How the Coyote Got His Cunning Directed by College junior Claire Niebergall
Street: Tell us about the film. Claire Niebergall: The film is actually my final project for my mixed media animation class from last year around May. They wanted us to do something that played around with the different techniques that we had studied throughout the year, whether it was stop motion or cut paper or puppetry — anything like that. I just found a visual style that really inspired me and a story that I wanted to make an animation out of.
Street: How’d you come across this story? CN: I knew that I wanted to experiment with that visual style — which is a Native American style from the Pacific Northwest. I wanted to find a story that obviously went along with it, so I went out and got a book that had a bunch of different folk tales in it. And I found one that had lots of different opportunities for great visuals and I just went with that.
Street: Obviously, Penn’s not known for being a top animation school. How do you think being a student here has helped you as a filmmaker? CN: If I went to a traditional arts school or an animation school, I feel like I wouldn’t have had that exposure to the writing aspect or developing a concept or developing an idea. I feel like going to Penn and taking a bunch of different classes outside of my major has made me look at every single aspect of what I do.
Street: What inspires you? CN: Being able to see what people do outside of studios, or in smaller studios besides Disney, Pixar or Dreamworks. The level of creativity is incredible when you look in the right places.
Second prize: Doing Well in Ethiopia Directed by College freshman Jake Gutman
Street: What can you tell us about your film? Jake Gutman: I traveled in Ethiopia at the end of 2008 with a group to see and document the water crisis that exists in much of Africa and the developing world. [The film] is basically about the issues that a lack of water access create — the effect on education, on women’s rights, on the environment — and how bringing water to the community can change and solve all these different issues.
Street: What led you to make films? JG: I am from Los Angeles, so I’ve grown up in a movie culture and always watched movies as a kid. In high school, I took film classes so it’s just always been a passion and a hobby of mine.
Street: So being from L.A., what do you think of the film culture at Penn? JG: Having gone to the College Houses Film Festival and seeing the wide variety of films displayed — that students have made — it’s really just amazing what kinds of work people are doing. I think [the film scene] is bigger than I thought.
Audience favorite: Socknapped Directed by Engineering senior Daniel Markowitz
Street: What’s Socknapped about? Dan Markowitz: The movie is about kidnapping. It’s about a sock that gets stolen from the laundry. It’s a comedy, but everyone is playing it really straight and ignoring the fact that it’s a sock that was stolen and not a person.
Street: How’d you come up with the idea? DM: I’ve always loved heist movies — movies about kidnapping and ransom notes. And I’ve always wanted to do some kind of movie where somebody is carrying a briefcase full of money around. So the problem was just trying to figure out what kind of movie I could make here on Penn’s campus. And I had lots of bad experiences with socks getting lost in the laundry, so I thought the two things would work out together.
Street: Are you thinking about continuing as a filmmaker? DM: If I could be an animated film director or something one day, that’d be pretty great. I just like making artwork and telling stories in general.
