BrockTV’s annual Render This Film Festival took place at The Film House on Nov. 7, providing Brock students a chance to have a go at filmmaking.
Students worked in teams of up to five members and were given a month to complete their films. They were additionally provided with a written prompt and a specific object that must be incorporated into the short film in some way. This year, students’ films were required to include mirrors.
BrockTV’s Senior Production Manager Joel Antony emphasized this year’s goal of attracting students from outside the local and university film communities with the hope of broadening the appeal of filmmaking to more students.
Screenings began at 7 p.m. A total of ten student films were showcased, spanning several genres and styles to creatively work with the provided prompts.
Upon finishing the screenings, audience members were able to cast their vote for the winner of the audience choice award on a voting card while three judges deliberated their first and second place picks.
The winning film, 7:39, was created and produced by Christian Fisher, Ryan Bokla, Tyler De Las Llagas, Nickado Elliott and Garrett Wager. Inspired by found-footage horror, it follows a group of students exploring the woods in hopes of finding research for a biodiversity assignment. As they journey deeper into the woods, they begin to drown in absurdity, losing contact with the world they once thought they knew. Strange occurrences and a mysterious mirror lead them to believe they’re not alone in the woods anymore.
The short film won first place in a judge’s panel and the audience vote. The team has previously worked together on Brock’s 72-Hour Film Festival, where they won second place twice.
Fisher described the decision to create a found-footage film as a welcomed challenge. “I imagined it would challenge us and that it would be restricting creatively,” said Fisher.
Wager, who was responsible for the film’s handheld camerawork, cited The Blair Witch Project as inspiration for the style, but wanted to approach the genre from a contemporary angle.
“All I could think about was how we were going to bring our ideas to life; found footage isn’t something we’ve done before so we had to depart from what we were used to,” said Wager, who also compiled and edited the recorded footage. Despite the end film being under 10 minutes long, the group had over an hour of footage to work with.
“Daylight posed a challenge, since we wanted more dark scenes. We filmed early in the morning but by the time we got into the woods the sun already rose, so we had to work within that timeframe and get creative,” said Wager.
The team emphasized the role improvisation played as well, building off ideas in the moment to make their chemistry effortless. Fisher said that many of the jokes were improvised as well.
The Brock University Film Society (BUFS) is expected to host their annual 72-Hour Film Festival next March, where students will be given a chance to write, produce and edit a short film within a three-day period. The student-run Brock University Moving Image Society is expected to host short film productions in the winter term as well. The embrace of student filmmaking at Brock and in the surrounding community is a call for celebration and an invitation for creative minds to realize their ideas.