The year is 2015, and we’ve witnessed a remarkable explosion in the world of video games. As we go through this puberty of gaming (there are now games where there were no games before) en route to establishing the interactive experience as a full-fledged art form, we stop and have a bit of fun.

Your fun-signment (yikes..) is to produce an engaging film using recognizeable themes from mobile games, your team’s game, and elements of play in general. Instead of boxing yourself into a film about candy crush, ask yourselves: what is candy crush really about? Whom does it appeal to? Why? What makes this game tick? Capture this elusive magic on film, and you will surely win!

Your film should be approximately 2-4 minutes in length (although we will not penalize a movie for being slightly shorter or longer). You may use any any narrative or visual style. Really, we mean it, anything goes. Trailers, news clips, 80s-style horror, claymation, or a music video are all excellent options. Be creative, but feel free to duplicate the styles of videos or films you found compelling. Win the hearts and minds of your audience, and you have an easy shot at winning the entire Olympics! (we admit, the movie is a bit like the golden snitch in this regard).

Please submit original work (don’t send us other people’s movies!), and remember that your film must be finished in time for the premiere. Winners will be selected by popular vote, with the following awards (team points!):

Submissions

Selection Criteria

The best picture awards

But wait, there’s more!

Great films deserve recognition, and we will generously reward standout work with even more points! Each award will earn your team 25 points. Without further adieu, these worth-less awards are:

• best actor or costume
• best musical act, accompaniment or soundtrack
• best visual style, effect, or animation
• (we may include a few others later).

We will also reward participation by giving a small point bonus for each team member included in the credits in any capacity (writing, lighting, camera, acting, editing, etc.). If you get a professor or an admin to take part, we’ll all probably be very impressed. There may or may not be a celebrity panel of judges to determine the winners, but there will definitely be a fancy premiere with snacks and a panel discussion accompanying each film.

Finally, we emphasize that the film competition is an essential part of the CSAIL Olympics, and we encourage you to take it to new and surprising heights.

Here are some tips to get you started:

• Make a dropbox/google drive folder that will have all of your film prep materials so everyone can stay informed.
• Pick a particularly charismatic and available person to be your producer. This person will make sure the film happens on schedule, and actually reaches the finish line. Make sure the project moves along at a steady pace.
• If you get everything done early, you will have time to get everything done the way you like it. Moreover, whoever has to edit this film at the end will actually have enough time to do a good job of it.
• When googling for tips and tutorials, remember that this is “no budget” production. A low budget tutorial implies that there exists a budget, and is therefore probably not what you are looking for.

To make this movie, you will need to fill 4 key roles:

Head Screenwriter

This person is responsible for producing a script. While the entire team can and should collaborate on the writing, one person should bear the responsibility of moving it along, and finishing with plenty of time for filming and editing. After nailing down your themes, ideas, and plot, write a short script, a description of the movie. It should nail down not only the dialogue (if any), but also what’s happening on screen, and why (should this be a sad moment? Should the shadows look creepy? Should there be heavy metal playing?).

Don’t get lost in the details - write the entire film before you begin to elaborate. Take some colored markers, and highlight actor-related things, set-related things, and effect-related things. This will help your team coordinate their preparations and make sure no tasks are left unaccounted for.

Director of Photography

this person is in charge of picking locations, putting together a list of shots, and getting this project filmed. Some advice:

• When casting your actors, get them to run through a scene or two in character to make sure they are a comfortable fit.
• Make a setlist and budget film time. Write down approximately how long each scene and each shot are.
• Try to do your filming early, and don’t waste your actors’ time. Prepare a list of shots you want to film, and do as much prep work ahead of time as possible. When you show up to film, you should have everything you will need on hand, and everyone should know what the plan is, where the shots will take place, and what preparation is needed.
• If your film needs daylight, try to film in the first half of the day so your work isn’t ruined if you aren’t done when the sun sets. Be careful about filming outdoors - you *will* be very cold.
• Try to film all the shots that go along with a scene in one meeting - it’s hard to get your actor to look the same way she/he did the day before!
• DSLRs make excellent film cameras, but even an iphone does a pretty good job (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-KrhgwtXLg). Remember: lighting and acting are far more important than how fancy your camera is. Don’t film in 4K resolution, no one has a computer fast enough to want to edit that.
• Use a tripod or tripod-like contraption to reduce camera shake (carrying a tripod as extra weight attached to the camera helps reduce shake on a moving shot also).
• If you find yourself “whatever, we can fix this when we edit”, no. No, you can not. Try to get as many things right upfront as you can.

Sound Director

This person is responsible for picking music and getting the most usable audio recording of the film they can manage. Some advice:

• Record room tone (~30 seconds of silence in the room). You will need this to stitch your shots together - true silence sounds nothing like silence in your environment, and will sound bad.
• Use camera audio to sync up a better audio recording, if able
• Be aware what audio can be fixed/replaced in post, and what you need to record on locaiton (dialogue!). Make sure you have decent audio before you finish recording a scene.
• Please try to avoid stealing music (but do it anyway if you know exactly what you want). There is an abundance of royalty-free music available on the internet (soundcloud, ocremix.org, etc.).
• Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) is probably your go-to tool. A laptop or (and) a phone can do a decent job recording your audio track. If someone on your team has an audio recorder, or a laval microphone you should use it. If you happen to stumble upon a condenser microphone, they’re great for narrator-style voiceovers.

Head Editor

This person will make sure that from the confused mess of video files, sound, pictures, and text emerges a shiny video (which you can either put on YouTube/Vimeo, or something mp4-ish that we can host). Some advice:

• You don’t need Avid or Final Cut Pro. You should look into Lightworks (http://www.lwks.com/), or Pitivi (http://www.pitivi.org/).
• Bonus points for color correction.
• Try to get a draft of your video done a day or two before the finale. Your team will certainly have feedback.

That's all there is to it!
Good luck!