ASU television and cinema students shoot movie in 48 hours

At 6 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, a group of 16 students at Augusta State University waited patiently while senior television and cinema track major Jerome Manley opened an envelope containing a letter that would dictate the next 48 hours for the students.

The letter came from Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc., a company sponsoring a DVD-making competition. ASU was one of 20 universities nationwide selected to participate in the event. Students had 2880 minutes, or two days, to complete a five-minute DVD short film. Pioneer Electronics gave each team a one-paragraph story idea, a Pioneer computer DVD burner, and a $500 stipend to create the film.

The letter contained the one-paragraph scenario for the movie. It read: "When Todd’s dime falls under the soda machine, he is frustrated and left 10 cents short. But he never expects bellying down to recover his lost change will lead to a ruinous conclusion."

With little time, the team had to come up with a plan fast. Jerome asked his production crew to take a few minutes and write down their impressions of the ambiguous scenario.

“When I first read it, I was almost relieved,” says Jerome. “I was more relieved that I got past that point of the unknown.”

Since Jerome already had his production crew and actors on hand, he didn’t have to worry about that aspect of the movie-making process. The next step was to collaboratively break down each scene. Jerome had the help of ASU students Julie Jones, James Price, Polina Yemelyanoba, and Jonathan Cook.

“We all sat around and threw up ideas and we all came up with the actual layout,” Jerome says. “We came up with the scenes we were going to shoot and from that, Julie was able to write a script and come up with the dialog between characters.”

Jerome scouted out most of the locations he wanted to use for the movie beforehand. The crew shot scenes at the Hopeland Gardens in Aiken, Olive Oil restaurant in Aiken, the Georgia-Carolina State Fair, and a rest-stop off Interstate 20.

At 6 a.m. Monday, Oct. 20, the movie was finished. Having had only three hours of sleep in two days was beginning to take effect on the crew, but Jerome was satisfied with the final product.

“There are all kinds of things we could have touched up, but because we were in such a time constraint, we just went with what we had,” says Jerome. “I’m ecstatic about how everything came together and worked together. It’s cool that we got to be a part of the project, but it’s really about coming together as students. Overall, I’m very pleased with the outcome.”

Pioneer Electronics will announce the three finalists Saturday, Nov. 15, and the winner Monday, Dec. 15. The winning school will be awarded a $10,000 grant. Two runner-up schools each will receive a $5,000 grant.

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