After winning first place in Virginia Tech's Four Minute Film Festival this past fall, Tech students Paul Hinson, Tyler Henderson, and Tony Lazzeroni along with Eric Steinat, Ryan Watson and Bert Green have submitted their film "Tuned Out" to Apple's Second Annual Insomnia Film Festival.
Hinson, Henderson, and Lazzeroni first came together to participate in the Four Minute Film Festival and won with the film "First Impressions," which premiered on Sept. 29.
The team decided to add more students to its crew to maximize its workforce as they embarked on a national film festival.
Lazzeroni said that the filming for the Insomnia Film Festival began at 9 a.m. on Oct. 13 and ended at precisely 9 a.m. the next day.
Everything for the film had to be completed during this time span, from conception to script writing, casting, filming, editing, scoring and uploading the film.
Lazzeroni said that in comparison to the Four Minute Film Festival, which was judged in person, Insomnia determines winners via online voting, which makes it hard for participants to know where they stand in relation to other competitors.
There are currently 1,787 films posted online, Lazzeroni said.
Apple sent an e-mail to participants after the deadline for submission of the films, indicating that they received over 1,900 films; they said that originally, there were over 3,000 scheduled participants.
It was no surprise that the strict and stressful 24-hour filming challenge would whittle down the original 3,000 to 1,787.
Another challenge filmmakers faced during filming was the inclusion of certain items required by Apple the day of the challenge.
Three of the following ten elements were mandatory in the film: a bird cage, park bench, tuxedo, makeup for elderly character, radio static as background sound, a character named Robin Darjeeling, a dream sequence, a Dutch-angle camera feature, a match cut editing technique or "don't tempt me" in the dialogue.
"Using the elements wasn't the difficult part; the difficult part was making sure they weren't just thrown in," Lazzeroni said.
"A lot of groups would just have the bird cage in the background ... we wanted to make our items more integral parts, where the film wouldn't be able to exist without those things."
Ryan Watson said the team decided to use the character named Robin Darjeeling, the radio static, and the match cut.
Watson explained that a match cut is when "you juxtapose two images." The group chose to match cut the sliding tuners on a radio.
Watson said that while they were contemplating the concept for the video for nearly four hours, the group had to consider that the first few ideas that came to their heads would be thought of by other groups in the same competition.
Watson and the other writers had to really "think deep" to come up with a realistic and original concept.
While Tech may not be a film school, this seems to be to the advantage of the students competing.
"The funny thing is that a lot of the film school-based films I've seen on there are almost too obscure ... too artistic," Lazzeroni said.
Tyler Henderson said that coming together with a story line that was workable and shooting in a variety of locations were some of the more difficult parts of the competition.
"It was actually a little bit more stressful because we were shooting it in so many locations and we had some editing issues ... and we had to make sure the upload was right," Henderson said.
Coffee and the New Media Center helped the filmmakers get through the long day.
"For this film festival, we met at Starbucks and came to the New Media Center and did the rest of our planning there, and this is also were we rented the equipment we used," said Henderson.
The New Media Center provided high-definition video cameras and software to edit the film during the process of their competition.
Henderson and Lazzeroni both work at the New Media Center, so their experience there helped them throughout filming.
Henderson is hoping that the university will pitch in and show their support by voting for the team's film before several industry professionals screen the top 25 films with the most votes on Nov. 9.
"If we can get as much voting as we can, it can be really beneficial to all of us; we all have an aspect of wanting to work in the film industry and this could be really great for our resume," Henderson said.
The members of the winning team will also receive a MacBook Pro with film software.
"There are also prizes and stuff, but that is the least of my worries; my concern is being able to get into the industry," Henderson said.