Campus MovieFest (CMF), the world’s largest student film festival, is coming to The University of Alabama Feb. 1 as part of its tenth annual world tour. Students who sign up for CMF at the Ferguson Center will receive everything they need to make a five minute movie – including an Apple laptop, Panasonic HD video camera and an AT&T phone – all for free.

Any student at UA is welcome to participate, and they get all the training and support they need. Participating students experience a unique opportunity to express themselves, learn about filmmaking, gain exposure and of course, have a lot of fun and have the opportunity to win more than $300,000 in great prizes including iPads, cash, trips to Hollywood pitch meetings and more!

Students can sign up online at www.campusmoviefest.com before moviemaking launches at UA on Tuesday, Feb. 1. Students can pick up their equipment on Tuesday, Feb. 1 in the Ferguson Center second floor TV lounge from 12 to 5 p.m. Students then have one week to film and edit their movies and are free to create a movie about anything they would like. We encourage students to consider some of our special categories – including the following:

* Elfenworks Social Justice category, which focuses on domestic poverty and justice issues around the US and awards $20,000 in cash grants;
* The AT&T Rethink Possible Award, which provides winning students with cash and industry luminary support to start creating a feature film

Movies are turned in on Feb. 7 and then judged by a panel consisting of UA students, faculty and staff. On Thursday, Feb. 10, the top 16 movies will be shown at a red carpet finale at the Ferguson Center Theater at 7:30 p.m. The winners from UA advance to the CMF International Grand Finale in Hollywood, Calif.

CMF began ten years ago when four students at Emory University provided fellow students with everything they needed to make movies in one week. Since then, more than 350,000 students have received all the necessary technology and training to tell their stories for free thanks to corporate partners and schools. Past winners have walked away with more than $2 million in prizes and seen their films on the big screens at CMF events nationwide, at Cannes, at Paramount Studios and on millions of smaller screens – including AT&T mobile devices, in-flight on Virgin America and online.

For more information about Campus MovieFest or to see the best CMF movies, visit www.campusmoviefest.com.

Max Connections.

"Not My Son," a documentary by my colleagues Dwight Cammeron and Ginger Jolly from the University of Alabama Center for Public Television and Radio will be broadcast on Alabama Public Television several times during the month of November. The broadcast premiere of the award-winning documentary will be Tuesday, November 16th at 8:00 p.m. Encore presentations will be on Monday, November 22 at 10:00 p.m. and Tuesday, November 23 at 1:00 a.m.

The one hour documentary follows Birmingham’s Carolyn Johnson-Turner and her Parents Against Violence group over the course of several months. According to Johnson-Turner, she will never recover from her son’s death. The Parents Against Violence Foundation was founded on March 1, 2004, by Johnson-Turner as a result of the anguish she experienced when her 20-year old son, Rodreckus DeAndrew Johnson, was shot and killed while attending a birthday party. In order to cope, she and other group members, women who have also lost loved ones to gun violence, are on a personal mission to prevent other deaths. At the same time, their anti-violence activities serve as therapy to deal with their overwhelming grief. Can Johnson-Turner and Parents Against Violence really make a difference?

Alabama Public Television is a nine station network covering the state of Alabama.

For more information:

Alabama Public Television

More information about "Not My Son”

Max Connections.

My office on the University of Alabama campus is near Bryant-Denny Stadium so I frequently park near the stadium. As I was walking to my car not too long ago, a car stopped and a young man asked through the window, “Where can I go to see the coach?” The young man was in the passenger seat and I suspect the driver was his mama. They were probably attending orientation prior to the beginning of the Fall semester.

I’ve worked at the University for 25 years (I recently got a commemorative key chain to prove it.) and I can attest that football coaches here tend to get mobbed when they’re spotted. I can remember Bear Bryant taking an occasional stroll across campus and people treated him with respect and admiration, but nowadays people tend to hound celebrities for autographs and photos everywhere they go. And UA football coaches are celebrities.

I had to tell the young man I didn’t know where he could go to see the coach. I’ve never seen him just standing around outside the stadium. The car drove off and I’m sure those folks were disappointed.

Then it occurred to me that coach Saban will soon be easy to see standing outside the stadium. He’ll be there all day and all night every day, rain or shine. There will soon be a statue of Nick Saban added to the Walk of Champions in front of the stadium. Then he’ll be easy to point out if I’m ever asked again.

Max Connections.

My workplace has had a lot of excitement lately. Wendy Reed, whose office is right next door to mine, won an Emmy, and Dwight Cammeron, whose office is just across the hall, won a first place festival award.

The festival award came from the Urban Suburban Film Festival in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the documentary, “Not My Son.” This touching documentary by Dwight and our colleague Ginger Jolly has yet to make it to the airwaves, but it has been well received at festivals. The Urban Suburban Festival awarded it Best Feature Documentary and the award is well deserved. I have been tracking the life of this documentary here as Dwight and Ginger prepared for the initial screening and after the screening as they shared information about the event with me.

“Not My Son” is about how violence touches people. It may bring a tear to your eye, but I encourage everyone to see it.

I’m really lucky to work with such talented people. Congratulations Dwight and Ginger!

Max Connections.

The Department of Telecommunication and Film
at the University of Alabama

would like to invite you to the

TCF MEDIA PRODUCTION OPEN HOUSE

Monday, March 8, 2010

2:30 – 4 pm

TV Studio A in the Center for Public Television
Phifer Hall, The University of Alabama

Come enjoy FREE PIZZA!

Check out our new TCF production courses,
find out how to major in media production,
meet the new production faculty,
and demo our new equipment!

Our brand new, ever-growing line of high-end
video production equipment includes:

SONY PMW-EX3 XDCAM EX HD
Redrock 35mm adaptor
Kit of Zeiss Prime Lenses
Director’s Viewfinder
Sekonic L-758DR Pro Light Meter
JVC HM700U HD camera
A fleet of JVC HM100U HD cameras
Arri light kit
Flex-track dolly
Grip gear
and lots more!

For more information, please email Dr. Rachel Raimist
at rraimist@ua.edu or call 205-348-6350.

Max Connections.

From the Kinoscrastinate Website:

In the last year it has become very easy for a student to be involved in film production. However, the University of Alabama lacks an official venue to showcase the incredible work being done by students on campus. We have discovered that there is a great interest in starting a university-wide annual film festival to fill that need. It would have the benefit of showcasing student work, drawing attention to the film scene on campus, and fostering a truly inter-disciplinary art form.

We envision such a film festival to be an annual event held on campus, organized collaboratively by Kinocrastinate Productions, Nimpire Pictures, Sprankle Pictures, and the University of Alabama. We envision this to be our versions of the Oscars. To generate interest, we would like an extensive publicity campaign on campus and online. The film pieces would be judged in a variety of categories by a panel of judges from each school, with small cash prizes available to the winners in each category.

UA Film Festival Rules and Dates

* Films can be up to two years old.
* Entrants must be current UA students. This includes graduate students.
* Gives us your films by the 26th of March, 2010.
* Films will be shown and awards presented on the 2nd of April, 2010.
* Format: You can turn in your movie either on mini-DV tape or as a .mov file on a data DVD or CD. If you choose to turn in a file, please encode it as DV-NTSC. For audio, use 48 kHz AIFF, if possible.
* Include a slate before the beginning of your film with your name, the film’s title, whether it’s framed 4:3 or 16:9, and the total running time. We also recommend including some credits that list everyone who helped in the making of your film.

More information:
http://www.kinocrastinate.com/uaff/

Max Connections.

Director Dwight Cammeron takes questions from the audience

My colleagues Dwight Cammeron and Ginger Jolly shared their new documentary, "Not My Son" with its first audience on Saturday, January 23rd at Woodland Park Church of Christ in Birmingham, Alabama. Over 800 people attended the standing room only event.

Documentary participants from the Parents Against Violence Foundation were present to answer questions from the audience.

Click on images to enlarge them.

Documentary participants answer questions

Over 800 people attended the premiere

For more information, visit: http://www.cptr.org/notmyson

Max Connections.

"Not My Son" is a moving documentary from my colleagues Dwight Cammeron and Ginger Jolly. It chronicles the story of Carolyn Johnson-Turner in Birmingham, Alabama, who founded the Parents Against Violence Foundation following her son’s death by a gunshot. At the age of 20, he was shot while parking his car outside a friend’s birthday party.

Johnson-Turner is on a mission to prevent other deaths and her organization unites mothers who have suffered the loss of children to violence. There are many tears when they meet, and this documentary is difficult to watch with dry eyes as they recount the stories of how their sons were murdered. But these parents have turned their grief into action. They hope that by sharing how urban violence affects so many people they can have a beneficial impact on society.

A premiere screening of the one-hour documentary is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 23rd at Woodland Park Church of Christ (1800 Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Birmingham, AL 35211). Johnson-Turner and other parents seen in "Not My Son" will be in attendance.

For more information, visit: http://www.cptr.org/notmyson

Max Connections.

The University of Alabama Crimson Tide won their 13th National Championship football title last night at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California by defeating the University of Texas Longhorns. I know why they won.

The University of Alabama has an excellent football program. Coach Nick Saban is intelligent, experienced, a good recruiter, and a good motivator. The team includes some of the best players in college football, many of whom will go on to play professional football after college. There are numerous stars among them as well as players that haven’t received the credit they might have if folks weren’t talking about the stars so much.

The University of Texas also has an excellent football program. They have a good coach and some very good players. Their star quarterback suffered an injury early in the game and a freshman quarterback was called upon to replace him. After a period of nervousness, he rose to the occasion and played very well.

It ended up being a very close game, a real nail-biter. So why did the Crimson Tide win?

Chocolate doughnuts, that’s why.

My wife and I are fans of the Tide. We don’t attend many games, but we’re always tuned in to the games on TV. We arrange for tasty snacks to accompany our TV viewing, and it has become our tradition to eat chocolate doughnuts during the games.

Some people have lucky shirts they wear or other things they do to bring luck during games. Cindy and I eat doughnuts. We’ve been doing it for a couple of years now. We joke about how the team needs a little help, so we must eat another doughnut. I really thought it was just a handy excuse to enjoy a beloved food until recently.

As we were making our preparations for the game Cindy said, “We’ve got to have doughnuts. You know we didn’t have doughnuts for the last two games of the season last year and look what happened.”

That’s when it hit me. That’s when I understood the power we held. The Crimson Tide lost their last two games last year.

Needless to say, I stocked up on doughnuts and we ate them dutifully during the game.

We’re glad to do our part for the Crimson Tide. Roll Tide!!!

Max Connections.

Today’s the big day we’ve been waiting for. The battle for the national football championship will take place tonight!

Until you’ve experienced it, you can’t fully understand how important football is in Alabama. The rivalry between the state’s two largest universities, the University of Alabama and Auburn University literally divides the population of the state. You can’t be neutral. You’re either a Bama fan or an Auburn fan.

I’m a Bama fan, but that’s no surprise. I’ve been an employee of the University of Alabama for most of my life.

Here in Tuscaloosa, home of UA, the city is like a ghost town today. University students were scheduled to return from Christmas break on January 4th, but when Alabama defeated Florida and won its place in the BCS championship game scheduled for January 7th, the University delayed the start of classes for one week to January 11th. The students have not returned to campus. How could we expect them to concentrate on anything other than football during this week anyway?

Many students, faculty, and citizens of Alabama have traveled to Pasadena, California for the game, increasing the ghost town effect. Several Alabama TV stations have reporters covering the invasion of Alabama fans in Pasadena. A TV report I saw last night made it look like Disneyland had been taken over by Alabama fans as the Million Dollar Band paraded through the streets.

With snow in the forecast for today, the University closed out of concern for travel safety. Folks here don’t know how to drive in the snow because we have so little experience. This just gives those of us who are left behind here in Alabama a chance to prepare. The state of Alabama will be closed tonight. Everybody will be at home watching the game on TV.

The Shores household will be tuned in too. Roll Tide!!!

Max Connections.