The five USU students who entered Apple's 24-hour Insomnia Film Festival on Oct. 13 found out Monday they had won not only the festival, but also the grand prize, second place in the peer review and first place in the judge's choice award. 

“It's definitely a shocker, definitely a surprise,” said Clay Olsen, director of the student-produced film.

Olsen's Logan-based company, Advent Creative, entered the contest just days before and wrote, directed and edited a two-minute and 40-second film called “Imagine.”

They said they hoped to win, but did not think it could actually happen.

To ensure all the entrants to the festival completed their film in 24 hours, they had to use three of 10 items or filming techniques chosen by the contest coordinators.

The film includes a helicopter scene and a Mini Cooper car chase.

“We knew our film was good, but I didn't personally expect to win,” said Pete Smithsuth, who was in charge of audio for the project.

The team members are all students at USU and also work for Advent Creative.

The grand prize includes each team member receiving a MacBook Pro, Final Cut Studio 2, Logic Studio music editor and Shake, a motion graphics program, worth about $5,000 per person, Smithsuth said.

“It's a good Christmas present,” he said.

The judges for the competition, which had more than 1,700 entries, were professionals in the business, including James Mangold, Nora Ephron and Barry Sonnenfeld, according to Apple.com.

In order to even be considered by the judges, the films had to be in the top 25 based on popular vote.

“We almost kinda gave up hope because we saw the level of competition that was in this competition,” said Smithsuth, sophomore in professional piloting.

The judge's selection is the most prestigious of the three awards, and to even get there they had to market it, said Olsen, a graphic design student.

The team didn't want to promote their own film, but they realized they would have to if they were going to make it in the competition, Olsen said.

“We had to put an extra effort forward because we're a small community,” Olsen said.

For marketing, Olsen said they put fliers on all the cars at a USU basketball game, an article was published in the Herald Journal's Cache Magazine, and Macey's put fliers in every single grocery bag.

 

“It really was incredible the support that we got,” Olsen added.

In addition to word of mouth and other fliers, the team also went around to high school art classes as well as one of USU's largest classes, Creative Arts, taught by Tom Peterson.

“Tom Peterson was very helpful and supportive of that,” Olsen said.

Olsen said they wanted people to be aware that a local film was in the running for a national film contest.

“I think it was probably a shock to some people that we were in the running for a national film festival,” he said.

Opportunities are just the beginning for Advent Creative, Clay said. Already they have been contacted by several out-of-state companies wanting them to do some very large projects, he said.

 

“Maybe locally people think it was just a little thing,” he said, “(but) it raised a lot of awareness of who we are as filmmakers.”

Before they received the call Monday, Clay said most of the crew had given up on the idea of taking first place. They had just decided they hadn't won when they received a call from their office, he said.

 

Clay said they just heard them screaming on the other line that they won, and all of them in the car screamed as well, completely shocked at the reality.

 

“I don't think it’s hit yet,” Clay said Tuesday afternoon.

The team will receive their prizes after they finalize the paperwork and 15 days have passed, he said.

“We could have won nothing, and it would have been worth the experience,” Clay said.

“Regardless, we all thought, ‘This is the best that we could have ever done,’” Lee said.

To see the final results and the movie, go to www.apple.com/education/insomnia/winners.html.

 
Writer: Ranae Bangerter, Utah Statesman

The Student Life section of Utah State Today highlights work written by a talented student journalist at Utah State University. Each week, the editor selects a story that has been published in The Utah Statesman or the Hard News Cafe' for inclusion in Utah State Today.

 

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