Students do more than just “Research” for film
December 7, 2011
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“Research: The Musical,” a film produced by students, is about a group of biology students and their quest to get though a summer internship led by a crazy professor.
The film crew has spent the past year preparing and filming the movie and will premiere its work Thursday at 8 p.m. in the Student Center Ballroom. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.
“We had a blast and a ball making this movie,” said Traci Williams, executive director of “Research” and professor of journalism and Pan-African studies. “The bond that the students make is lifelong. We basically become a small family.”
Students involved in the film are required to take production courses over a three-semester span. In the spring, the course HD Pre-Production was about outlining the movie, coming up with the script and casting.
HD Production class, or filming, was during the summer.
HD Post-Production was this semester, and focused on marketing, advertising and planning the premiere event.
David Smeltzer, associate professor of journalism, teaches the post-production class. Smeltzer also plays the professor in the film.
Students of different majors were involved in creating the movie package and about 19 different departments from the university participated, Williams said.
“It’s really amazing at how many people it takes to make a movie,” she said.
The production and cast crew spent all summer filming and spent many hours doing scenes.
“There was one scene we shot where it took about 24 hours to do total,” Williams said.
Williams also said that from now on the class will be held every other year, but on the off years, a producing music video class will be offered instead.
“I like that it gives our students more of a variety to do on the off year and feel of different kinds of producing,” she said.
Contact Morgan Wright at [email protected].