Student Gwyneth Christoffel wins two Novia Scotia Talent Trust awards!

UAT Digital Video freshman Gwyneth Christoffel just completed her first semester at UAT and returned home to Halifax to win two awards from the Nova Scotia Talent Trust!

"Filmmaker Christoffel received the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Artistic Achievement, the trust’s highest honour for a student in any discipline. This is the first time it has been awarded to a person studying film."

Read all the details here: http://thechronicleherald.ca/artslife/1174597-lifetime-pals-score-talent-trust-awards

UAT Wins 3 Awards at Inter-college 48 Hour Film Challenge

This weekend, two teams of UAT DV students competed in the 5th Semi-Annual Valley-Wide Inter-college 48 Hour Film Challenge, hosted by Grand Canyon University. (This is a recurring event that happens twice a year; GCU hosts in the Fall and we host in the Spring.) 12 teams total competed, representing GCU, UAT, ASU, and both Scottsdale and Glendale Community Colleges.

GCU Professor Gregg Elder assembled a panel of judges from the UAT and GCU faculties, as well as from the local film community. Four awards were given, Best Acting, Best Technical, Best Directing, and Best Overall Film. The Best Overall award included not only an individual trophy for the film, but the custodianship of the newly-minted "Persistence of Vision" Cup which like the Stanley Cup will be housed on the winning team's campus until the next challenge.

One of the UAT films, "Apart From Your World," won three out of the four awards and took home the POV Cup for Team UAT. The film, a musical exploration of geekdom that was filled with visual effects sequences inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Superman, Star Wars, and many more, won Best Acting for UAT student Nathan Benson (who also sang), Best Technical, and Best Overall Film.

'Flight of the Melvin' Selected for 2012 Aliens to Zombies Film Festival!

Our family-friendly comedy sci-fi adventure "Flight of the Melvin" has been selected for its 9th film festival, the 2012 Aliens to Zombies Film Festival in Los Angeles! In addition, the film has been awarded "Runner Up, Best Special Effects."

The Aliens to Zombies screenings will be held on the evenings of Monday, October 29 (9-11 p.m) and Tuesday, October 30 (9-11 p.m.) at the W Hotel in Hollywood.

More info and tickets: http://www.alienstozombies.com/

Summer Semester Recap!

WOW! Another semester done, and this one goes in the record books as one of the busiest and most successful to date for the Digital Video Program.

May

Two of our films, the family adventure "Flight of the Melvin" and the supernatural thriller "Covet" were selected for Phoenix Comicon.

Two of our videos from TEDxPhoenix 2011 made it to the front page of TED.com and scored over 3000,000 views combined.

The new Digital Video Program "highlights reel" debuted on YouTube and Vimeo, featuring some of the best work by our students from 2005 to the present.

The trailer for our Mass Effect fan film "Red Sand" debuted on YouTube and has racked up over 40,000 views to date. (The previous teaser for the film is at over 110,000 views.) The trailer also brought us significant press coverage by the likes of MSNBC, Kotaku, and more.

After screening at Phoenix Comicon, our multi-award-winning film "Covet" debuted online.

Professor Paul DeNigris' thesis film "Parallax" screened as part of the Short Film Corner at the Cannes Film Festival.


June

The UAT DV crew took a road trip up to Salt Lake City, Utah, to collaborate with the folks at Frogpants Productions to produce the DVD of their "Nerdtacular '12" event.

"Flight of the Melvin" was selected for GenCon Indy (a HUGE gaming convention in Indianapolis) and Dragon*Con (another HUGE convention for games, comics, and genre entertainment in Atlanta).

The videos produced by UAT DV for February's "Geeks' Night Out" event in Tempe were published to YouTube.


July

"Flight of the Melvin" got a rave review on Arizona film criticism site Apocalypse Later. So did "Parallax."

Professor Paul DeNigris and student Jared Oppie traveled to San Diego to film w00tstock 4.0, a "geek variety show" event held concurrently with San Diego Comicon. w00tstock was founded by MythBuster Adam Savage, Star Trek alum Wil Wheaton, and comedy music duo Paul & Storm (who had met the DV crew at Nerdtacular and invited us to come to w00tstock). The resulting videos are online on YouTube.

Our big film festival hit from last year, "Fallout," continued its amazing run by screening at the Fright Night Film Festival in Louisville, KY, where it won "Best CGI" and "Best Action Film."


August

"Flight of the Melvin" was selected for the Atlanta Horror Film Festival.

UAT Digital Video took home the award for BEST FILM in this year's IFP Phoenix 48-Hour "Beat the Clock" Film Challenge for our psychological thriller "Screaming in Silence."

Professor DeNigris' film "Parallax" screened at the landmark Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood as part of the 2012 Hollyshorts Film Festival.

'Melvin' AZ Film Fest Update - Honorable Mention, Comedy Short!

Arizona International Film Festival announced its award winners this evening, and our intrepid "Melvin" took home the "Honorable Mention, Comedy Short" award!

The complete list of award winners can be found here.

Don't forget, there's another chance to see "Flight of the Melvin" tomorrow at noon!

'Parallax' Wins Best Arizona Short at 2012 Phoenix Film Festival!

At the 2012 Phoenix Film Festival awards ceremony last night, Professor Paul DeNigris' Master's Thesis Film "Parallax" was awarded the Copper Wing for "Best Arizona Short." The film was produced with the participation of an all-star team of UAT Digital Video students and alumni who volunteered countless hours to make the compelling and realistic Iraq War drama. A huge contingent of UAT students, alumni, faculty, and staff also contributed to the film's budget on Kickstarter, so "Parallax" truly was a community endeavor.

UAT Digital Video won this prestigious award last year for the sci-fi action thriller "Fallout." This year's Arizona Shorts competition was tough, with lots of great entries in what many festivalgoers have described as the best batch of Arizona Shorts to ever play the festival. So "Team Parallax" is especially gratified to have won when pitted against such a great group of films! Congrats to everyone involved!

Art of the Title: 'Game of Thrones'

UAT alumnus Erin Clark was part of the team that created the Emmy-winning main titles for HBO's critically-acclaimed and immensely popular fantasy series Game of Thrones. Take a look at the breathtaking title sequence and read about its creation, courtesy of Art of the Title.

'Flight of the Melvin' Wins 2 L.A. Movie Awards

The 2012 Los Angeles Movie Awards has honored UAT Digital Video's short sci-fi comedy "Flight of the Melvin" with two awards in the Student Film category - "Award of Excellence" and "Best Editing." Congrats again to Team Melvin!

UAT Takes Home Four Awards at IFP/Phoenix 'Breakout Film Challenge'

On Friday November 18th, IFP/Phoenix hosted the screening and awards party for its latest filmmaker challenge, the seven-week "Breakout Challenge." Rather than giving filmmakers a prop and line of dialogue that they would be required to use (as is the case in a 48-Hour Film Challenge), IFP/Phoenix gave filmmakers some themes to choose from AND some additional deliverables to produce. Instead of just making a 5-minute film, participating filmmakers also had to produce a 30-second teaser trailer, a poster, a press kit, and other marketing materials.

Two teams of UAT Digital Video students participated.

The team of Erica Faccone, Bryan Simcox, Wes Peterson, and Sean Walter produced the drama "Wish You Were Here," which took home the awards for "Best Use of Theme" and "5th Place Film." Here's their trailer:



Meanwhile, the team of Trevor Spotted Eagle, Samantha Hammond, Jamil Abubakar, Caleb Evans, Ib Gillett, Jared Oppie, Tyler Dennis, Ariel Navarrette, and Paul Rosario, working under the supervision of Professor Paul DeNigris, produced the sci-fi thriller "Reset." Their film won awards for "Best Visual Effects" and "3rd Place Film." Here's the trailer for "Reset":



Congratulations to both our teams!

48 Hour Film: 'The Taste of Lies'

UAT Digital Video's entry into the November 2011 Inter-College 48 Hour Film Challenge, hosted by Grand Canyon University. The film took home the 'Best Director' award for director Trevor Spotted Eagle.

The parameters were:
- line of dialogue: 'I enjoy the taste of lies.'
- prop: a snowglobe
- character: Harry Colon, linebacker
- genre: mystery

Written and directed by Trevor Spotted Eagle
Cinematography by Jared Oppie
Edited by Nicolas Vereen

Starring Annie Winn

UAT Digital Video student wins 'Best Director' in GCU-hosted Inter-College 48 Hour Film Challenge

UAT Digital Video student Trevor Spotted Eagle picked up the 'Best Director' trophy Sunday evening on the campus of Grand Canyon University at the awards ceremony for the latest Inter-College 48 Hour Film Challenge.

The challenge began on Friday evening when 4 teams from GCU and 1 team from UAT were given their marching orders; films were required to include:

- line of dialogue: "I enjoy the taste of lies"
- prop: snowglobe
- character: Harry Colon, linebacker

Each team received a different genre, and Team UAT's was "mystery." Working all weekend, the team produced the slick psychological mystery-thriller "The Taste of Lies," which featured a detective character tasked with solving a murder her own alter ego had committed.

This was the third matchup between UAT and GCU in the Inter-College 48 Hour Film Challenge, which began as a twice-yearly tradition in 2010. One of GCU's entries "Narwhal" took home the 'Best Actor' and 'Best Film' trophies this time around. UAT will be hosting the next installment of the challenge in April or May.

Two More Festival Appearances for FALLOUT

Our epic sci-fi short film "Fallout" is now set to mark one full year on the film festival circuit with two appearances at East Coast genre festivals.

First up - the 2011 Atlanta Horror Festival, September 15th through 17th. "Fallout" is one of 6 "Sci-Fi Shorts" screening at this mostly horror-themed event on Saturday September 17th at 4:30pm.

Then in October is the 2011 Terror Film Festival in Philadelphia. "Fallout" screens on Saturday, October 29th at 3:00pm as part of "Splatter Shorts." I guess all the terrorist blood we spill in the battle sequence qualifies! "Fallout" is also nominated for nine awards:

Best Actor - Anders Striemer ("Hopper")
Best Supporting Actor - Steve Briscoe ("Rawls")
Best Supporting Actor - Ted Herbig ("Harrington")
Best Sound Design - John Chafuen
Best DP - Chris Erickson
Best Original Music Score - Rod Ibieta
Best Editing - Chad Hryhorysak and Chris Erickson
Best SFX - everyone on the team!
Best Science Fiction Short Film

FALLOUT Named a Semifinalist in Adobe Competiton

Our year-in-the-making digital video short "Fallout" has been named a Semifinalist in the category "Innovation in Motion and Video in Education" in the 2011 Adobe Design Achievement Awards.

The Adobe® Design Achievement Awards celebrate student and faculty achievement reflecting the powerful convergence of technology and the creative arts. The competition - which showcases individual and group projects created with industry-leading Adobe creative software - honors the most talented and promising student graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, animators, digital filmmakers, developers and computer artists from the world's top institutions of higher education.

"Fallout" would not have been possible without Adobe tools such as After Effects and Photoshop. To be recognized by Adobe for using their software in an innovative way is a real honor!

Later this month, the semifinal round will be judged and three Finalists in each category will be named. Finalists will be flown to Taipei to participate in the ADAA awards ceremony at the 2011 International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda) Congress.

UAT's 48 Hour Film "Covet" Wins 4 Awards!

The UAT / Locked Horns / SWAT HD collaboration "Covet" won FOUR awards at last week's IFP/Phoenix "Beat the Clock" event. The film, produced in just 48 hours over the weekend of July 15th through 17th, garnered the following awards:

• Best Director - for Professor Paul DeNigris
• Best Use of Line - for our use of the mandated dialogue "As long as it's free..."
• Best Ensemble - for our amazing cast
• 2nd Place Film

A complete list of winners can be found on the IFP/Phoenix website.

"Covet" was produced by a team of students and alumni working in conjunction with Professor Paul DeNigris' Locked Horns Productions (including longtime collaborators Steve Briscoe and Laura DeNigris) and Steve Wargo's SWAT HD (a frequent employer of UATDV alumni and students). Cavin Gray ("Parallax"), Amanda Melby ("Screen Wars"), Kane Black ("Fallout"), and Steve Briscoe ("Cowboy Dreams") star, along with student Cedric Katambwa.

For a short time, "Covet" is online on Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/26559980. In a couple of weeks it will go into hiding once again as we begin submitting to additional film festivals. Expect it to make a return to the big screen at April's Phoenix Film Festival - or perhaps sooner!

Action on Film International Film Festival - Screening Schedule and Award Nominations

The Action on Film International Film Festival has announced its official screening schedule AND its complete list of nominated films.

UAT Digital Video's sci-fi thriller "Fallout" screens on SUNDAY JULY 24th in the 2PM BLOCK of short films. (Complete schedule.)

"Fallout" was also honored with THREE award nominations: Best Visual Effects (Short), Best Production Design, and Best Science Fiction! (Complete list of nominees.) Congrats again to TEAM FALLOUT!

To attend Action on Film, buy tickets for the Sunday Block here or buy an Any Day / All Day pass here.

And... Three More Awards for FALLOUT

The 3rd Annual Los Angeles Reel Film Festival has bestowed three more awards on our short sci-fi film "Fallout" in the Student Film category - 3rd Place, Best Editing, and Best Digital Effects!

Check out the complete list of winners here!

UAT Digital Video Students Win Big at Arizona Student Film Festival

The UAT Digital Video team of Bryan Simcox, Wes Peterson, and Sean Walter won top honors in the "College Shorts" section of the Arizona Student Film Festival for their film "Tread Softly," beating out competitors from Collins College, Scottsdale Community College, University of Arizona, and Arizona State University. Congratulations, guys!

Adjunct Professor Pickersgill Wins 2011 Telly Award!

UAT Digital Cinematography Professor Webb Pickersgill and his team of UAT students Bryan Simcox, Wes Peterson, and Sean Walter picked up a 2011 Telly Award for their work on the book trailer for Devious by Lisa Jackson. Congratulations to all involved!

Check it out on YouTube or watch the embedded video below.

More Festival Appearances and Awards for FALLOUT!

Our sci-fi action thriller "Fallout" continues to be on quite a roll since its win for "Best Arizona Short" at the 2011 Phoenix Film Festival! Since then "Fallout" has been honored with more screenings and more laurels, all of them in Los Angeles:

The film screened as part of the 2011 Los Angeles Film and Script Festival in Santa Monica, where it won an "Honorable Mention" in the Narrative Shorts category.

The film won three awards in the Los Angeles Movie Awards - Award of Excellence, Best Editing, and Best Special Effects!

And "Fallout" is also an Official Selection of the prestigious NewFilmmakers Los Angeles screening series at Sunset Gower Studios coming up in June!

Congratulations to all the students and alumni who worked for so long on this film. Your efforts are appreciated at UAT and beyond! There are still many more festivals we've yet to hear from, so expect more of these sorts of announcements to come!

DV Happenings! (Spring Semester Wrap-Up)

Spring 2011 semester ended up being one of the busiest on record here in the UAT Digital Video Program. Some of our highlights these last couple of months:

• "FALLOUT" won Best Arizona Short at the 2011 Phoenix Film Festival
• "Extraordinary Colleagues" - our 48-hour challenge entry from last July - took home "Best Directing" (for Professor Paul DeNigris) and "Best Editing" (for alum Ryan Luibrand) at the IFP/Phoenix "Beat the Clock" finals in April
• "Somewhere (dot dot dot)" - our 48-hour entry from January - was chosen by Cox Arizona to appear on their IFP/Phoenix showcase on "On Demand"
• The UAT Team's film "Backup Plan" won both the "Creative Excellence" and "Technical Excellence" trophies in the Spring 2011 Inter-College 48-Hour Film Challenge, competing against teams from Scottsdale Community College and Grand Canyon University. Films were scored by a panel of industry judges.
• The UAT DV blog now has a new, shorter, address - http://www.uatdigitalvideo.com/
• We've just published two new behind-the-scenes videos about "FALLOUT" - http://vimeo.com/uatdv/makingoffallout1 and http://vimeo.com/uatdv/makingoffallout2. Both of these videos can also be found on our "FALLOUT" Facebook page
• Professor Paul DeNigris shot his Master's Thesis Film, an Iraq War drama called "Parallax" - with the help of an all-star crew of UAT Digital Video students and alumni. Check out the "Parallax" page on Facebook to see some behind-the-scenes pics and some amazing images from the film. "Parallax" is now in post-production.