“Every year I’m amazed at some of the projects that come in,” said Scott Broberg, who coordinates the collaboration.
While many of the films have plot holes and technical kinks that make them difficult to follow for a general audience, they attempt some interesting effects. There’s a black-and-white, film noir-style silent film inspired by the song that provides its soundtrack (“100 Proof”), a science fiction film with a strange and abstract plot (“Vega”), and a documentary on homeless musicians in Laguna Beach (“Shelter Me”).
The highlight of the program, “Boggle Nights,” is a roughly 20-minute comedy that parodies the idea of a competitive circuit centered on the word game Boggle (the filmmakers confess that they didn’t know such a circuit actually existed until they made the movie).
Inspired by the poignancy of the classic chess film “Searching for Bobby Fischer,” and the ridiculousness of “Dodgeball,” students Richard Castrence and Rachel Hart directed and produced the film, which contains several impressive montages, a solid narrative and some amusing slapstick acting.
Some of the other offerings lack the same coherence and story structure, but present a few interesting visual effects.
Because the films were all created as projects for OCC film production classes, the directors and producers were challenged to include elements like time-lapse photography and chase scenes.
Making films that aspire to be professional enough to be shown on the big screen to paying audiences forces students to deal with the pressures that accompany any large-scale collaboration.
