Media School student film screened at Terminus festival
A film by Media School students was one of 50 movies shown as part of Terminus, the Campus MovieFest’s presentation of contest winners from around the nation.
Lost Dog by Media School student Hunter Huddleston; alumnus TJ Jaeger, BAJ’16; former student Nick Gresens; and anthropology major Matt Leetz was one of only four IU student-made films to make the show. The film also was nominated for best cinematography at the festival.
“We had no expectations for the film,” Jaeger said. “We just wanted it to be a good project, and a fun project. The whole time, we were thinking, as long as we’re in the top 16 [at IU], we’ll be happy.”
The Lost Dog team came up with the idea for their film in November of 2015, but didn’t develop it until they decided to participate in the IU Campus MovieFest, an annual national filmmaking competition that challenges students to make a five-minute short film in one week during the spring semester. The top 16 films at each university are screened locally and, from those, four films are selected for the final national competition. This year, the festival, called Terminus, took place in Atlanta, Georgia, July 16-19.
Lost Dog won the Jury Award at the IU competition of Campus MovieFest and entry in to the national festival, where it competed for the award of best cinematography against four other student-made films from universities around the country.
All four of the students who worked on Lost Dog attended Terminus this year. There, they met other student filmmakers and attended panels with professionals from the field, such as brothers James and Sean Gunn. The event ended with the awards ceremony on Sunday night.
“Everyone was just really cool and really genuine and wanted to talk about dorky film stuff,” said Matt Leetz. “We were happy to oblige.”
Jaeger was the captain of the project, and Huddleston was the director. Nick Gresens composed the score, and Matt Leetz was the lead actor. The team already had experience before producing Lost Dog: Huddleston and Jaeger have been writing movie scripts together since their junior year of high school, and formed a small production group called Bemused Entertainment together. They, along with Gresens, created This Will be Cake for the 2015 Campus MovieFest at IU, which was screened in the top 16 films on campus but didn’t progress to Terminus. Leetz joined the group this year.
Jaegar said the trip to Terminus would not have been possible without help from The Media School. He and his team were awarded a grant so they could attend the festival.
“We do want to say thank you to The Media School,” Jaeger said. “We couldn’t have afforded the trip without them.”
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