Despite setbacks, Campus MovieFest contestant offers “˜Smile’
Fourth-year history student Michael Niktaris produced a five-minute short film for this year’s Campus MovieFest. The winners will be announced on Thursday.
By Jennifer Bastien
Oct. 22, 2009 9:45 p.m.
It’s not unusual for artists to sweat for their craft. On Oct. 17, fourth-year history student Michael Niktaris was sweating for the Campus MovieFest. Donning corduroy pants and a flannel shirt on a hot day atop a parking garage on Broxton Avenue, Niktaris was filming a dance scene for his five-minute short film, having only come up with the story idea three days prior.
“I thought of the idea “˜Smile’ ““ someone whose name was Smile, and I just kind of ran with it,” Niktaris said.
Thus began his week-long creation of a film titled “Smile,” in which he also plays the eponymous protagonist. The movie revolves around this happy-go-lucky character and his counterpart, the mopey and pessimistic Gene, as they attempt to raise money for their rent with a yard sale.
Niktaris entered the competition after seeing posters for Campus MovieFest around UCLA and hearing about it last year. Although he was previously a film student, he took some time off and returned to UCLA as a history student this year and decided to participate in the competition for the first time. Despite his film school experience, he doesn’t feel like he has an advantage.
“Some of the most talented people are biology majors and chemistry majors,” Niktaris said. “You just need a spark and a purpose and to go after it.”
But experience may have at least helped in dealing with some of the extra challenges that the Campus MovieFest presents ““ for one thing, the competition’s short one-week time span. Such time constraints forced Niktaris to be assertive and efficient, though he was still forced to rethink a lot of elements of his film in order to finish in time.
“I was looking to shoot a scene in a thrift shop. I called, like, 15 of them, and I didn’t get anything. You say to someone, “˜I need to shoot in your place,’ and they say, “˜We’ll think about it,'” Niktaris said. “But then you tell them you need it by tomorrow or the day after. It becomes tough because there’s insurance issues and stuff. So I had to switch where the setting was; I made it a yard sale instead of a thrift shop.” In retrospect, Niktaris realized that what seemed like a setback may have actually given the actors more freedom and helped the movie in the end.
“I really liked shooting outside as much as possible because you get the natural sunlight, and it’s not a closed environment, and the actors feel freer to explore their characters, so I think it was for the better,” Niktaris said.
On day three of the competition, the setting posed a problem again when Niktaris and his team needed a location to shoot their dance scene. With the help of Tom Nguyen, fourth-year history student and a dance instructor at the John Wooden Center, they were able to find just what they were looking for and not too far away.
“We didn’t really know where we were going to film it, and I just suggested the Broxton parking lot, and the weather looked really nice, so we did that,” Nguyen said. They proceeded to create a dance routine on the spot, adding moves as they went, with the help of Nguyen’s iPod. After filming the scene from many different angles, it was clear that editing would play a big part in piecing together the story. Luckily for Niktaris, this is a process that he enjoys.
“Editing is one of the most fascinating parts for me. You just take all the footage and start compressing it, thinking about the general idea, and over time it kind of falls into place,” Niktaris said. “A lot of it is just the timing, how you cut it, because if you leave a shot too long, it just drags on, and especially for a short piece like this, you don’t want to lose the audience for a second.” Though he said editing took up the most time of anything in the filming process, Niktaris was still able to finish with plenty of time left before the deadline.
“I was the first one in line to turn it in because I just wanted to turn it in and move on with my life ““ on to the next thing,” Niktaris said. Now “Smile” is in the hands of the judges. According to Megan Lee, Campus MovieFest judge and Campus Events Commission director of films, the judging is based on a variety of elements that give even newbie filmmakers a chance.
“CMF gives us a lot of different categories to judge on. It can go anywhere from aesthetic quality to content, to acting, to lighting and technical elements,” Lee said. “What’s great about the Campus MovieFest is that most teams rent out the same equipment that CMF provides, so there’s not a huge discrepancy in that regard.”
Niktaris and the rest of the contestants will have to wait until Oct. 29 to see if their respective films have a future in the Campus MovieFest competition, when the top 16 films will be showcased at the Campus MovieFest finale in Ackerman Grand Ballroom.
