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Brad Pitt stars as Achilles in this summer’s “Troy,” which had a free sneak pre

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Mandy Moore visited campus after a free sneak preview of “Saved!”.

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Campus Events also hosted a screening of the summer hit “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story,&

Bigger might be better, but for those at Campus Events, free is the best.

With the opportunity to venture down the crowded streets of Westwood to the nearest overpriced movie theater more often than not only available to those students who save their pennies, Campus Events has stood as an alternative for a long time now.

From their wallet-friendly free sneak previews to their $2 movie screenings, Campus Events offers a multitude of different movies to students on campus throughout the school year. And while the program has clearly been a success throughout its long existence, one thing shrouded in secrecy has been the interworking of the program.

Unofficially dubbed “word of mouth” screenings, film studios often release their movies one to two weeks in advance to many college campuses with hopes of generating enough hype for their movie to become a success. According to Campus Events Director Kenneth Heller, the types of movies the campus is able to show varies a lot more than most would imagine.

“A film has to be marketed to varying audiences, because sometimes the fact that it’s going to be a major release doesn’t always mean that you don’t have to get people excited about seeing your movie,” said Heller. “But you’re not going to see ‘Harry Potter’ at one of our screenings because the studios just don’t need to do as many advanced screenings.”

While studios might not be as eager to make highly anticipated films available for free, that doesn’t mean that Campus Events is left with only bad movies.

“Ultimately we have to look at what’s available,” said Megan Chan, the assistant commissioner of Campus Events. “Sometimes it’s about what movies we think are going to have the most student appeal, and sometimes it’s what studios have to offer us.”

While colleges across the nation offer similar programs, UCLA’s unique location often gives it a leg up on the competition.

“One of the differences of our programs is that because of our proximity to the film industry, we really have an enhanced availability as far as our selection pool of films,” said Heller. “However, it comes with a price – there’s more scrutiny on the way we run our program because there’s always a chance that a filmmaker or studio executive will come to a screening so we always have to be sure they are done the right way.”

With Los Angeles housing the film industry, Campus Events has historically attempted to form tight relationships with film studios in order to bring the best movies to campus.

“It’s a win-win situation; studios get to market to a very influential group, and students get to go see a movie for free,” said Donovan Daughtry, the former speakers director of Campus Events.

But the members of the audience are not the only ones who benefit from the movie screening process. For the students who are part of Campus Events, organizing these screenings is a good way to develop a relationship with a film studio that might someday lead to a job.

“It’s an avenue to get your foot in the door,” Daughtry said. “Very few people on staff are paid for what they do, so the experience is more valuable than anything.”

In addition to simply screening movies, Campus Events also has coordinated question-and-answer sessions with some industry members involved in the films they screen. From Mandy Moore (“Saved!”) to Zack Braff (“Garden State”), celebrity is something Campus Events is more than familiar with.

“It comes in spurts, and lately we’ve had a good run of a lot of really talented people,” said Jason Galton, the Campus Events commissioner. “It mainly comes down to the type of movie we happen to be screening and what talent it can bring to our campus.”

In the past, booking people has been the result of hard work, as well as researching what draws a certain celebrity to a project, such as when Mr. T came to campus to speak a few years ago, according to Daughtry.

“We found out there was more than just the ‘I pity the fool’ façade, and that behind it was a gentle man who was a cancer survivor and a lover of pets,” said Daughtry. “We used that when we contacted him – to show him we were really interested in who he was and what he had to say to our campus.”

But booking celebrities can be more a result of coincidence and a little persistence than of long-term planning. Campus Events knew just a few days in advance that Moore would come to campus to publicize “Saved!”.

But more than anything, Campus Events is about the students it serves rather than the organizers who make the screenings possible.

“There’s not a lot of social outlets at UCLA sometimes, if you’re not into the fraternity scene or the whole study thing” said Daughtry. “We give people a chance to have fun, and a lot of people join in.”