The only thing that was missing was a red carpet and a Joan and Melissa Rivers E! entertainment preshow.
Baldwin Auditorium, bathed in an array of psychedelic fluorescent colors and geometric patterns, played host Sunday night to the first-ever Froshlife Academy Awards.
The Froshlife iMovie project, sponsored by Student Affairs, the Office of Information Technology and Apple Computer, allowed freshman to create short films about "the first-year experience." Teams were supplied with an Apple iBook computer running iMovie digital editing software and a digital video camera. The inspiration and coordination was left to the students.
Sarah Roberts, an OIT analyst and the Froshlife projects coordinator, said the inspiration for the project came from a presentation she saw at Emory University a few years ago. "I thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if we could Dukeify this, bring it to Duke, turn it into something that really talked about a Duke experience?'"
The six entries, submitted by Brown, Epworth, Giles, Jarvis, Randolph and Southgate dormitories, proved to be as colorful as Baldwin itself. Movies ranged from Giles' 9:10, a Chaplin-esque black-and-white film about getting to class to a one-minute film from Epworth featuring an operatic freshman during the credits.
The panel of eight judges included Provost Peter Lange, Dean of Students Sue Wasiolek, and three students from the First-Year Advisory Council. Entries were judged in seven categories, including creativity, videography, editing, quality of acting, and story.
"There was a core group of students that was interested from the start," Roberts said. "The kids from Randolph attended all the training sessions and were in it from the start."
Their hard work paid off. Randolph's film The Bus won first place. Each team member was awarded an Apple iPod mp3 player.
"It wasn't just me," said freshman Lawrence Gan, who directed the film. "It was a team effort. Everybody got closer while we were trying to work together. Plus, you don't get your hands on digital cameras and ibooks all the time."
The ceremonies were not without their share of controversy, however.
Freshman Ajay Kori, along with an irate group of Southgate filmmakers, said after the premiere that it was "hard to represent freshman life when filming a lie," referring to the rule of not being able to film drugs or alcohol.
"We thought we'd use technology to get a point across," added freshman Jason Kops, another Southgate filmmaker. "We didn't feel like doing some funny little spoof." Kops said they had to "scrap their movie completely after rereading the rules and e-mailing the directors." Their film Fight the Power commented on Duke's financial aid program.
Southgate was not one of the evening's winners.
Raffle tickets were sold before the show started, and drawings were held between each movie. Door prizes ranged from $20 gift certificates to Millennium Music to several Palm M515 PDAs, a Hewlett-Packard flatbed scanner, and a Nikon CoolPix 2500 digital camera. Most electronics were courtesy of the Duke Computer Store.
Freshman Tara Zepel, an actress in The Bus, said "it is really neat that they care that much about freshmen having unique opportunities because usually you don't get to do stuff like this as freshmen. You have to wait 'til you're upperclassmen to do something weird like that."
Roberts said she hoped the project would become an annual event involving all freshman dorms. She said she thinks this year's participants will help future freshman filmmakers on the projects and encourage them to participate in them.
All movies will be available online in the permanent archives virtual collection.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.