One of the most frustrating things about college is that there are so many opportunities to explore and such a limited time to do it. The Movie Making Marathon is designed specifically to combat this reality.
The MMM consists of teams of students joining together to pump out a film in 24 hours. This year's event, the second for the MMM, is set to take place on Saturday, but the idea for the MMM came to senior Annie Fleishman back in 2006-and in an unlikely place at that.
"I was at Wilson Gym on the elliptical reading a magazine and I saw an ad for [a] 24-hour play [event] in New York," Fleishman said. "My passion is film, so I thought it would be really cool if we could do that with film [at Duke]."
She mentioned the idea to her theater studies professor at the time, Elisabeth Benfey. What started as only an idea soon blossomed into a real event as Benfey voiced her support for the project.
"I thought it was a fantastic idea," Benfey said. "This was a time when Duke started the arts initiative, so Provost Lange readily gave his support."
Financed by groups like the Duke Digital Initiative, the offices of the President and the Provost and the Office of Information Technology to name a few, the MMM began to take form.
"The Movie Making Marathon isn't just one event," Fleishman said, "It's like 10 mini events that happen throughout both semesters."
The first of these is the screenwriting competition that occurs in the fall semester. Students can enter a short screenplay written for a film eight to 10 minutes in length. Usually, that translates to about eight to 10 pages of screenplay.
"It's a very challenging length," Benfey said, "But with students watching YouTube videos, maybe they are getting an intuitive grasp."
In 2007, the second year of the MMM, the screenwriting competition began on Oct. 15 and ended on Dec. 17. From these entries, five winners were chosen. It is these five screenplays that will be made into films on Saturday.
Each screenplay will have two student teams attached to it for a total of 10 teams in the field.
"This is to show how the interpretation of a text gives different results," Benfey said.
Last year, more than 100 students participated in the MMM, and more are expected this year. The teams are to have seven people each. Four of these students are people who simply signed up to participate, but the other three members are slightly special.
Of the remaining three students, one will come from Benfey's directing class, called "Stories to Movies." There is a symbiotic relationship through these students between the MMM and the class.
For the MMM, the presence of these students as coordinators, along with the various screenwriting and directing workshops given separately by Benfey, comprise the major academic component of the exercise.
"My screenwriting classes are the academic lotus of this activity," Benfey said.
For students participating in the MMM, the experience and guidance of Benfey's students come as a boon to their efforts.
"Each one of the 10 students in my Stories to Movies class becomes a mentor to one of the 10 teams," the professor said. "It's about students teaching students, sharing acquired skills."
Besides learning from their fellow students, participants in the MMM will have another source of information: industry professionals. Coming this week as guides and judges are Bill Teitler, producer of Mr. Holland's Opus and Jumanji and Bob Balaban, the director of HBO's recent Bernard and Doris, a story about Doris Duke, and a prolific actor with notable roles from Christopher Guest films.
"Most of these people are interested in working in the film industry," Benfey said. "These people are great contacts."
The last two students on a team of seven represent the expansion the MMM has undergone between its freshman and sophomore years. These two students on every team are from North Carolina Central University. This is a result of an effort on the part of Benfey and Fleishman to reach out to other schools in the Triangle area.
"We contacted UNC and NC Central, and NC Central is the campus that really responded," Fleishman said.
Besides partaking in the filmmaking process, NCCU students made their presence felt in the screenwriting competition. One of the winning screenplays this year was co-written by a NCCU student.
The MMM simultaneously compresses and expands the idea of Froshlife. Froshlife lasts for two weeks, while the actual filmmaking aspect of the MMM is only one day. However, in a sense, it picks up where Froshlife ends.
"Froshlife is great but it's all about the freshman experience," Fleishman said. "MMM is all about the filmmaking experience."
Likewise, the MMM includes students of all years.
"I had heard nothing but great things from people who were involved last year about having fun on the sets, in the editing room and with the general experience of the Movie Making Marathon," said senior David Wagner, a first-time participant.
At its core, the MMM revolves around giving interested students a chance to experience something they may otherwise be too busy to do. It is also intended to illuminate the world of filmmaking to students who have no experience with the art.
"There should be nothing intimidating about this," Benfey said. "The whole idea is to propagate the fun of filmmaking and de-mystify the whole process and make it approachable to everybody."
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