AICE changed up the rules for this year’s Camp Kuleshov trailer competition, which is accepting submissions until September 5th.
Since its founding in 2002, CK has invited assistant editors, assistant audio engineers and assistant graphic/vfx artists at AICE member companies to show what they can do in three specific categories: editing, graphic design and audio.
Challenged with occasionally genre-bending tasks like customizing trailers, creating title sequences and applying new sound design to legendary films, past participants found source material from separate lists of films that corresponded to each of the three categories. This year, they’re all going to drink from the same well.
Dating back more than a half-century, the list includes everything from noir classics like The Maltese Falcon to animated trips like A Scanner Darkly, with more than a dozen additional categories in between. This year’s listing for the “Worst Movie Ever Made” category is 2001’s Glitter.
Other changes include an update to the graphic design category. According to an AICE press release, past design challenges “ranged from creating an opening title sequence for films that lacked one to designing posters for films that positioned them as from a different genre.” This year, all the participants will be asked to create “an awesome trailer,” just like the competitors in the editing category.
Category winners from each AICE Chapter will go head-to-head for the coveted “Lev” Award, named for the Russian film theorist Lev Kuleshov, and honored at the official Show and Awards Presentation during the last two weeks of October.
Camp Kuleshov seems to grow more popular among the assistants who take part in it and the veterans who support it every year.
“I’m thrilled about the passion and continued involvement and support that keeps our Camp K competition and festival thriving,” says Cutters’ Kathryn Hempel, who cofounded the competition in 2002. “The participation from all the assistants — as well as the senior artists and editors, support staff and owners and EPs who judge, mentor and support their efforts — fills me with pride for our amazing community.”
Like filmmaking itself, the competition is more complex and, ultimately, more enjoyable than these few paragraphs may seem to suggest. For a thorough explanation of Camp Kuleshov, please click here.
2017 Camp Kuleshov source films and genres
The Manchurian Candidate (1962) — Political Thriller
The Thing With Two Heads (1972) — B Movie
Zoolander (2001) — Satire
Dave (1993) — Political Comedy
The Maltese Falcon (1941) — Film Noir
Man With A Movie Camera (1929) — Silent Film
Glitter (2001) — Worst Movie Ever Made
Them (1954) — Science FIction
Vanishing Point (1971) — Road Film
The Music Man (1962) — Musical
Let The Right One In (2008) — Foreign
1984 (1956) — Dystopian Drama
The Doors (1991) — Directed by Oliver Stone
A Scanner Darkly (2006) — Animated
Gun Crazy (1950) — Heist Film
