I've seen my fair share of student films over the years and am happy to report that these films have now also evolved into the first ever TV sitcom created by current Penn students.

In the first episode of "Classless", Steve, a student who has been shunned by the school newspaper goes on a mission to create a second student newspaper.  In doing so it looks likehe'll be getting second-rate journalists as well.  Laughter of course ensues.

So here's the deal.

This show is well written, well cast and well edited (in a sort of a similar manner as "The Office").  There's some great dialogue and characters (check out the "business card guy") and the show moves rather quickly.

After the jump enjoy the first episode of "Classless"!

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Since my filmmaking days at Penn, technology has changed in such a way that the films the students put out these days look really very professional.

That said, last week, Brian Tran (W'10) (and former "Penn in Cannes 2009" correspondent) let me know about a new reinterpretation of Lady Gaga's "Speechless" music video he and his friends Kevin McAleer (C'10), and Maddy Dopico (C'13) put together for a class project.

What is the meaning of this video?

Brian tells us,

"Our actual goal is eventually get enough hits on the video to have it get passed onto Lady Gaga herself. The meaning of the video itself it pretty convoluted, much like Lady Gaga's videos. We tried to pay homage to her and her aesthetic as well as other films such as Weekend at Bernie's and Misery.

The more pretentious meaning of the video is it is a commentary on alcoholism and binge drinking in youth culture. In the past, drinking has covered personal intimate problems, but now, with this generation, alcohol and certainly drugs serves to eclipse a larger, macro fear, stemming from a childhood in the age of terror. This is why every time a character drinks to excess, they lose their voice (hence the subtitles) and their ability to communicate with other characters.

The main character is in love with his straight best friend and after repeated failed efforts to win his heart, decides that the only reasonable course of action is to get his friend blackout drunk to fulfill his perfect dream life. Alcohol is used as a means to an end, but it doesn't succeed in the film."

More talented Penn Class Projects you should check out HERE

More Penn video gems from the 70's, 80's and 90's HERE

More of my DT "Music Monday" posts HERE



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In honor of Valentine's Day (and the last post of my Valentine's Day Sampler Week), I bring you "Yin/Yang", a sweet love video from Nickelodeon finalist Jason Merrin (C'13) about a relatively sad boy and a relatively happy girl meeting somewhere in the middle.

Check out scenes around Penn as well as the cool animation Jason integrates into this film!  I personally chuckled at the animated tumbleweed you'll see rolling on 40th street!


More Penn class project videos HERE

All of my "Love" DT videos (from past and present) HERE





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The other day for my Games and Movies series I showed you a video of an intense game of Risk condensed into one minute of video.

Today, I bring you back to your childhood with a video of another childhood game/activity...

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Yesterday, I began Games and Movies Week with some news of People's Choice Award nominations for some of our alumni's films.

Today, it's game time!

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Since we've been doing Pennfest here in LA (the emerging film and music festival), I have seen (and featured on DT) more and more great animation shorts from Penn's Digital Media Design department.

Now news that an undergrad from DMD is a finalist in a reputable animation festival.

And he needs your vote...

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From their original thought of dressing up as "Men in Tights", find out in the documentary above which menacing characters these undergrads eventually chose to become for Halloween! (this class project video was filmed last year)



Other DT Halloween Posts:

• Find out Liz Banks' (C'96) favorite Halloween costume as she reported to Jay Leno HERE (VIDEO)
• Watch "The Office Vampire" starring Vanessa Mizzone (C'97) HERE
• This male model is on the packages of almost every Halloween costume you've been trying on!  See the photos HERE

DT coverage of more creative class project videos HERE

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Alumni Weekend May 13-16, 2011 Available hotels here

Graduation May 16, 2011 Available hotels here

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I could have saved this post for another "Love Week" series I'll be doing in February 2010, but I just couldn't wait.

Why? Well, you'll see when you finish this very smart film called "Love Notes".

This film was created by Erin Sougstad (C'12), Kyle Olson (C'10), Luv Patel (C'12), Abhay Sharma (C'12) and Shreyans Goenka (C'12) for their Writing class in Cinema- Witness Spectators and Voyeurism (Spring 09).

This film reminds me of the 1996 student film I did where one man runs through campus all in the name of love!

Keep up the great work undergrads!


Other impressive Class Project films

More of posts from my "Penn's REEL deals" series

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Here's a story of an undergrad who based his film on another undergrad's succesful film. And both are great!

"The Rainbow" is a film Alex Berger (Eng'10) made during a Video II class at Penn. The idea of the assignment was to make a visual poem—where image and words come together without the use of formal dialogue.

Per Alex,

"I had seen Kevin McMullin’s film, "The Boy and the Star", and I thought it was amazing. The story was simple, yet eloquent, and the stylistic elements he employed fit so well. In addition, the film fit my style as a filmmaker. Black and white, high contrast, close-up imagery, are all stylistic elements that I often used. After receiving the assignment, I set out to recreate Kevin’s film. I wanted to use the assignment as a way to experiment with the style and to attempt to figure out exactly how Kevin made this. In the stylistic sense, I did base my film “The Rainbow” on Kevin’s film. I have never met Kevin, so I felt it was appropriate to give credit to his work, because it closely influenced mine."

The premise of Alex's film is that this boy has presumably lost everything in his life that matters. He yells and yells so loud that the fire blows out, and the smoke forms clouds up above. The clouds lead to rain, and eventually a rainbow is formed. The story then becomes the quest to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Alex continues,

"I wanted to depict the feeling of losing something and the artificial journey that can ensue after one has this type of experience. It was not meant to be a light-hearted, joyous story, and I think the whimsical style counters this nicely. I think the filmed turned out well, but it was not something that I enjoyed making. It was one of those projects where I filmed for 4 hours and edited for another 20 hours to make a 5-minute movie. As Kevin can attest to, it was largely made in the editing studio."

Other impressive Class Project films

More posts from my "Penn's REEL deals" series

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Earlier today I posted Amin Osman's (C'09) dark and disturbing film called "Table For Three".

The last of Amin's films I will post this week is also again, strangely enjoyable. The description of this trailer is as follows:

"Two stoners. A severed hand. A damsel in distress. This is one 4/20 they'll never forget. Unless they do, because it's 4/20."

Other impressive Class Project films

More posts from my "Penn's REEL deals" series

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Over the past couple of years on DT, I have showcased some enjoyably disturbing films...most of them coming from Penn new Penn alum Amin Osman (C'09).

Today on DT there are a couple more of Amin's short films that you'll find very entertaining.

If you thought he's been dark before, check out this one above called "Table for Three".  You'll never go back to your date's place again without thinking of this film!




Other impressive Class Project films

More posts from my "Penn's REEL deals" series

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A bunch of Penn undergrads including some of the talented actors from Penn's improv group Without a Net as well as some Drexel improv group students partnered together to create Wizards of West Philly, a mockumentary that can be best described as Dungeons and Dragons meets the TV stylings of "The Office" and/or the film Waiting for Guffman.  

Although instead of Dungeons and Dragons, this very well done short is about the followers of another (apparently) popular game called "Magic".  Producer Dave Farber (C'11) describes the game to me as "a newer generation thing, though there are adults (some as old as 40 we found) who play the game."

Per Wikipdeia, Magic can be described as

"Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game created by a UPenn Mathematics Graduate Student named Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993. It is loosely based on the game Dungeons and Dragons, where each player is a wizard who utilizes the magical spells, items, and fantastic creatures depicted on individual Magic cards to defeat their opponents. The game is intended for a younger audience, but has a large following among young (and not so young) adults. There are Magic grand prixs and tournaments in the U.S. much akin to Poker tournaments where players compete for cash prizes. In 2006, over $3 million was doled out in Magic tournaments across the U.S.

Watch the video above...it really is well produced!   And is it me or does Anthony Levy (C'11) remind you of Saturday Night Live's Bill Hader?

Penn actors:
Anthony Levy (C'11), Molly Mitchell (C'11), Joe Lawless (C'12), Lucy Wolf (C'12),

Drexel's actors:
Jake Beckerman - Drexel '09, Luke Giordano - Drexel '09

The crew that worked on it were from Prof. Ellen Reynolds Video 1 class:
Dave Farber (C'09), Tom Fang (W'10), Aliza Fischer (C'09), Jason Rasmussen (W'12), Kirstin Snyder (W'12)

Check out my other Funny Friday posts here!

More creative Penn class projects HERE

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Check out this very entertaining video of a guy dancing in front of the button to Dolly Parton's "9 to 5".

Perhaps the "9 to 5" lyrics with the people popping out of the button in cap and gown are a metaphor for graduating?  Regardless, this is one enjoyable video!

Check out some other really amazing Penn farewell videos that were done in the past HERE!



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Yes, "The Celebrity Apprentice" ended last night, and while the winner wasn't Penn alum Melissa Rivers, it did turn out to be her mother Joan Rivers. So there's a close win for us anyway.

On a related note, in a very last effort attempt to capitalize on this season's Apprentice fever, check out a class project video takeoff of "The Apprentice".... done Wharton style.

Watch above as Team Shy Guy and Team Pushy try to sell cookies on Locust Walk for the American Cancer Foundation and face the actors who are supposed to be (but not look like!) "Donald Trump" and "Ivanka Trump".

Other Creative Class Projects here



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Over the past month the Weigle library at Penn had its annual Mashup Contest which celebrates student creativity with video and multimedia.

Check out the top 4 winners above. These are all great, but there's just something VERY funny about our second place winner's video about the muppets talking about the big "O".:

• Video + Poem + Painting (1st place winner)
  by William Strasser
  "Whether in Classical mythology, Renaissance painting, 20th century poetry or modern music videos, depictions of suffering have never ceased to captivate audiences. I aim to juxtapose these depictions in order to highlight ways they have changed and ways that they remain the same, identifying something inherent to the human condition." 

• The Muppets Take "Manhattan" (2nd place winner)
  by Aaron Walker
  "I'm trying to show that puppets can be lewd AND funny - unlike Avenue Q. Here I've spliced the audio from Woody Allen's "Manhattan" over video from "The Muppets take Manhattan". "

• No Way Out of the Field of Dreams (3rd place winner)
  by Allison Seelig
  "I am trying to show how baseball serves an important mythic function for the nation by making it into a national security issue obsessed over by the government." 

• Slumdog Millionaire 2 (People's Choice Award-determined by online voting)
  by Akash Barot with Adam El Sehamy and Zhibo Wang
  "If you thought Slumdog Millionare was the last great Bollywood movie, you would be mistaken. Get ready for the sequel!" 

The 2009 Contest was sponsored by Penn Libraries, the Penn Humanities Forum, the Cinema Studies Program, and College Houses and Academic Services. The 2009 Video Mashup Contest award ceremony was held on April 30, 2009.

Watch ALL the entries HERE

Check out my other Funny Friday posts here!


Other Creative Class Video Projects HERE



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Back in July, I showcased Amin Osman's (C'09) Unwritten video which had a good payoff ending. Now Amin just produced Table of Three another interesting, yet pleasantly disturbing tale.

Take a look above!

Check out these other great class projects

New to DT? 14 easy suggestions to get started!

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Check out Gyro, a clever comedic short film from Kevin Conley (C'12) about a Penn student who wakes up one Saturday morning to search for his favorite food: gyros.   No matter when you graduated, one thing that rings true in this video is Kevin's humorous depiction of Locust Walk!  Watch the video above to see what I mean!

Per Kevin's description, this takes place in the 1920's commons on a Saturday! Apparently since I've graduated, dining halls are now open on Saturdays!. I would have loved that when I was at Penn! Instead the default for me was Houston Hall's Skolnik Bagels and My Favorite Muffin (I loved me the amaretto raspberry muffin!).

This whole quest for food reminds me of the film I did in 1996 about a man who stops at nothing for love ...and his favorite food. See what I mean by watching below.

More of my Now and Then Thursday posts here!

Watch other creative class project videos here!

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