It’s trailer season at AICE as the postproduction trade association’s signature Camp Kuleshov contests that call for assistants to re-cut, re-mix and re-design films and TV shows are in the works at four of its chapters: New York, Los Angeles, Detroit and Toronto.
The New York and Los Angeles Camp Kuleshovs, the entries for which are about to be judged, will hand out their awards on the same night, Wednesday, November 12. Full results will be available on the AICE web site the following day. Detroit’s Camp Kuleshov competition will be both judged and awarded on the same day, November 19. And the Toronto Chapter will be kicking off its Camp Kuleshov competition early next year, with an entry deadline in early January and an awards presentation set for January 21.
This year marks a greater level of cooperation between the chapters when it comes to Camp Kuleshov, which AICE International Board President Craig Duncan, EP and Partner at Cutters Studios in Chicago, endorses wholeheartedly. “Camp Kuleshov has become an annual rite for many of our chapters around the country,” said Duncan, “and it’s nice to see them sharing the thinking and strategizing that goes into these events. They’re great opportunities for our younger talents to show off their creativity and drive, too. It’s nice for them to get the recognition they deserve yet seldom receive at this early point in their careers.”
The L.A. Chapter, for example, is sharing the same set of rules, source material films and eligibility requirements the Chicago Chapter used earlier this year on its competition, which announced its winners on August 28. That contest tasked assistants and other young up-and-coming talents to create a mash-up of a different genre, working from a trio of classic films from the 1980s: “E.T.,” “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Sixteen Candles.” The top winner was assistant editor Aaron Porzel of Optimus, who won the Grand Prize for Editing with “Space Cops,” a comedy mashup of “E.T.” and “Beverly Hills Cop.”
In New York, Camp Kuleshov is again being led by Big Sky owner and editor Chris Franklin and editor Valerie Lasser. Here entrants have an impressively eclectic list of 19 films to choose from. Assistant editors have to select one of the films and cut a trailer that promotes it as a picture of a different genre, or from a different director or writer.
For example, they can revamp the campy 1968 sci-fi romp “Barbarella” into Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller “North by Northwest,” or recut “The Grapes of Wrath” as a horror film. Another option is to choose two films from the list and create a trailer that promotes the mashed up films as being from a third genre. An example would be combining “Saturday Night Fever” with Woody Allen’s “Radio Days” and promoting it as a zany comedy directed by Jerry Lewis.
Assistant audio engineers in Camp Kuleshov New York can take any clip up to 90 seconds from two silent classics, Buster Keaton’s “The General” (1926) or Charlie Chaplin’s “The Gold Rush” (1925), and create a sound design for it. And graphic design assistants have to take a film from the master list of source films and create a one-sheet promotion poster that presents the new film with a different genre, director or writer.
As with the Chicago competition, the L.A. Chapter is also creating a separate category called Tent City, which is open to entries submitted by employees of AICE member companies. This includes runners, interns, receptionists, librarians as well as freelance assistant editors who are sponsored by an AICE LA member company. The L.A. Camp Kuleshov competition is being led by Apache Color EP and managing director LaRue Anderson and Cosmo Street executive producer Yvette Cobarrubias-Sears.
In Detroit, the Camp Kuleshov competition, led by Hudson Edit EP Kristin Redman, is taking a somewhat different tack. Rather than present assistants with a range of motion pictures from which to work, they’ve set up a contest that calls for them to choose any show previously or currently airing on FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, HBO, AMC or Showtime and create a 60-second TV show opening sequence for it using source material from a different series. An example would be reimagining the opening sequence for “The A Team” using footage from “Diff’rent Strokes.” The only material they’re allowed to use from the original show is the opening theme music and the opening titles, although that’s not mandatory.
The Detroit Camp Kuleshov is also taking a different approach in terms of recognizing the work. As noted, the entries will be judged and the winners announced on the same day, with a jury comprised of members of the postproduction community (including editors) as well as invited agency creative and production guests reviewing the work earlier in the day and the results and prized bestowed at an event that evening.
Full Camp Kuleshov winners will be posted on the AICE website as they become available, and on the AICE Facebook page.
