NC State Student Film, The Strong One, Receives CMF Best Picture, Director Awards

THE STRONG ONE, a short film produced by a team of three NC State University seniors, received Best Picture and Best Director awards at this summer’s Campus MovieFest (CMF) Hollywood, the finals for this international student filmmakers competition.

The winning team members – Josh Bielick, Nicholas Sailer and Tim Reavis – traveled to Hollywood for the 11th annual red carpet CMF Hollywood Awards held at the Globe Theatre at Universal Studios on Saturday, June 23.

Their film was one of 200 selected from over a thousand submissions during the 2011-2012 Campus MovieFest World Tour. The films were created by student filmmakers from about 100 campuses, winning top honors at their school to qualify for competition at CMF Hollywood. Nearly 1,000 student filmmakers attended the international festival, joined by special guests including actors Jack McBrayer, 30 Rock; Danny Pudi, Community; and Horatio Sanz, Saturday Night Live, and host Adam Ferrara, Top Gear.

Bielick, who graduated from NC State in May 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in business management and a concentration in entrepreneurship from the Poole College of Management, was the film’s director of photography. Reavis, who graduated with a bachelor’s in English and a concentration in creative writing from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, was the writer and one of the actors in the film. Sailer, a senior in industrial design in the College of Design, was director and screenwriter.

Meeting Film Industry Leaders

The international festival provided the students an opportunity to learn from and network with leaders from throughout the film industry.

“It was so cool seeing people I love watching on the screen doing Q&As and giving out awards,” Bielick said.

He was speaking of the CMF Hollywood’s Q&A’s with Academy Award winners Jon Landau (Avatar and Titanic) and Wally Pfister (Inception and The Dark Knight) and workshops presented by industry leaders. Other activities included advance studio screenings from Universal and Disney, networking opportunities, a College Battle of the Bands concert, backlot tours and more. A Resumes and Reels program provided an opportunity for students to meet one-on-one with industry leaders for advice and guidance.

“The experience at CMF Hollywood was surreal,” Sailer said. “It really made me think about all the people that have helped me get to this point in my life: From my parents, my siblings, my teachers, my classmates, and competitors. It has been an amazing journey.”

CMF also announced over $100,000 in opportunities for student filmmakers with partners including Lenovo, Norton and Cybergeddon, Panasonic and the International 3D Society, and the Elfenworks Foundation.

“We began Campus MovieFest with the goal of letting students tell their stories on the big screen,” said David Roemer, co-founder of Campus MovieFest. “As we now enter our second decade of CMF, we couldn’t be more thrilled by the passion of the student filmmakers, the quality of their movies, and the exceptional support from the industry leaders and premier brands.”

Other highlights from the event included a “Seize the NIght” Film Your Own Ending Competition, in which the student filmmakers had the opportunity to create alternative endings to Lenovo’s ‘Seize the Night’ ad for its Ultrabook ‘Book of Do’ advertising campaign.

The Campus MovieFest 2012-13 World Tour kicks off in August 2012. View The Strong One and other CMF winning films on the CMF website. Two other NC State campus-level award winners – Best Drama Twenty-Six and Best Comedy Intl Lobby – also competed in the CMF international finals.

What’s Next?

Poole College communications, in am email interview, asked the team about their future goals.

Sailer said he is continuing his industrial design studies at NC State while working on his feature film, IPSIETY. “After I graduate, I plan to pursue directing and filmmaking, but overall, I don’t want my creativity limited by one medium. He also writes a blog.

Bielick is seeking to continue film production and continuing studies in design management. His recent work is available on his website, joshbielick.com.

Related story

The Strong One Puts NC State Student Film Team on the Path to Hollywood

Photo

Left: the team after winning the NC State level CMF competition (left to right: Josh Bielick, Nicholas Sailer and Tim Reavis.). The image on the right, from the CMF Facebook site, shows the team in Hollywood.

Hometown Info

Josh Bielick is originally from Pompano Beach, Fla., and moved to North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park region in 2006, living first in Rolesvile and then in Raleigh, since 2010. He attended Highlands Christian Academy for high school, in Deerfield Beach, Fla.

Nicholas Sailer is from Lewisville, N.C., and was home schooled.