Student Short Film & Special Project Showcase

The following were projects created for a course titled Vampires, Wicthes & Zombies... Oh My! Students were asked to explore the concept of magic, science and religion and in doing so create an all new, never before seen short film in the Autumn of 2015. Previous projects included creating new religions linked to popular culture. Students were asked to draw upon various sources and in doing so explore the concepts being presented in class. The only limitation was their imagination!

The idea was inspired by students themselves as I had come across some short films like VICTIM - A Student Award Winning Short Horror Film (Based on Slender Man) by Eddie Adamson and the Student Short Film Showcase by NC State. The end result was the following three short films ranked based on a class vote,

Black Madness (1st Place)

By Antoine Noël, Vincent Picard & Benjamin Fernet

Tin-Tin and Funboy go to a meeting point that T-bird gave them on a dark Friday night. Funboy, who wasn’t at ease, tells Tin-Tin that he wants to change the place of the deal because he thinks the place is scary and creepy Tin-Tin tells him to stop being a baby and to be a man. Then, Funboy tells him that he is scared because he always feels watched, that he thinks it’s the girl they had to kill in the ghetto a few years ago, since he always felt a presence and has seen some paranormal activities around him. After a while Tin-Tin receives a phone call from T-Bird who tells him that the drug dealer who was supposed to show up was murdered. The two guys, who were mad because they couldn’t make money this night, go to Tin-Tin’s house to relax and have a drink. Suddenly, while they are talking about their day around the campfire, Funboy hears a noise coming from the woods. A few seconds later a guy with white make up on his face shows up, steals Tin-Tin’s gun and tells them that he will kill both of them. Right after, Funboy realises that the guy is the boyfriend of the girl in the ghetto. The odd man then says that he wanted to take his revenge and shots Funboy in the chest, who dies right away. Tin-Tin runs in the woods away from the murderer. The guy follows him and scares him. Then, Tin-Tin takes the gun back and kills him. After a couple of days, Tin-Tin doesn’t feel well and sees all kind of apparitions of the murderer. He goes crazy because of the murderer and kills himself. - Team Madness

ZOZO (2nd Place)

By Karolanne Fontaine, Billie Fortin, Cassandra Nadeau & Leah Perreault

Most think that Ouija boards is just a silly game, that they don't work. Even if the planchette moves, who's to say it was actually a spirit, and not just one of your friends playing a trick on you?  Leah, Emelie, Karo and Cass learn the hard way that spirit boards are not something you should mess with, as certain entities may never let you go... - Team ZOZO

He Who Lurks (3rd Place)

By Corinna Pranke, Malou Merovitz, Matthew Robb, Mathieu Chabot, Ahmad Nazari

One cold November day, Emma’s moving into her new college residence with the help of her parents. As Emma settles into her new place strange things begin to happen to her. Keys being placed in strange places, water running without explanation, stacked cups, door opening when it’s locked, plates falling and etc. Emma fears she’s being stalked by something, she goes crazy locking and unlocking her front door three to five times a night telling herself that nobody can get in its locked. Not knowing what else to do, she search’s for help from the beyond. Placing candles around her room, buying a totem and a dream catcher she summons a spirit to protect her. But when she wakes up the next morning it doesn’t seem to work, candles all over her room, papers teared to shreds around, and a note on the window written in blood saying “did you really think these would help you”. Emma now terrified decides to call her dad for help. When the conversation is done and her dad can’t come to her aid until tomorrow morning, Emma decides to film the front to see if she can catch it coming into her apartment. Once her dad comes in the next morning scolding her about not locking her door, she explains everything and then shows her dad the video hoping she caught whatever it is on film. Once her dad sees what it is, he leaves her in the apartment alone to go get the police. Emma alone in her apartment, decides to watch the rest of the film to catch it leaving. As she gets to the end of the video she realizes that she never sees the thing leave, she says to herself “if it never left….that means it’s still here” she slowly gets her feet off her bed and all of a sudden something grabs her foot. Everything fades to darkness as the sound of tearing flesh and spine are heard. - Team Lurk

Previous Special Projects

Modern Witchez 

By Jessica Boissonneau and Vanesa Lapierre

In 2098, “Modern Witchez” is a religion based on existing oral histories and written artifacts that were left over from the old world. This consists of Summerland. Witches believe that their souls go to Summerland, a place where they can rest before reincarnation into a new body. “In spring we celebrate life and rebirth then in winter, decay and death to make way for new life.” (Sabin, 2010) Witches believe that if they have lived their life to the fullest, having lived many lives; their Goddess will allow them to stay in Summerland for an eternal afterlife. According to Singer, MacGregor, and Alexander (2012), the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth brings them a sense of stability, knowing there is something more to life than just the physical brings promise for the future. They live a happier, stronger life knowing that death isn’t the end of it. However, there is one single day in a year where witches can be in contact with the dead. It is known as the festival of remembering ancestors as October 31st is associated with death and endings (McColman, 2002).  Read More... - Team Witchez

By Jane Roberge

The Over Game is a religion based on the belief that our world is a gigantic video game for superior beings called the Ultimate Gamers. The adepts of the Over Game, called Gamers, have no particular rule to follow or a style of life to adopt. They just have to believe. Many of the adepts choose to make homage to the Ultimate Gamers by playing video games, alone or in group. This way of belief is more and more popular and this without any recruitment. It appears with the first popular arcade game in the late 1950’s and never run out since.  In way to make my own homage to the Ultimate Gamers and make discover the video game culture to people who know almost nothing about it, I choose to create a short quiz where I explore some aspects of the video game culture through time.  My first inspiration for this project and religion was my brother and my cousin, who are two great gamers with high believes in video games. By speaking with them, I have set the bases of the Over Game and I am now proud to present a religion as exact as possible to the believes of the gamers of 2014. - Team Game

Potterism

By Noah Hogg

To promote my religion, I decided to make a funny poster.  The catch phase  ‘‘Potterism, Where playing with your wand is acceptable’’ is, I find, a good way to attract people. It shows that Potterism is not always that serious and that is what people want, to have fun. There is no fun in life if you’re always serious. You have to learn to have fun and enjoy life! Not many religions take the time to relax and have fun; they’re all thinking about god and how thank him or how not to disappoint him but we in the Potterism religion like to relax from time to time and that is what the poster shows. Also there is a church in the background. This is the religious aspect of the poster.  The church has the Deathly Hollows sign on the roof. It is the symbol of our religion and we want every one to see it and show that we are proud of it. They black sky in the poster represents the dark and the snow in the air and on the coat shows the light. It shows that there was bide times but that they are behind us, that the good times have arrived. Light represents the good. It represents happiness and that is another value that we respect in Potterism and we want people to know it. Further more, the wand in the follower’s hand bring the magic aspect of the religion into action and is the crucial part of our catch phrase. Finally, on the bottom of the poster we can read ‘’ Join the movement and get a free pendulum!!’’ again this is to lighten the mood and add a little funniness in the poster but if it can bring more followers than it a two for one! - Team Potter

Fanism

By Luca-Xavier and Allister James

This masterpiece was created all the way back in 2014 by two friends Luca-Xavier and Allister James. The photo was very popular at the time because 2014 was the year LeBron James returned to Cleveland Cavaliers after spending 4 years with the Miami Heat. It was one of the biggest moments in sport history. Luca and Allister believed that these superstars were perceived as Gods and their fans were a powerful following and were comparable with the following other religions had at the time. The fans were so intense that they started their own religion, now known as Fanism, which is now the most practiced religion in the world. They were both considered the saviors for those who believed in them. People would pray to LeBron and worship him just like they did Jesus Christ. They decided to express this by recreating an already famous religious painting, ‘He Lives’ by Simon Dewing, and replaced Jesus Christ with LeBron James. They replaced the vibrant white robe with a Cleveland Cavalier jersey but kept the background relatively the same. The title was inspired by Nike’s Witness campaign that they had with LeBron. - Team Fan

The Freedom Group

By Westley Lunge

For this project, I will be looking at three different religions and taking different aspects from each of them to create my own religion. I had to research the three religions first before I can do anything. The three religions I decided on are: Christianity, Buddhism and the Australian Aboriginal Religion. The reason I chose those three is because they are unique and different when it comes to what they believe in and their traditions. For example, Buddhists believe that there is not only one God but many. To me that is unique because it lets people pick what they want to view as a God.  Another example of an aspect that I integrated into my religion was the idea of a higher being who a person could look up to and worship. I liked that idea because it can sometimes give people a moral boost and make them more content and give them something to believe in together. Another part of my religion has to do with believing in nature and how nature acts as a God for some people. The Australian Aboriginal Religion is a religion that I discovered on the Internet after doing some research about religions and cultures that worship spirits and nature. In the picture below (From Google Images, 1864, WR Thomas, A South Australian Corroboree) we can see a tribe in the forest gathering around a fire and conjuring spirits or contacting the afterlife. This is very different from a religion like Christianity because we would not see things like that. Instead of worshipping the spirits, one could worship any mythical creature to their liking and think of it as a God and something to look up to. - Team Freedom

Fruitism Commercial 

By Jérémie Daoust & Audrey Corriveau

Fruitism (or Ancient Fruitism) is a polytheistic religion based on the instructions of the Great Sage who lived thousands of years ago in Ancient China. Ever since he was resurrected, the Fruitism expanded all around the world, having several other variants depending on where it’s located. As in many other religions, magic had a really close link and an important role to play towards its creation. Read More... - Team Fruit

When paleism began, Ushal was sent to earth around 10 000 BC with an unknown vision. Ushal was what you would call a Pale. He was the first of them. When he got to earth there were humans living amongst it. Ushal began preaching Palism to the humans. He told them that they too could become pales, and that in order to do so they must be “kewl”. This meant being Kind, Entertaining, Wise, and Lustful to him. At the end of a humans life, a human would be judged if he had spent his life being “kewl”. If Ushal approved, that human would become a pale. The earth began to fill with pales and as long as the humans were “kewl” with them, it would bring life to the pales and they would live on. Pales depended on Humanity to be kind to them. If a human were to disregard this command to be “kewl” to the pales, at the end of their life time, when Ushal judged them, he would send them back to relive their life being “laym”. This meant they were Lustless, Ambitionless, Yuck, and Meaningless. Yuck meant that everything was distasteful and uncomfortable for them, and they were condemned to this life forever. They would live it over and over. Throughout a humans lifetime, if no pales are seen, it is impossible for them to be “kewl” to them. So Ushal sends them back to live their lives again until his commandment is fulfilled. Each time they get sent back to relive their lives, they become shorter and shorter, until they eventually vanish and never return. A pale can die if humanity is not “kewl” to them or if a human is a Duush to them. This means they are Disrespectful, Uneventful, Unintelligent, Stale, and Hateful towards pales. This ultimately hurts the pales and can potentially kill them. Ushal is considered the leader of the pales, and guide to the humans, and although the creation of the universe is unknown, Ushal leads us all to unveil the mystery. Join him to help him uncover his vision to answer your world was created. - Team KEWL