Each year video festivals take place all over the world, providing both professional and amateur filmmakers the chance to showcase their work. On March 5, Spring Arbor University will provide an opportunity for students from the university and other colleges across the states to showcase their talents in the second annual Lumenocular Video Festival.

This year’s event will begin with screenings of the video entries in White Auditorium at 5:30 p.m. and the awards ceremony will begin at 8:00 p.m. There will be no charge for entry into the event, and formal attire is suggested but not required. SAU students David Blackburn and Paul Drake will be the hosts of the evening.

The committee, which consists of six SAU students and a faculty advisor, has been planning the festival and working hard all year in preparation for the evening. A great deal of effort has gone into raising awareness of the event, planning the evening, and encouraging students to submit their work.

“We have to plan a couple of things,” said committee faculty advisor Jen Letherer, “how to make people aware there’s a video festival, call for entries, getting the videos, getting them judged, and then having the event ceremony.”

This year has seen a rise in video submissions, which was quite exciting to the committee who saw the increase as one of the primary objectives this year.

“The event is becoming a bigger deal,” said Letherer, “People are aware, and the caliber of videos is going up. [This year], we had to make selections. There are several videos we won’t have time to screen.”

The committee has also been dedicated to the detailed planning of the evening. As last year was the premiere of the festival, there were things the committee took away from the experience.

“One thing we learned was to plan ahead,” said student festival coordinator Allie Keehn. “The big thing people are going to notice is the event is going to be more planned out. Even in October we were working really hard. We even pushed the event back because last year there were a lot of other events on the same night.”

“I think a lot of work has gone into making the festival more public. They’ve done a lot of work into making it feel more professional,” said committee member Bryan Dennis.

This year there will be a variety of awards given to the best submissions including, Best of Festival, People’s Choice, Best Shot, Best Sound, Best Awkward Moment, best in each time category, and the Jen’s Choice Award given by Letherer.

“I always give out a Jen’s Choice Award,” said Letherer. “When I give out that award, I think it’s a video that is important to point out and is overlooked.”

A couple of the committee members offered advice to perspective audience members, especially those who have not attended a film festival before.

“One thing that would be awesome,” said committee member Phil Smith, “is if people would interact with the actual filmmakers. They are very creative, and who knows who the next Spielberg, Quentin Terantino, or crazy director could be? It might be one of these people.”

“You should bring a creative mind, be willing to be inspired by others’ work, and an optimistic attitude,” said Keehn.

The committee believes this festival is important to the community of students at SAU.

“It acts a platform for SAU students to showcase their work, and to showcase it with work other students are doing. It acts as a bar. The more often you can show students work of great caliber, the more it raises the bar,” said Letherer. “Students should be able to see the work done here and other places. The Christian community has a reputation for not being good at visual storytelling, and the more we can show we are committed to our art the better it is.”

The committee encourages everyone to come out to the event, even if this would be the first time they had ever attended a film festival.

“[You get] to see what other people, from other schools even, are creating, have a good time, and see how good some people are at visual storytelling or editing,” said Smith.

“Everyone at Spring Arbor watches movies, why not go see a live event? It’s in its true element, its native form. Every student who has a temptation to pick up a DVD on Friday night, just come see the real film,” said Dennis.

Additional information and videos from last year’s festival can be found on the Lumenocular Video Festival’s website at www.lumenocular.com. Also additional information or questions about the event can be directed to the student festival coordinator at Allison.Keehn@arbor.edu.