History

The Film Team was created in February of 2004, but its roots are firmly grounded in the fall of 2003 during a New Media Arts class, ENGL 411. It was there that students from various disciplines and backgrounds got to know each other and realized that they all had a common interest in film. After working on a class project, Ninja Bob, and attending a New Media Arts Festival in the CSU system, they decided they wanted film here at Cal Poly. The majority of the CSUs have film majors, minors, or programs; however, Cal Poly did not even have a club dedicated to film.

Currently the Film Team only has one real film under its belt, a short film by Benjamin Kantor entitled "Normal Things." Most members are currently working on developing a script for some Halloween shorts and are already planning for next year's 48 hour film festival.

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Q&A

Who are you?

The Cal Poly Film Team, a film club that produces movies of all types and showcases them to Cal Poly students.

What do you do in the Film Team?

Members can work in any and all aspects of filmmaking. Some students enjoy script development and pre-production work. Others work primarily with the actors and the story development. We have people who only like to do camera work, lighting, or editing. And if you don't really even want to work on the films themselves, we still need PR people to help with the movie premieres and other logistics of the club.

What type of movies do you make?

That mostly depends on the writers; but we'll do pretty much any type of film. Because the club is small we focus primarily short films, these range in subjects from zombies and robberies to romantic comedies and human dramas. We also do documentaries about Cal Poly and SLO life.

Why are you doing this?

Why not? Cal Poly does not have a film major or minor and so students who were interested in the subject got together and made it happen. Film is an important part of our modern culture and film making is quickly becoming an excellent skill to have.

What type of equipment do you have?

We shoot everything on mini-dv tapes. They're cheap, re-useable, and have good picture quality. When we're shooting the quarterly film, we use a Canon XL1s. For the documentaries and lower grade films we may use Canon ZR-65's. Most of our equipment is borrowed from MDS on Cal Poly or is owned by members.