Young filmmakers

Students across the UAE were asked to produce a movie on their mobile phones for the Two Minute Movie Competition.

The contest, which was established in collaboration between MBC2, Nokia and the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), gave students an opportunity to apply their movie making skills within the time and space rules.

Four first-year applied communications students from Dubai Men's College (DMC), Yasser Al Khayyat, Sultan Saleh, Rashed Al Marzouqi and Saif Jamal, teamed up to produce two movies about anger management and self control.

Students speak about their movies

"The main message of The Vending Machine is that when frustrating situations arise, on should stay calm so in the end you will get what you want," Al Marzouqi said. "Submitting to our anger and getting so hyped up over silly circumstances will only make things worse."

Meanwhile, Football, portrayed an overconfident football player who repeatedly fails to score a goal.

Students explained that in these situations the trick is to stay calm and confident – but not too confident.

"Sometimes we get so carried away by our successes that we don't remember that in the end we are human and we can err," said Al Khayyat. "The main message in these two movies is that we must control our anger and frustration and not vice versa."

The obstacles

Students, however, said that they faced some challenges while making the movie considering the required channels and the allotted time and space.
"It's not only trying to get your message across in two minutes," said Al Khayyat. "It's trying to do it in two minutes using a mobile phone.

Considering the quality, it can be quite difficult."

Students said that scenes where there was heavy movement were difficult to capture on a mobile phone and would often turn up very blurry and unclear. However, these young moviemakers claimed that these obstacles enabled them to learn a thing or two about editing and camera movement.

"Facing such challenges gave us an opportunity to figure out how to solve them," said Jamal. "And this is important considering our field. When we had difficulty during editing procedures, our teacher helped us out."

Faculty speak

Guy Brooksbank, applied communication faculty in charge of the project, said that this was an exceptional experience seeing his students progress from the beginning to the final stages of filmmaking.

"This was a wonderful opportunity for first-year students to get a hands-on opportunity filming their work," he said. "These types of projects are essential to building confidence in their own talent."

Watch the movies online

The award will be given to the winners at the DIFF this December, and submissions will air on the Movies in Motion website.

The Vending Machine

The first movie, titled The Vending Machine, is about a frustrated student trying to purchase a drink from an uncooperative vending machine.

The student slips a coin into the machine, however to his dismay the drink doesn't come out. After the student violently kicks and shakes the machine in a vain attempt to obtain his drink, another student comes along and calmly slips a coin into the machine and gets his drink.

Football

Football, is about an over-confident and zealous football player whose macho attitude only leads him to failure. Not focusing on the game, the player makes repeated attempts at scoring a goal.

Failing to do so, the player only becomes more aggravated and furious, distracted even more from his concentration and exacerbating the situation. Moments later, another player comes along and easily scores the goal.