Campus MovieFest (CMF) is one of the world’s largest annual student film and music festivals, where more than 500,000 students have competed for a spot at their college’s red carpet showcase and a shot at competing with hundreds of other top shorts at the national finale in Hollywood. The annual competition, which began 12 years ago, enables students of all levels in the U.S. and internationally to tell their stories on the big screen. Students receive all the necessary technology and training for free thanks to participating schools and corporate sponsors.

Within its competition, CMF also hosts a film festival called CMF in 3D, which reflects the prevalence of 3D technology in the industry. This exclusive competition, held annually for the past five years, welcomes only those students who are previous CMF winners and who are part of the Distinguished Filmmakers Network (DFN), which is a group of select top filmmakers chosen by CMF. To be eligible for DFN, students must submit a resume and reel for consideration.

“In our travels across the globe to various colleges and universities, we realized that we were discovering some truly talented filmmakers. We wanted them to have the chance to stand out, so five years ago we created DFN,” explained David Roemer, co-founder and CEO of CMF. “Through DFN, these filmmakers are given every opportunity, from participation in commercial production shoots, to special consideration for internships, to eligibility for exclusive competitions such as CMF in 3D.”

This year CMF in 3D received over 50 treatments, with 15 projects chosen for production. The teams were equipped with first-rate technology including a Panasonic Z10000 3D camera, a Panasonic 3D TV, and a Lenovo ThinkPad loaded with Grass Valley® EDIUS® Pro 6.5 software, to bring their 3D visions to life.

A panel of industry and 3D professionals will judge the submissions, and the winners will be announced and honored at CMF Hollywood, an annual weekend of events featuring workshops, screenings, and a red carpet awards ceremony to be held June 20-22, 2013. Prizes will be awarded including a $5,000 scholarship, courtesy of Grass Valley. The scholarship will be split amongst first, second, and third place winners, and each will also receive an EDIUS Pro 6.5 license.

“Our students have been clamoring for a video editing system that simply and powerfully lets them edit their 3D footage. When we realized that EDIUS met our criteria, we knew Grass Valley was the ideal software partner for CMF in 3D, and we greatly appreciate its support of Campus MovieFest and the next generation of filmmakers,” said Roemer.

EDIUS Pro 6.5 allows users to perform real-time editing in all popular standard definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) formats. It produces fast editing capabilities, delivering more results in less time and includes cutting-edge features such as real-time 3D editing with preview monitoring and the free HQX codec for 10-bit video workflow, to give filmmakers a competitive edge in producing their content.

Alex Kataoka, Product Manager, Desktop Editing Solutions at Grass Valley expressed his delight at partnering with Campus Movie Fest and looks forward to seeing what the student filmmakers can do with the powerful 3D filmmaking tools they were provided with. “Today’s next-generation filmmakers need advanced tools to produce high quality 3D creations in a timely and efficient manner, and our EDIUS platform provides incredible functionality for film editing,” he said.

“The flexibility of EDIUS allows it to run collaboratively within a shared network or as a standalone desktop or laptop, and provides an easy transition between SD and HD. No other nonlinear editing system offers such versatility or sheer speed of editing, so it will be fascinating to see how these future filmmakers maximize the potential of this technology.”

www.campusmoviefest.com