Students create first 3D film at Oregon State University MovieFest

After winning the Campus MovieFest for best drama, the same team that brought you "Ménage" is working on its next greatest production, but in three dimension, to be shown at Internationals. Liberal arts majors with options in new media communications, Josh Peschka and John Schulze, both juniors, are the first students at Oregon State to film and create a 3D movie.

After being recognized for their movie, Peschka and Schulze were asked if they wanted to create a 3D film that would also be displayed and competed against at the event.

"It's a zombie horror movie and basically it's a guy who gets caught up in the middle of a Zombie apocalypse and he goes to save his dad and his girlfriend," Schulze said. "Its basically his journey on the way,"

The duo was shipped a camera and had ten days to shoot the film, send the camera back and then had another ten days to edit and finish it.

Some production days lasted up to 16 hours, with editing taking up to 48 hours straight. With such a quick deadline and having to edit without reshooting anything, things were definitely missed, but they say they made it work, even with the police called on them while shooting.

Peschka was the only one out of the pair that had any 3D filming experience, but even that was minimal. The new media department was pretty unfamiliar with shooting 3D as well, so Peschka and Schulze had to basically teach themselves how to film and edit 3D.

"My brother wrote the story and the script. He wrote it all and then we sat down for four hours and completely tore it apart and revised it," Peschka said.

Peschka's brother, Jeremy Peschka, is an Oregon State senior who is currently completing his final term in Prague, but was very much a contributing factor. Josh and Jeremy Peschka each put up $200 so the film would have an official budget.

"It's our first film with a budget . (the money) went a long way, it helped out a lot," Peschka said. "Since it goes to Internationals, we want a really good product, because it's a great way to network because there will be directors and producers there."


Additionally, if the pair win they will receive a 3D camera, editing equipment and have their film shown at other film festivals as well as on Virgin Mobile Airplanes.

Peschka and Schulze recruited anyone they could to be actors, including their main actress from "Ménage," Carley Bonchonsky. While Schulze stuck strictly to filming and editing, Peschka did manage to be an extra in the film for two different scenes.

Peschka and Schulze have filmed a lot, but filming for 3D was hard to adjust to at first. After a while, though, they say it became easier.

"The only real difference was, there's some rules like, you have to be away from the camera a little further," Schulze said. "You can't pan to fast, there's no zoom, you're kind of locked into one view really, so you have to work around that and that was the most challenging thing I think."

However, not being able to film close serves as an advantage in the final product, giving the film a nice depth of field. Otherwise, images would pop out at the audience too much and hurt their eyes.


"We did a lot of blood flying off of people, I mean, obviously, it's a zombie film," Schulze said. "But you kind of have to do it twice . you're filming two separate screens so you have to do all the effects over again on the other side."

"The position has to be exactly right. The camera shot one image but there's a filter that splits it in two so you have two of the same images," Peschka said.

The film is meant to be scary so some effects they worked with were blood flying off the screen and an unexpected hand popping out. For the most part, though, it's strictly about the depth in the screen that conventional cameras cannot shoot.

They will be premiering their final zombie movie, as well as winning drama "Ménage" at 10 p.m. at Cloud 9 on May 25. The cover is $2 dollars, but will help Peschka and Schulze get to Los Angeles for Internationals June 23-26th.

Brittany Galindo, staff writer
737-2231 news@dailybarometer.com