Harvard Shorts—Your Three Minutes to Fame

Harvard what? Harvard Shorts Film Festival, the first of its kind at Harvard, is a university-wide filmmaking contest that will feature the best three-minute digital movies made by anyone in the Harvard community. If walking down the crimson carpet and enjoying celebrity status aren’t enough incentives, winners can also win prizes of up to $750.

The catch is that the movie must be related to academic research and teaching. The goal of the festival emphasizes the creative translation of scholarly content into an interactive multimedia presentation. Sponsored by the Office for the Dean of Arts and Humanities, Harvard Shorts is the brainchild of Shigehisa Kuriyama, a professor of East Asian studies who is a strong proponent of incorporating media projects into teaching and course assignments (like swapping podcasts for papers). Through this contest, Kuriyama hopes to demonstrate the powerful ways that a film can convey a message to its audience, and how the use of images and music can make a subject matter more interesting.

The best part is that you don't have to be technologically savvy or an aspiring filmmaker to enter the contest. The whole idea behind Harvard Shorts is that nowadays, it's a lot easier to create multimedia presentations with software like Keynote and Movie Maker—you no longer need the expensive equipment that is traditionally used to produce movies.

"Many people don't appreciate how easy it is to use this medium without special training," Kuriyama said. "Basically anybody can express their idea in this form of multimedia presentation."

The submission period starts on Mar. 15 and ends on April 9. Check out the Web site for more information. Who knows? This might be your three minutes to fame.