The Real Thing

Benn awfully busy lately, but for a very exciting reason.

Last Thursday, my script was selected among 9 others to be finalists in the Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmakers Award contest.

YES!

But what does that mean, exactly?

Coke has this contest where film students from the top film schools across the nation get a chance to direct their very own Coke commercial. The contest states that the commercial needs to show young people enjoying Coke in a way that also connects the the movie-going experience.

All the 10 finalists get a $7500 grant to shoot the script and make the commercial. Sooooo, that's pretty awesome.

The GRAND PRIZE winner gets $10,000, an award presented to them at ShoWest - a movie theater trade show, and has the potential for their commercial to be shown before features at a major theater chain. Also: pretty awesome.

I'm damn excited, as you could assume, and am also pretty blown away because out of the TEN finalists chosen this year, SEVEN of them are from USC. Fight on.

Now, that's pretty awesome too, except that the deadline for the finished commercial is due Jan 20, 2010 - meaning that it is going to be a big crunch of USC people and resources for the next 3 months. But, its still great to have such a huge presence for this prestigious (and delicious?) award.

Hey, our football team might be slipping (47-20 loss, to the OREGON DUCKS?! we're the godmaned Trojan Army!), but glad to know the film school is still riding high.

Anyway, will do the best to keep posting about how everything goes down, but don't be surprised if you don't see another post until 2010 either. School was already busy enough, and now its just gonna be INSANE.

But I can't wait. Its going to be lots of fun, especially since this commercial is for a product I known, drank, and loved for years that comes from a long line of amazing ads.

Which reminds me, anyone got the number for MEAN JOE GREEN?