The Camp Kuleshov trailer competition for emerging creative artists in post production – a.k.a. Camp K – has announced the winners of its Grand Prizes in the categories of Editing, Graphics, Sound Design and Music Score. Named for the famed Russian film theorist Lev Kuleshov, the Lev Awards were chosen from among the First Place winners in the Camp K held across the country last year. Those winners went up against each other to claim the top prize among all entries in those respective categories.
Designed to give emerging talent a chance to heighten their creative and craft problem-solving skills while also gaining access to invaluable mentorship opportunities, Camp K challenges entrants to take existing films and re-imagine trailers for them as something new and different.
The Editing challenge for Camp K tasked entrants with creating a movie trailer by using up to three of the films on the source list and in the process changing the original film’s genre to one from a list of specific genres or themes. The Lev winner in this category went to Fernando Raigoza of Arcade Edit, winner of the West/Southwest competition with “Die Die Birdie,” his mashup of “Streets of Fire” and “Bye Bye Birdie” as a Quentin Tarantino blood fest.
In the Graphics category, entrants were challenged to create an opening title sequence for a movie that never had one, or had one that was simply executed. The Lev winner went, once again, to Marly Koven of Flavor in the Midwest competition for her subdued, blue-tinged title sequence for “Pan’s Labyrinth.” Koven also won the Lev in Graphics in 2023.
In Sound Design, entrants had to choose a section of a film and create an entirely new sound design that casts the scene in a new light. The Lev here went to Cliff Fitch of Cutters Studios, also in the Midwest competition, for his impressionistic approach to the silent tennis match sequence in “Blow-up.”
In the Music Score category, entrants must create and score a music track for a scene that presently doesn’t have one. The submission must enhance the original scene and invoke emotion in line with the original movie. The Lev went to Zoltan Monori of Heard City in the East competition for his dramatic scoring of the fire-starting scene from early in “Cast Away.”
A special panel of post production artists and producers convened to judge the First Place winners in each category across all participating competitions. This jury included editors Robert Ryang, Jen Dean and Jay Nelson of Cut+Run; Chris Franklin and Val Lasser of Big Sky; Jenny Schaye of Optimus; and David Rubin of Cutters. Also judging were Sr. Engineer and Sound Designer Joe O’Connell of Sonic Union; Audio Engineer Brian Leitner of Utopic; Sound Designer/Mixer Daniel Hart of Shindig Music; and Executive Creative Producer Matt Nelson of Yessian.
All Lev winners, along with each 2024 Camp K winner, can be found here. The Lev winners receive a $1,000 gift card courtesy of Musicbed + Filmsupply, an AICP Supporting Partner. In addition, Musicbed provides selections from its music library to Camp K entrants at no charge. More information about the competition, including rules, objectives and source films, can be found on the Camp K website at www.campkuleshov.org.
