Class project turns into festival-ready film

A class project turned into something more as School of Communications students Alex Mancuso ’19, Hannah Garfield ’19 and Jared Mayerson ’20 screened their film “Knock Knock” at the Visions Film Festival on April 12. The two-day event hosted by the University of North Carolina at Wilmington included film screenings, Q&A sessions with filmmakers and industry professionals, and networking opportunities.                                                            

“When we were assigned the final project for professor Youssef Osman's [Film and Television] Aesthetics class, which became ‘Knock Knock,’ the three of us naturally gravitated toward each other,” said Mancuso, a cinema and television arts major.

Having participated together in Cinelon Productions, Elon's student-run film production company, the trio were accustomed to working with one another.

“When it came time to pick people to work with for our final video project, it made sense for us to work together since we were already familiar with how the other worked,” said Garfield, a cinema and televisions arts and media analytics double major.

As the title and movie poster suggest, the short film features a young woman who awakens in the middle of the night to a series of mysterious knocks.

Each member played a role in creating what Garfield and Mancuso called an “eerie” and “sickly green aura” throughout the film. Mancuso served as the project’s writer and director, while Garfield acted as producer and production designer. Mayerson took on the responsibilities of director of photography and editor.

“The class taught us about a lot of different ways you can play with color, lines, shapes and other aesthetics to enhance the emotion of a scene or film,” Garfield said.

“Knock Knock” was nominated for multiple awards at the Visions Film Festival. Additionally, the festival awarded nearly $15,000 in scholarship, much of which supported travel grants for undergraduates to present their work. The Elon trio received one of the travel grants, and the students’ travel and rooming were cover by the festival. Cinelon submitted the project to the film festival on the students’ behalf.

​While Garfield and Mancuso made the trek to Wilmington for the screening, Mayerson, who is studying in the Elon in Los Angeles program this semester, was not able to attend.

Cameron Wolfslayer ’21 and Patrick Wei ’20, who serve as Cinelon’s president and vice president, respectively, were also in attendance.