RTF Grad’s Video Wins $100,000 Nikon Festival Judges’ Award (WATCH)

By alcalde in Blog on January 26, 2010 at 4:19 pm | No Comments

We all remember our first job, usually because it was heinous, possibly degrading, and almost always embarrassing.

Marko Slavnic, BS ’06, took inspiration from his first job as a shy teenager to shoot a two-minute video submission for the Nikon Festival about two teens in their first jobs as animal mascots for rival fast food chains who get into a fist fight. After thrashing each other pretty good, the two ultimately make up.

The video, entitled Chicken vs. Penguin and shot with an SLR camera, has been selected as the Nikon Festival Judges’ Award winner. Slavnic submitted three other videos, one of which finished in the top 50 of the 1,200 total submissions. All videos in the contest were 140 seconds or shorter.

“So many people see filmmaking as this elite thing and that you need a big crew to produce a quality film,” Slavnic said in a statement, adding “you don’t have to be a professional to create a film and be seen by a huge audience.”

Slavnic will get $100,000 and some equipment from Nikon for winning.

That should make his next job — making a feature film — a lot less heinous than his first one.

Watch: