Almost every year since 2018, the media arts production department at Millersville University has hosted its annual 24-hour film competition “Midnight Run.” Hosted by associate professor James Machado, the competition challenges students to think outside the box and collaborate in a fast-paced and stressful environment.
Every year, the competition features three specific criteria the competitors have to use in their film: a prop, a character, and a line of dialogue. This year’s criteria were a thermometer, a “know-it-all” who is wrong, and the line “it hasn’t been this cold in years.”
The competition featured four teams: Radio Rebels, Not Fast Just Furious, Team Rushmore, and TTNW.
However, the competition was a bit different this year; instead of being held in the McComsey Hall auditorium, the films were shown on the big screen at Penn Cinema in Lititz. This competition started with a showing of the 2019 winners’ film “Wishful Thinking,” a psychological thriller.
Following the showing of the 2019 short film, the first film shown was “All Your Vault” from team Not Fast, Just Furious, which was a suspenseful thriller. This film featured two main characters trying to find a vault in a building, and then dealing with the lights going out and a tall monster running after them.
The next team was Radio Rebels of their film “Freezer Meals,” where a lab meltdown kills an employee. The boss was convinced nothing was wrong and was then chased out of the lab with dead bodies all around. He then drives off, having to live with the guilt of knowing he could’ve saved all the employees if he just listened.
Up next was Team Rushmore with their film “Save The Date.” Which was a coworker dinner date turned murderous for a very weird motive. The fourth and final film was a silent film from the team TTNW called “The Scratch,” which was a suspenseful comedy.
Each film was judged on different aspects, such as audio and camera. The top three teams, and the viewers’ choice, all won a gift card to Nino’s Pizza. First and Viewers’ Choice winning $60, second and third winning $40.
The teams were judged on a score out of 500 points. In first place was Not Fast, Just Furious with 477 points, Team Rushmore in second, losing to first by just one point with a score of 476. The third and final team to place was Radio Rebels with a score of 468. The viewer’s choice was TTNW’s silent comedy. In the end, everybody won something.
“We had some disagreements as to what the plot should be, how it should go, had a few rewrites,” said senior Elizabeth Wicht, the only woman on the winning team. “But once we started shooting, it all came together.”
Wicht described when talking about struggles they went through when going through the writing production. Senior Nehem Zuriel Felices from Radio Rebels also expressed that he wished he had more time to partake in more midnight runs. One strength their team had was “we put on a game face, even when we were tired. We decided we would act as if we were enthusiastic, and it worked.”
Competition host, James Macahdo, expressed that the switch to Penn Cinema was due to a connection Dr. Zaki had with Penn Ketchum, who owns Penn Cinema. A meeting over the summer sealed the deal to get the event hosted there, and “it all worked out.”
“The compressed timeline gives you all kinds of opportunities to stumble, to make mistakes, to have challenges, to struggle,” Machado said. “You have no choice but to figure out a way around those difficulties to get across the finish line.”
Machado lastly hopes the future of Midnight Run eventually becomes a competition among other schools in our system that have a media program.
