Cinematic Celebration at the Gordon Globes

The 2016 Gordon Globes was an incredible night of cinematic celebration on campus. With inventive and entertaining films submitted in a range of categories including documentary, drama, music video, short, heartwarming, thriller, and others, it was a night akin to that of the Oscars—or the Gordon Globes’ namesake, the Golden Globes—with lesser known, but still wildly talented, celebrities.

Gordon’s Campus Events Council managed the process of screening, nominating and judging the films—and pulled off the larger-than-life event. Films were judged for their originality/creativity, content, quality, narrative, cinematography/film composition, and overall impression.

Chris Jones ’16 and Ben Tuck ’16 co-hosted the awards event. “It’s something we’ve both wanted to do since we were freshmen, so it was a thrill to finally get up there,” said Jones. “We really wanted to be the glue binding the whole show, without making it all about us. [It was about] highlighting all the incredible talent.”

And incredible talent there was. “It absolutely blew away every other show from my four years here,” said Paul Crookston ’16, whose film Grounded was nominated in the “heartwarming” category. “Cinematography in particular has made a huge leap. But crafting other stories has also been key to the movies getting better.”

The winner of the night, taking home the People’s Choice Award, was David Peters ’18 for his crime film Duke and Coop. Starring Benjamin Watts ’18 and Will Kinnard ’17 as the title characters, it was as uproariously funny as it was excellently produced.

Winner of the “drama” category Anthony Farenwald ’18 said of his film, Ad Astra, “It took about two months of planning and production, and a lot of late nights, but I was happy to represent everyone’s hard work on screen.” Farenwald’s film features Jacob Padilla ’17 and Molly Sidell ’17 (who also starred in and helped produce other Gordon Globe films including Eunjae Lee’s ’17 Jackpot, and The Phantom Diary by Nathan Burgett ’18 and his brother Victor).

Though the standards are high, the competition is friendly. Sharing actors and directors is common practice, as is the spirit of camaraderie and learning from peers’ work. “I was stoked about the quality of everyone’s work this year, but I especially have to give a shout-out to David Peters’ Duke and Coop. I was really excited to see that kind of production value coming out of Gordon’s communication arts program. He set the bar high,” Farenwald said.

Though the cinematic competition is open to all Gordon students, communication arts majors and theatre arts majors tend to account for the majority of participants. Communication arts students put into practice what they’ve learned in screenwriting, production and cinematography courses, and theatre arts students star as leads in the high-quality films.

Theatre arts major Sidell said, “It’d be great to see theatre and communications students collaborate more in the future, since it’s so mutually beneficial! It’s fun to see the reveal after it’s been put together.”

From my view on the red carpet sidelines, next year’s directors and actors have big shoes to fill.

By Sierra Elizabeth Flach ’17, communication arts and English language and literature (creative writing)

Pictured front row, L to R: Ian Miclean ’18, Mason Casady ’17, Jack Gilbert ’18, Zach Daly ’17; back row, L to R: Alexander King ’17, Davis Metzger ’18, Katie Willeman ’17, Jefter Cyrin ’18, Gabrielle Capone ’18, Erik Hallenbeck ’18, Taylor Bye ’18, Victor Sanchez ’18.