Graduate students’ short film “˜Prom Night’ wins Sprite Films’ Green Ribbon Panel Award

The original photo caption and article contained multiple errors, and have been changed. See the bottom of the article for additional information.

With lights dimmed and popcorn in hand, unsuspecting audience members in screenings of “Lincoln” and “Breaking Dawn Part 2″ are in for a double feature this fall.

“Prom Night,” UCLA graduate students Steven Huffaker and Simon Savelyev’s short film, recently won the Green Ribbon Panel Award at the Sprite Films competition and will be screened throughout theaters nationwide.

Established in 1998, the Sprite Films competition was originally called the Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker’s Award. In this competition, film students across the nation submit scripts inspired by a Universal Pictures film. From the applicant pool, eight finalists are selected and given a budget of $18,000 to film their movies.

Originally inspired by John Hughes’ “Sixteen Candles,” “Prom Night” highlights Huffaker’s and Savelyev’s respective comedic styles. The film follows a couple of nerdy guys on prom night after they gain access to a hot rod. With a party mix and some Sprite in hand, the night transforms from drab night to a legendary prom adventure.

In the Master of Fine Arts in Directing program, the two filmmakers met Ryan Moody, who was originally the film’s assistant director and eventual producer. He elaborated on the comedic and working styles of the pair.

“There’s such a dichotomy between the two of them. … They really complement each other very well, and where one falls off the other kind of picks up,” Moody said. “Simon is great about preparation and communication, and Steve is more in the moment. They put those together, and that’s really the reason we won.”

Among the 18 students in their class, Savelyev and Huffaker said they immediately bonded over the fact that they were both comedy oriented. For Savelyev, Huffaker stood out from the others with a humorous project pitch.

“We had a two-minute project, and he had one about a kid who meets God and gets in trouble because he isn’t combing his hair before church. I just thought it was really funny because everyone else was doing really heavy themes, and his was just goofball,” Savelyev said.

As very different filmmakers, their journeys to UCLA were admittedly different. Huffaker, originally from Riverside, Calif. completed his bachelor’s at UC Santa Cruz as a community studies student but has been making home movies since he was a kid. He said that the birth of his filming style was a product of poking fun at his teachers.

“I would take videos at school, then dub my voice over the teachers’ talking. I was always making homemade movies, skits and music videos then trying to get people to watch them. Then I watched the boredom and disinterest on people’s faces 99.9 percent of the time while they watched my crappy makeshift videos. It’s been a process getting people to appreciate my work,” Huffaker said.

Meanwhile, Savelyev made the decision to pursue filmmaking during his mid-20s after attending Boston College as an English student. He said that the late decision was in part because of the fact that he comes from Boston, Mass., where it’s uncommon to see people make it in show business. Yet, his sense of humor has been in the works since childhood.

“My best friend and I would go to the airport and pretend we were Russian orphans or go to K-Mart and say that our mother had abandoned us and ask them to page her. We were a handful,” Savelyev said.

Huffaker said that a commonality among comedy lovers is the pursuit of making their realities more interesting and inventing fun. Savelyev said that he did this by deciding as a kid to never be embarrassed.

“When I was a kid, I had the realization that I never had to be embarrassed because people who knew me knew I was kidding, and people who didn’t wouldn’t really see me again,” said Savelyev.

While both filmmakers are still thinking about finishing film school and haven’t quite worked out their future careers, both are determined to pursue careers in the film industry.

Moody said that Huffaker could make a Web series, television and character movies because he makes comedy based on his own humor and doesn’t try to impress anyone. In reference to Savelyev, Moody said he believes Savelyev has a gift for intertwining comedy and drama similar to Woody Allen’s style.

While the future is still a mystery, the Sprite Films win provided the filmmakers with a leg up in the industry.

“We really decided to do Sprite Films on a whim, but I remember seeing other Sprite Films before and thinking, “˜Those guys are going to do great things. Those are the rising directors,'” Savelyev said.

Correction: “Prom Night” will be screened throughout theaters nationwide. Also, the competition was originally called the Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker’s Award but is now run through Sprite.