On Campus News

Interview with Peter Garafalo, President of the Maryland Film Club

By Naomi Laeuchli
posted Nov 14, 2012, 08:05

The Maryland Film Club is a student group at the University of Maryland. The group is extremely self-sufficent. It allows students to explore every aspect of filmmaking, provides filming equipment for students and funds itself by producing promotional videos for other student organizations, University departments and other customers. Its president Peter Garafalo discusses some of aspects of how the club operates.

How many students are in the Maryland Film Club?
There are 155 official members in Maryland Filmmakers Club, but realistically about 40-50 dedicated/active members (working on film crews, coming to meetings, workshops and events)

Are you completely student-based of do you receive support from the faculty?
We are student run, but rely on the SGA (Student Government Association) funding for our regular activities. Our officers plan the events throughout the semester, run the meetings, host the workshops, and organize members into film crews. The SGA helps us by allowing us to reserve meeting spaces and rent the Hoff Theater for our events.

How do you raise funding for it all of the club activities?
They [the SGA] provide us with some funds for equipment, but all the equipment we currently use was bought with money we raised as a club by producing videos for University departments, student organizations and other employers. Our cameras, editing computers, tripods and microphones were all bought through our own fundraising. Other equipment, like lighting kits, boom poles, and camera dollies we have improvised and built using low budget materials. We believe that you don't have to have a lot of money to make movies.

What are some of your responsibilities as president of the Maryland Film Club?
As president I oversee the club's activities week to week and throughout the semester. I am responsible for planning/arranging club activities over the course of the semester, keeping up membership, and overseeing the officers� responsibilities. Luckily I have a great officer board consisting of a Vice President (Jim Chapuran), Public Relations Manager (Gaurav Khetan), Treasurer (Pear Yukkasemwong), Productions Manager (Eli Shindell), Secretary (Alexander Oshiro), unofficial Social Chair (Kalkidan Ej), and our two Historians (Bria James and Karen Rust).
The Vice President and I are responsible for crews and address problems with our short film production process: renting out equipment, finding crew members, ensuring quality production on schedule for the film festival. The Public Relations Manager and I are responsible for recruitment, advertising, and updating the website and social media pages. The Productions Manager and I assess video production offers as they arise, correspond with the employer, assemble crews to produce each video, and handle the financial transactions. The Secretary organizes filters/organizes the emails and office computer files. The Treasurer and I create the annual budget and make purchases/deposits. The Social Chair will, starting this semester, work with the other officers and me to organize social events for members. Lastly, the historians shadow film shoots in order to get photographs to be shown on our social media sites and at our film festival.
There are a lot of jobs to do as president, and my work often fluctuates from week to week. This week I am planning our meeting and scriptwriting workshop for Wednesday; scheduling, reserving rooms, advertising for our casting call next week and ordering equipment that needs replacement.

How many projects does the club work on throughout the year? And what are some of the ones you�re currently working on?
We usually complete about 10 short films a semester as well as production videos and related/miscellaneous shorts. This semester we have 13 crews in production, a web series soon to launch, and most of the officers are working on their own videos. We do a lot, but with so much passion on this campus and no film/video production major at the university, we could always do more.





Resources:

www.marylandfilmmakersclub.com