Seeing is believing
Will Clifton’s ‘Everyone is Catholic’ tops Rice student video contest

BY MIKE WILLIAMS
Rice News staff

Will Clifton just wanted to get one of his songs on YouTube. Instead it got him a chunk of cash and a reputation at Rice.

The first-year graduate student’s exploration of the meaning of the word “catholic” took the top prize in Rice’s mini-Oscars, the student video contest “Lights, Camera, Action: Your Life at Rice.”

“Everyone is Catholic” interprets a song by Clifton with images and letter tiles and took the top general category prize of $500.

	A still from Will Clifton’s winning entry, “Everyone is Catholic,” in the Rice student video competition, “Lights, Camera, Action: Your Life at Rice.”

“The video itself was just for fun,” said the singer/songwriter, who is studying architecture at Rice. He wrote the song while an undergraduate at Yale, using it to memorize words for an exam. “It was the easiest way I knew of to remember stuff like that,” he said. “And two of those words were on the test, so I was pretty happy.”

The video was on YouTube before he even knew about the Rice competition, the first in what organizers expect to become an annual event.

Clifton works on campus at the Digital Media Center and said he used the center’s gear to produce the piece. He said he’d enter next year too.

Clifton took the top prize over two young filmmakers of some notoriety. Claiming $250 for second place was “Faheem and Anish Go to the Oscars” by Faheem Ahmed and Anish Patel, the Rice students who, earlier this year, won an mtvU competition to represent the network on the red carpet at the Academy Awards. Their film was an edit of their entry and Oscar videos.

“Bana Botswana” by Rachel Solnick, a Wiess College senior, took third for $100.

The rules called for student films to be under five minutes long (though a few slipped over the limit) and address some aspect of student life at Rice. Films produced for courses were eligible, said Gary Kidney, director of academic and research computing and one of seven judges.

Winners in the special-focus categories were environmental/sustainability issues, Grace Ng; alternative spring break, Jennie Wilburn, Frank Alfaro, Rica Gardner, Nick Bridle and Kara Calhoun; residential college/student organization, Connor Hollowwa; and audience favorite, Ahmed and Patel. Each special-focus winner got $150.

Kidney said the contest drew nine entries. “We consider that a success,” he said. “This is modeled on a similar contest at the University of Pennsylvania, which also had nine entries its first year. Now they’re in the fourth or fifth year, and get up to 50 entries a year.”

Kidney said next year’s contest will be announced either in the summer or early fall to allow students more time to prepare their entries and give them a wider range of Rice activities to cover. He said there might be a special category for incoming freshmen to document their arrival at Rice.

The contest was sponsored by the Center for Civic Engagement, the Community Involvement Center, the Digital Media Center, Fondren Library, Information Technology, the Office of Sustainability, the Office of the Dean of Undergraduates and the Wellness Center.