Boise State University’s Dead8 film club may have started as a revamping of a club of the past, but the students that make up the club have quickly reestablished themselves as a film powerhouse on campus.
Boise State students Jake Zahm, Colin McJunkin, Georgia Clending and Michael Vargas dominated the novice i48 film competition in June of 2024. The students took home Best Cinematography, Best Film, Best use of Sound and Best Lead Actor.
The club’s award-winning film titled “Punishment Pong” was written, filmed and edited all within 48 hours. Competitors are only given a genre, a character name, a singular line of dialogue and a prop to create their film.
“We entered into the novice class just because this was our first time doing a narrative project as a team, and we didn’t know how it was going to work out, or if it was going to work out at all,” said Vargas, vice president of Dead8 and Boise State media communications major. “So we were just kind of cautious, and it ended up coming together really well.”
The Dead8 club was revived after a nearly two decade hiatus as a reimagining of a club that had disappeared off campus in the early 2000s with the same name.
“That was the first reason of giving students housed under the media banner the ability to do non narrative fiction, or fiction in general (Dead8),” said McJunkin, a Boise State media communications major. “But also for anybody seeking any type of role in a film scenario where they’d like to be on set, working with gliding, with the cameras, audio, set design, prop design, anything of that nature. That’s kind of what Dead8 was meant to do.”
The club members are releasing a new project in mid-September That will showcase at the “13 Stories” event located at the Old Idaho Penitentiary.
“It was a ton of fun. We got to spend a lot of time together, which I just had a blast,” said Zahm, a Boise State communications student. “I like to act, and then these guys are just incredibly talented with cameras and lighting … just making everything physically happen.”
A majority of Dead8 members are also involved in University Television Productions (UTP), where students get hands-on learning in writing, camera and audio production. Students can take MEDIA117 as complete beginners and learn the basics of television production.
“Anyone can join that. It would be really cool if more people knew about it,” said Clending, a Boise State media communications student. “Nobody knows about it. It’s not really broadcasted”
The class also creates a program called “Live & On Demand”, where students can get real experience writing scripts, filming and producing media.
“I think that it hits the nail right on the head with that,” said Zahm. “It gives us a different outlet that creatively challenges us.”
Film and TV production is alive and well on Boise State’s campus, offering a multitude of opportunities for students to take part in or simply watch.
