METALLICA-Inspired Film Wins Third-Place Award At FOUR-MINUTE FILM FESTIVAL

January 5, 2008

Val Van Meter of Winchester, Virginia's The Winchester Star reports: METALLICA's heavy metal beat in "Enter Sandman" can energize a football team and a stadium full of people. Why not a Virginia Tech student?

That's the premise of the video Thomas Copenhaver and two friends entered in the annual Four-Minute Film Festival on the Blacksburg campus in the fall.

Of the 21 entries, their effort took third place, and was placed second when The Roanoke Times asked its readers to vote online on the same parade of films.

Francis Ford Coppola better watch out. Not only did the young filmmaker come up with a winner, he and his friends did it in just 12 hours with no budget.

That's half the time allowed to create a four-minute film.

So, if you have a sleepy Tech student, who needs to focus on a class test or his soccer moves, what should you add as the missing ingredient?

"A Touch of Sandman" followed the protagonist, who turned out to be Thomas — "I volunteered" — through a bad day at school, then showed how it all could be turned around, just by adding METALLICA's music to his journey through the exact same situations.

The film producers enlisted several other students to flesh out the cast.

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