IU students' film aired on Fox

Having Tom Arnold and Dan Cortez comment and joke about a film that started as a class project on national television may seem like a dream to some, but it has now become a reality for two IU students.\nSeniors Kevin Bar and Aaron Matas submitted their film, "IU soccer: The Season," to "The Best Damn Sports Show Period" Student Film festival. It was selected as one of 10 semi-finalists and was aired on the program Tuesday night.\nThe film, which was originally 15 minutes long and created for their T351 project last semester, was cut down to just five minutes for the film festival.\n"We just had to do a final project, and we decided to do something in sports," Matas said. "We knew some of the girls on the soccer team, so we decided to do a documentary about the season."\nThe video includes footage from this year's season and interviews with the coaches and some of the players, as well as music from the local band East Race.\n"ESPN has a program called 'The season,' and they follow a team for a season. And we tried to do that for the soccer team," Bar said. "It's basically a pretty good documentation of the last three games and a brief of the first 15." \n"The Best Damn Sports Show Period" is a 90-minute program shown weeknights on Fox that blends sports, comedy and entertainment with co-hosts Tom Arnold, Chris Rose and John Sally.\n"It's been on the air for a little more than three years," said Geoff Goldman of Fox Sports Net. "It attracts some really big-named guests every night from the genre of sports and entertainment. We have had everywhere from Shaquille O'Neal to Bobby Knight to Arnold Schwarzenegger." \nThere were two categories of completion: fiction and non-fiction. Bar and Matas' film was entered in the non-fiction category, and a panel of studio heads and producers will select the winner of the film festival.\nAlong with winning a Sony digital handy cam, the winner of the fiction category will receive a summer internship with Fox films. The winner of the non-fiction category will win an internship with the TV program.\n"IU soccer: The season" can be view on www.foxsports.com under the video link. The video is also scheduled to be re-aired on the "The Best Damn Sports Show Period" May 10. \n"We'll see if they like ours enough," Bar said. \n-- Contact staff writer Amber Nicholas at amrnicho@indiana.edu.