KULESHOV ORIGIN

It was a dark and stormy night in Russia, the dim light of the moviola was all that flickered in the depths of the editing room where Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov discovered how to influence specific human emotions by juxtaposing images.  “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.” -Dr. Frankenstein (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)  And so the Kuleshov Effect was born.  Cutaway after cutaway, learning how different reactions can be achieved in any sequence, and undeniably shape your story.  Hitchcock, "the Master of Suspense" himself has referred to the Kuleshov Effect as “pure editing”.  Lev did all of his experiments with pre-existing footage, re-arranging, re-assembling, creating a new juxtaposition to demonstrate the power of editing, and claim it to be its own artform as early as 1910.

And now we celebrate the great and powerful Kuleshov with the AICP’s Camp Kuleshov competition of storytelling through movie trailers, opening title sequences, sound design, and a new category introduced this year for music scoring.

Camp Kuleshov is open to editorial, audio and graphics assistants, junior creatives, admin and entry-level employees at AICP member post production and production companies.  Students and interns who are actively engaged with a member company may also enter Camp K. The competition is also open to assistants and junior-level employees at music companies that are members of the Association of Music Producers (AMP).

Participating chapters all work from the same creative brief and winners from each local competition move on to compete against each other for "The Lev" - the international grand prize awarded to the top assistant in each category.