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The City of Asbury Park proved herself a worthy muse during the second of the ShowRoom Theatre’s “AP in 3 Film Challenge” events, with 21 entries submitted overall — up from eight entries made in the previous challenge.

The contest’s top ten finalists’ films screened at the cinema Sunday night. The “Best Film” award went to The Asbury Park Chamber of Commerce submission, “A Walk in Asbury Park,” a musical that starred Jackie Pappas, the chamber’s executive director, and a puppet version chamber marketing coordinator Matthew Whelan.

Pappas credited Whelan for the submission idea. Whelan said the puppet came from his senior undergraduate project, “Puppapella,” an all-puppet a capella group. The puppet allowed the film to play on the “magical” feeling so many experience in Asbury Park, she said.

The Asbury Park Musical Heritage Foundation’s entry “The Runaway,” a drama about an aspiring musician’s struggle to get a gig in the city, took first runner up. Second runner up went to “Sleepwalk,” a psychological thriller-slash-comedy about two boys who affect the dreams of their friend while he naps on a nearby couch, submitted by Evan Noone and Justin Chapman.

Contest judges were ShowRoom cinema owners Michael Sodano and Nancy Sabino,  Dennis Carroll of ArtsCAP, local filmmaker Karen Heyson of Pulse AP, and local artist and filmmaker Jeffrey Seeds. Films were scored by their continuity, picture, story, editing, sound quality, talent and use of the required integrated elements. None of the judges were given advance notice of who made the films

At the Sunday event, audience members scored each film as they were screened and “Help Wanted,” a thriller/horror genre film by filmmakers Patrick Weber, Alyssa Matlosz and Vivian Lau won out as the audience favorite film. The film tells the story of what happens to a young girl when she answers a classified ad for a job at the Springwood Avenue Senior Center and seemingly enters another dimension.

The challenge requires filmmakers create an original three-minute movie based on a provided theme shot in and around Asbury Park in just 72 hours. This year’s theme was “once upon today in Asbury Park,” according to Sodano. In addition to the theme and required location, a prop — the city’s Springwood Avenue Center — and a line of dialog, “I was taking a walk in Asbury Park,” also had to be used in the film.

This year’s prop, the Springwood Avenue Center, located on the city’s West Side, forced filmmakers to shoot outside of the normal backdrops of the boardwalk and downtown areas commonly seen in photos of and films about Asbury Park.

“People had to go to the West Side for at least one shot,” said Sabino.

“It was a way of putting more of Abury Park on film, besides the boardwalk and the downtown,” said Sodano. Overall, the film challenge was “an overwhelming success,” he said.

Several of the judges admitted their expectations of the films prior to actually viewing them were low, but they ended up being pleasantly surprised.

“It was a joyful experience,” Carroll told the audience before the Sunday night screening.

Further technological advances in filmmaking since the change from analog to digital have not only lowered costs involved in the process, but have made visual storytelling more easily accessible to all would-be filmmakers, Heyson said. However, she added, technical elements aside, the true test of a filmmaker is the ability to tell a story and she was “extremely impressed” by what she saw. She encouraged all of the filmmakers to keep at it.

“We saw a bunch of great films,” said Seeds.

The ten films, screened in order, were “Between the Lines” by Noelle Ciumei; “Help Wanted” by Patrick Weber, Alyssa Matlosz and Vivian Lau; “Flowers” by Chris Fitzgerald and Brad Hawthorne; “If” by Blaze Nowara; “Sleep Walk” by Evan Noone and Justin Chapman; “The Usual” by Caryn Whitman and Chuck Cutaia; “A Walk in Asbury Park” by the Asbury Park Chamber of Commerce; “A Chance Meeting” by P.J. Bracco; “The Runaway” by the Asbury Park Musical Heritage Foundation; and “Found” by Emily Woods.

All ten finalist’s films will screen one more time on Sunday, Oct. 26 at 8 p.m.

The ShowRoom is located at 707 Cookman Avenue. For more information, visit theshowroomap.com.

[Above screengrab of the Chamber of Commerce film entry provided by Matthew Whelan.]

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