THE TIMES-DELPHIC The weekly student newspaper of Drake University Vol. 139 | No. 1 | Aug. 28th, 2019 FEATURES Students speak out about their involvement with presidential campaigns. Read more on page 2
SPORTS It’s football season again: read up on the Chicago Bears and the season they’re in for. Read more on page 3
OPINIONS The stars are aligned for Drake students, learn where your star sign is most likely to cry at Drake. Read more on page 4
Harris’ canvassing event welcomes first-years timesdelphic.com
KAMALA HARRIS announced her Democratic candidacy for President on Jan. 21, 2019. She has been campaigning in Iowa ever since | PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Lexi Mueller Managing Editor lexi.mueller@drake.edu
Over the course of the campaign season, Drake University has become a hotspot for candidates hoping to launch themselves into the spotlight. But in the past week, Kamala Harris’s campaign has taken that one step further with their Bulldogs For the People initiative. This student-based approach started Wednesday morning with the Bulldogs For the People Move-In Canvassing event and was designed to help Drake students become more involved with organizing on campus and learn helpful skills that will allow them to be active
in politics far beyond the Iowa caucuses. Move-in day was a smooth experience for many incoming first-years and the addition of political canvassing added in a mix of activism, “The event held during movein weekend went super well,” said Darby Holroyd, a student involved in the initiative, “We helped students register to vote and signed others up for updates about our campaign as a whole.” Students attending Drake University this year have had the unique experience to be right in the heart of our political world. With the Iowa Caucuses playing such a large role in candidate selection, almost all of the big name candidates have shown their face around campus. This presidential
election, many of the candidates are working to appeal to college students to help them gain the majority vote. “It is so incredibly important to get students involved because we are the next generation that have the ability to shape politics in our country,” said Holroyd. “Our generation is especially impacted by the current political climate. College students are crucial to Kamala Harris’ campaign because she understands the value of young people and how fresh their ideas can be. They are important to our campaign because they are the people that will shape the future of politics.” Deidre DeJear is Harris’s Iowa Campaign Chair and, as a former Drake student herself, has stressed the importance of college political activism,
“I really got my start in politics through active engagement at Drake,” said DeJear. “Our campaign is going to show students that their voices matter, and that their activism for Kamala Harris can just be the start of their political involvement in Iowa.” Harris’s campaign has been working to engage students around the country after launching a student training program last spring. Since then, there has been an increase in political involvement on campus. “I have seen a lot of students join in on the caucuses and on our campaign due to this program and we created Bulldogs For the People to build on this excitement,” said Holroyd, “The more students who are informed
on what it means to be a part of a presidential campaign, it helps creates a larger crowd of informed voters and Kamala supporters.” Harris’s campaign will be continuing their mission to get students involved with programs like “Camp Kamala” and their new “Campus Caucus Trainings.” At a school like Drake University, it’s impossible to ignore the politics swirling around campus during the Iowa Caucus season. Holroyd says that students should keep on the lookout for more ways to get involved, “We will be canvassing quite a bit on campus and holding exciting events throughout the semester,” Holroyd said. “Keep your eyes open.”
Drake students participate in 48 Hour Film Project
Charlie Pingel Staff Writer charlie.pingel@drake.edu
Why does the dog always have to die? As two Drake students set out to make a short for this year’s 48 Hour Film Project, money and reputation on the line, they stopped for a moment and considered this question, a moment that would come to shape their entire experience and the artistic growth they found along the way. The 48HFP is a competition where filmmakers in teams are given forty-eight consecutive hours to write, direct and edit a complete short within the specific guidelines of character, genre, prop and dialogue they are given at the beginning of the process. The Des Moines project, which took place from July 1921, saw Lucius Pham and Adam Heater, two local filmmakers and Drake Digital Media Production majors, taking their place in the midst of the experimental fray. Their short, Buddy, the story of one dog’s attempt to solve the mystery of his sleeping owner with morbid consequences, took third place at the project’s screening event on August 2. Drawing from their given genre, Cop/Detective, Pham said they always had the idea to do something with the dog, it was just a matter of finding the right niche for it. “We thought, ‘What do we have at our disposal: one
secured actress and Adam’s dog,’” Pham said. “We knew the genres but not necessarily what we were gonna get. It just happened the one we came across was the detective genre. The Google doc title up until even an hour before was just ‘Noir Dog.’” One aspect of the film that became cause for much shock was its ending, a scene in which the titular character, Buddy, dies by way of suicide. Despite room for potential criticism, both Pham and Heater enjoyed mulling over the decision, elaborating on what they feel is the best moment in the short. “When we were thinking about how this dog could commit this act, our thought was for him to fashion a noose from his own leash,” Heater said. “We knew the accompanying genre was always going to be dark comedy because that’s who we are as people and what we write.” Though both knew it was the best way to wrap it up, Heater had his doubts early on. “We’re in my parents’ home, this is my parents’ dog, and my parents are going to come to the film screening,” Heater joked. “And they’re seeing their loving family pet killing himself at the end, my biggest concern then was being disowned by my family.” They pushed forward, however, and eventually the duo agreed that the angle of dark humor was necessary to the film-making process within the project as a whole. “At these festivals, a lot of
people will create problems for themselves by trying to take on something dramatic in tone which you just can’t feasibly do in six or seven minutes,” Pham said. “We took the audience into consideration and thought comedy was the best use of our time.” When sitting down to plan out the short, the two said the challenge really stemmed from simply sitting down to get the story straight, but once they did, it really came together. “One of the tips we’d gotten from people who had done it before was do not end the first night until you have a full script,” Heater said. “I don’t know who threw it out first that the dog was going to kill himself, but after that we knew exactly how to proceed with the story.” In the end, the two filmmakers finished the project, capitalizing on what it meant to them as two college students competing against professional production companies. “We went into this knowing most people had large crews, but we knew we could do it with just us two,” Pham said. “So to go in there as just two guys studying video, not really having done anything professionally, and placing, that’s something I’m really proud of.” Further information about the project can be found on the competition’s website. For those wishing to check out Heater and Pham’s short, the film can be found on their respective Facebook pages at Milk Chocolate Productions and Adam Heater Media LLC.
48 HOUR FILM FESTIVAL PARTICIPANTS Adam Heater (left) and Luc Pham hold their awards from the competition. The pair took home Best Writing, Audience Favorite, and 3rd place overall. PHOTO COURTESY OF LUCIUS PHAM
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