Nicholas Campbell, a SUNY Oswego senior who majors in cinema and screen studies and creative writing, won two Global Film Festival awards, Best Student Filmmaker and Best Horror Short, for his short film “Replaced.”

The film was created during SUNY Oswego Film Club’s annual Panic Film Festival, where participants are challenged to create a short horror film in just 48 hours. Campbell wrote and directed the film with three other students on the crew; Sofia LeBron as the star and editor, Brian Maguda as the cinematographer and Danni Xu as the sound designer and production assistant.

The Global Film Festival is based out of Los Angeles and connects independent filmmakers from around the world. Winners are awarded on both a monthly and yearly basis.

“They’re an IMDB qualifying event so they’re really popular,” said Campbell. “They get international submissions. [This festival] they had a film from France win, they had a film from India that won, there’s just a lot of people from different countries and styles of film that were submitted.”

Non-traditional path to Oswego

Campbell is a non-traditional student who decided to return to school after getting an associate's degree in criminal justice from Onondaga Community College when he was 23. Now 30 years old, he decided it was time to pursue a childhood dream of being a film director. A screenwriting elective he took at OCC partially led to this decision.

“The professor, Patrick Snow, was like ‘You really have potential, you really should consider this,’ and at the time I never really thought of it as a plausible thing that I could actually do.”

In his time between being a student, Campbell became a full-time paramedic and still does that for work while earning his film and creative writing degrees at Oswego. 

“When I got accepted, they applied all my Gen Eds [from OCC] so I only really had to do the major requirements,” said Campbell. “The schedule I put together for my first semester fit perfectly with my work schedule… Things just matched up and I was like ‘I can’t miss out on an opportunity like that.'”

Campbell said that the film festivals at Oswego allowed him to connect with students when he first arrived as a transfer student.

“When I first came I didn’t know anybody. I had never even worked in film before. I had never shot anything, I never did film stuff in high school or anything like that… I had no idea what I was doing,” said Campbell. “But because of Panic, which was the first [film festival] I actually got to do, I got to work with and learn from a group I had never met before.”

During the latest Panic Film Festival that resulted in his award-winning short film “Replaced” -- which won the Audience Choice Award at the event -- Campbell noted that other members of his group similarly benefited from the experience.

“It was the same thing with Brian and Sofia who were also transfer students. Danni was actually a philosophy student from China and saw the poster for [Panic] and thought it would be cool to sign up,” Campbell noted. “So we were just a collection of people who happened to work well together.” 

Support from peers and faculty

While Campbell directed the film, he said it would not have been possible without the collaboration with his peers who were part of the production.

“Collaboration is hands down the most important part of it. With this film 'Replaced,' it never would have been the film that it is if it wasn’t for all of us working well together,” said Campbell. “The fact that none of us had ever met or worked together before, everything just happened to line up to create this.”

Campbell also made it a point to thank the faculty members who helped him grow as a student and as a filmmaker. In particular, he mentioned professor Jake Dodd’s summer cinematography class, where students shot a 16-millimeter tour film for Fort Ontario, which was made possible through the Shineman Endowed Fund.

“Then later I just happened to be in his editing class in the fall where we were editing the film as well, so I was able to work a lot on that film with him, and he’s also been really big on teaching me all the intricacies of how to make a better film and work with a camera better,” said Campbell.

Campbell also mentioned screenwriting professor Juliet Giglio and cinema professor Josh Adams, who also gave him hands-on experience and made him confident in his abilities.

“Everyone together has just really been invested in me and making sure that I continue to get better,” said Campbell. “I was only at Oswego for a little over a year at that point, and I went from never working with a camera, to a year later being able to make ['Replaced']. I never would’ve been able to do it without them helping me along the way.”

Since his accomplishment at the Global Film Festival, “Replaced” was selected for the 25th Chicago Horror Film Festival. Campbell also submitted the film to the Rochester Film Festival, the Yale Student Film Festival and Raindance.

Campbell will be one of many Oswego graduates at Commencement on May 11, 2024.