Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. is challenging college students from leading film schools across the U.S. to create the ultimate short movie using the latest digital technology in less than 48 hours. Project Pioneer - 2880 invites student directors from 10 film schools to take a scenario and produce an extreme (1) DVD short, including finalizing the script, recruiting talent, identifying locations, shooting scenes and editing the DVD all in a tight 48-hour window. To the winning school, Pioneer will provide a $10,000 grant.

"Extreme DVD making brings to life the amazing things digital technology allows us to do today that most people wouldn't have thought of even five years ago," said Andy Parsons, senior vice president of the Business Solutions Division at Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. "For students, it's about digital technology making it possible to showcase creativity and talent using tools readily accessible today, without big production budgets and studio contracts. And for Pioneer, it showcases the real value and impact of our DVD recording technology to the future stars of the film industry, as well as to everyday people to see what they can produce at home using their digital camera and computer."

For Project Pioneer - 2880, each participating school will select a student producer to lead development of that school's entry. They will each be given a production scenario created by an experienced screenwriter that will be the basis for a 10 to 12 minute short. From the time they are given the scenarios, they will have 48 hours to finalize the script, recruit a cast, identify locations, shoot and edit their digital movie.

All DVDs will be shot on a digital camera, with editing and post-production completed on a new Pioneer DVR-A05 DVD-R/RW and CD-R/RW recordable drive, donated by Pioneer to the university. The DVR-A05, which begin shipping this month, is Pioneer's fifth generation recordable DVD/CD drive. It combines reliable DVD burning and a comprehensive range of editing features with significantly faster writing speeds (4X DVD-R, 2X DVD-RW, 16X CD-R and 8X CD-RW). This translates into approximately 15 minutes to fully record a high-speed DVD-R disc.

"The DVR-A05 is an extreme drive that's perfect for this competition. It takes editing and production speed to a new level, cutting in half the writing time for video and data. The speed of the drive is a performance enhancement that we know the competition teams will value with their limited time, but also one that will excite a broader range of consumers about home DVD recording," said Parsons.

Project Pioneer - 2880's 48-hour shooting and production will take place in early December. A panel of industry professionals and celebrity hosts will judge the shorts. Three finalists will be selected from the 10 entries. The finalists will present their creations to the media for final judging at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Jan. 9, 2003. Pioneer will provide two runner-up schools with $5,000 grants and the winning film school will receive a $10,000 grant.