LifeSouth Community Blood Centers teamed up with the Student and Filmmaker Alliance to stage a short-film contest timed to the June 30, 2010, opening of "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse," the third film in the popular vampire-romance franchise. The event, part of the local Mobile Film Scramble series, challenged area filmmakers to build a movie around the same blood-donation cause that inspired the tie-in Twilight Blood Drive.
Participating teams had just 10 days to write, shoot, and edit five-minute short films with a vampire or werewolf theme, echoing Eclipse’s central rivalry between the Cullen family and the Quileute werewolf pack. Each entry was required to feature a LifeSouth prop somewhere in the film, tying the fan-driven contest directly back to the blood center’s donation campaign.
Screening and Audience Voting
The finished films screened June 29 from 8 to 11 p.m. at Wynnsong Theater, where an audience watched the entries and voted for their favorites. The scramble format, in which local filmmakers race against a tight deadline to produce a themed short film, has been used repeatedly in the Mobile area to spotlight homegrown filmmaking talent.
Organizers said the broader aim of pairing the film contest with the movie’s release was to raise awareness of blood donation and encourage participation in the Twilight Blood Drive, using the franchise’s popularity among young moviegoers to draw attention to a public health need. LifeSouth Community Blood Centers serves donors and hospitals across the Southeast, including the Mobile area, and has regularly partnered with local organizations to run themed donation drives tied to pop-culture events.