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Biting off a big project
TCNJ students plan a premiere party for 'Twilight' vampire film

Friday, November 21, 2008
BY MICHAEL RATCLIFFE

WEST WINDSOR -- If only all homework assignments could be as much fun.

The night began with the making of candied apples and the playing of a trivia game, then culminated with a midnight viewing of "Twilight," the much-anticipated film based on Stephenie Meyer's best-selling series of romance novels about a teenage vampire.

The movie opens in cinemas across the country today.

For a group of communication studies students from The College of New Jersey, the "Twilight" movie release party held yesterday at Borders bookstore in the Nassau Park shopping center was a requirement of their events planning course.

Seniors Mandy Hauck, Amanda Merced and Jessica Omland and junior Maren Morsch teamed up with staff at Borders and AMC Theatres in Hamilton to plan, publicize and execute last night's event, which saw about 40 TCNJ students -- and a few members of the general public -- take part in a variety of "Twilight"-themed activities at the bookstore before the college students hopped on a bus and attended one of the three midnight showings of the movie.

Knowing she would have to help plan an event as part of the class, Hauck said she approached her professor, Suzanne Carbonaro, before the semester began with the idea of a release party for the "Twilight" movie.

"I knew the movie was coming out and knew it was going to be a big thing. I had read the first book (in the series) and observed what a phenomenon it had become. The popularity is just incredible. People are really passionate about it," she said, making reference to the scene over the weekend when more than 1,000 people -- mostly teenage girls -- crowded the King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania to catch a glimpse of Robert Pattinson, the British actor who stars as vampire heartthrob Edward Cullen in the film.

The film follows the romance between a girl named Isabella "Bella" Swan who is a social outsider and an immortal vampire Cullen. Their star-crossed love affair is complicated by the fact that other vampires are out to suck Swan's blood, not to mention that Cullen has a strong urge to kill her himself.

Hauck and her classmates were responsible for contacting Borders, selling them on the idea of the movie release party and working with the bookstore to plan the various events -- which ranged from making "forbidden fruit" apples to the holding an "Oh my, Edward!" scream session.

Carbonaro said the exercise -- and similar ones carried out by other students in her class -- allowed the students to put into practice what they have been learning in class. Not only did the students publicize the event via e-mail, a website and fliers passed out on campus and at Quaker Bridge Mall, they arranged a group ticket deal with the movie theater and worked with TCNJ's student union to bus interested students to the bookstore, the movie and then back to campus, she said.

"I think they did a great job," Rosanne Castiglioni, sales manager for the Borders store, said of the students. She said another Borders corporate-sponsored "Twilight" pre-release party held last weekend generated less than half of number of attendees as last night's event.

As for the fuss over the book/ movie franchise, Carbonaro -- wearing her own "Twilight" T-shirt, said, "I cannot believe the amount of attention this film is generating. I've seen people as young as 7 and as old as 50 go nuts over this vampire thing."