March Madness has been an iconic time of year ever since the 1930s. But at CHS, students are talking about more than just basketball. The Digital Video Club is now hosting their annual March Madness competition. 

March Madness is an event where an individual or a team of students create films based on prompts they are given each week. These films are then entered into a bracket contest and move forward based on their number of votes. The two finalists are pitted against each other, and whichever film gets the most votes wins the competition. 

Despite school being closed since the 16th, March Madness will still go on. However, due to less active members and a smaller council, it seems that the  Digital Video Club is “dying out”. Junior Meg Ellis of Freehold, a club council member, says that the club is decreasing in size. 

“I remember when I first started DV club. A big majority of everyone on council… were all seniors, and now that all the seniors are gone, there’s maybe five of us left on council,” Ellis said. “ I think it’s just hard to get people involved, but I feel like with doing a competition like this every year, where it’s almost a tradition now, it’s helping introduce more people to the club.”

Sophomore council member Kara Petrosino of Colts Neck says the members that stick around are the ones who truly care about the club. 

“I think it’s always true that in the beginning of the year, there’s always more involvement than at the end of the year,” Petrosino said. “But I believe that towards the end of the year, we start to see the people that are more dedicated and get more involved.”

When it comes to recruiting new members, Petrosino said that the Digital Video club isn’t too worried about expanding. 

“I think essentially with March Madness we’re trying to advertise more, like we made a commercial, and we told everyone to tell their friends,” Petrosino said. “I think as a whole, we aren’t a club that’s always advocating for new members. We just really want to hone in on the members that are really dedicated in the end.” 

Whether with new members or not, the club is still planning on hosting more events in the future, according to advisor David Salowe. 

“Considering the situation we’re in, the future of DV club is up in the air. We have March Madness still going on now. There are film festivals being submitted to and Cinemadness is still scheduled for May,” Salowe said.

The annual film festival Cinemadness takes place in Red Bank, where films submitted by students are played on a movie screen. 

No matter what the future of DV Club holds, March Madness is still a worthwhile event to look forward to.