The idea of sharing and downloading music in 1995 was unheard of.

In 2025, however, file sharing, particularly that of Napster, has almost destroyed the record industry, so the band Metallica sends a machine back to 1995 to kill the fictitious creator of Napster, Don O'Conner. However, another machine has also been sent to protect Don, creating a race amongst the machines to reach him first.

At least this is the way the technology of file sharing plays out in the MSU student-produced movie, "The Eliminator."

Computer science senior Brian Bogos, chemical engineering junior Brett Burkhart, mechanical and civil engineering senior Bryan Burkhart and human resources management senior Susan Khorrami entered their movie last month into "Imagine Cup" - a design and movie contest sponsored by Microsoft.

"We had to create a film that had something to do with the culture of innovation," Bogos said.

"'Terminator' was one of our favorite movies, so we started talking about how the 'Terminator' was all about technology and innovation, and how too much technology can hurt us," Bogos said. "Downloading music has been a big deal lately so we decided to do a 'Terminator' spoof."

The Imagine Cup has several categories, including software design and a short film category, which Bogos' team competed in.

Together, the team created an eight minute film that qualified for the top 30 out of more than 200 movies.

The movies were displayed on the Imagine Cup Web site, and were voted on by visitors. Out of the 30, the top five rated will go on to Brazil and compete for the $8,000 grand prize. The winners will be announced June 15.

"We tried to think of something that would be different from the other films," Bogos said. "We thought the other films might all be serious, and we were right, and that's just not our style."

Bogos and his teammates filmed much of the movie on the third floor of the Engineering Building where they cast friends for roles and rented out a pool for several scenes.

Other than that, Bogos said the cost of the film was relatively inexpensive.

"We already had a camera and computer, so the rest of it was cheap," he said.

Brett Burkhart said different stages of production took the team different amounts of time.

"The editing was the most tedious," he said. "The filming went pretty well and took us around two weeks, but writing the script took us around three weeks to a month."

Brett Burkhart also said it was difficult to decide which ideas would go into the movie.

"We sat around and decided what we wanted to make the theme, and we thought about how music wasn't necessarily meant to be marketed," Brett Burkhart said. "'Terminator' was a big technology movie, so we decided to spoof it."

Even though the team is hoping they make the cut to travel to Brazil, Bogos said movie making isn't something the team wants to do as a career choice.

"It's fun to do and something we don't take seriously," Bogos said. "It's just a hobby."