I watched many of the entrants and there were so many great ones. I wasn’t able to take part in official judging on this one due to work commitments but I will on the next one.
Archive for the ‘Competitions’ Category
“The Story Beyond the Still”. Superb new Canon and Vimeo film competition just announced
2010 is shaping up to be an excellent year for filmmaking competitions. I am a judge on two very different ones. The “Can-Do” film festival and the new “The Story Behind the Still” that Vincent Laforet has been putting together with Canon and Vimeo for the past 6 months. More information will come out on the 7th January including full rules, prizes etc…but for now below is Vincent’s Blog entry and also a behind the scenes film of Vincent shooting his opening film made by Blake Whitman of Vimeo.
As far as I know this can be filmed on any HD camera, not just a Canon DSLR…
Vincent’s film will premiere on the 7th January on Vimeo from then on everything will make sense!
What is going to be amazing is to see how everyone interprets the each still and how the story can progress. Watching the final films all in one go will be an amazing experience.
I’m very, very, VERY excited about this!
I’ve been working with Canon & Vimeo for close to six months on getting this going and they’ve responded with a pretty resounding show of support!
I shot an ad for Canon a little over six months ago and got to talking with some of the creatives on the team at Grey Advertising. I told them that 2009 had been a pretty amazing year for me following the release of Reverie – and that I wanted to find a way to share some of that excitement and energy with others. We came to the conclusion that launching a nationwide film contest would do the trick.
As we all know – there are a LOT of film contests out there – but I believe this one is DIFFERENT.
There is A LOT OF POTENTIAL here for something very special to come out at the end… each video chapter will start with and end with a still image… you need to interpret the previous photographer/filmmaker’s still to start the (your) subsequent chapter (those are pretty much the ONLY rules/guidelines (outside of the obvious))… should make for a pretty unique series of chapters in the end!
So watch the video above and find out more! I’m on vacation with family and I’ll get rolling with regular updates and much much more information early next week! For now – start charging those batteries… it’s your turn!
Judges for the contest include:
Philip Bloom - Director/DP
Russell Carpenter – DP – “Titanic”
Rodney Charters – Director/DP – “24”
Nick Childs – Director/Producer /VP Grey Advertising
Shane Hurlbut – DP – “Terminator Salvation”
Stu Maschwitz – Senior Visual FX Supervisor – “The Spirit”
Rick McCallum – Producer – “Star Wars”
Blake Whitman – Director/Editor – Mr. Vimeo himself.
The Story Beyond the Still – Behind The Scenes from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.
Edit: Vincent’s opening film is now live, also I understand this competition is for USA residents only am afraid.
Can-do film festival and competition. Really really great prizes!
I have put the latest “Bloomfest” on hold as it takes a lot of organising and simply don’t have the time but I promise it will return soon. In the meantime if you have a 500d, 5dmkII, 7d or have access to one you can enter this film competition.
It’s not tied into any particular genre. The main rules are not a second over 4 minutes. HAS to be shot on either the 500D/ Kiss/ Rebel Ti, 7d, 5dmkII or the 1dmkIV (when that comes out), you can use any lenses, but the bodies are important. Oh, and no nudity or porn!
I am flattered to be asked to be a judge alongside “24″ DP and Canon 5dmkII/ 7D owner Rodney Charters, Tim Smith & Amy Kawalder from Canon USA, Neil Smith & Jeremy Ian Thomas from RAWworks.
UPDATED WITH WINNERS! Great reviews of 5dmkII and 7D DVD and in Cork now for DSLR workshops. To celebrate am giving away 4 digital downloads…
Edit: Winners at bottom of post before comments!
We’ve had some terrific independent reviews of our first training DVDs for the Canon 5dmkII and 7D.
Here is Cameratown.com’s review
Here is the link to DVinfo’s review of the 7D DVD and the 5dmkII DVD
PhotoFocus’s Scott Bourne gave the 5dmkII DVD 8 out of 10 and the 7D one 10 out of 10.
iPhone 3gs film competition Re-announcement
I first announced this about 2 weeks ago. But now I have got a sponsor I wanted to re-announce it!
It’s a narrative film competition shot ENTIRELY on the iphone 3Gs. Yes it may sound like a gimmicky competition and to be honest it is a little, but I want to promote a serious point with this. I want to remind people that content is king and you don’t have to have a RED camera and a budget of thousands to shoot an entertaining, deep, scary or whatever film…it’s how you use that camera and the script/ story. 
World’s first iPhone 3Gs film competition
Just got one, it’s got potential. But what I am interested in is how much you can make out of it’s limitations. How good can you make a film on it? Well this is the place as I am now going to start what I think is the world’s first iphone 3gs film competition.
It starts as of now and you have until the 24th of July 0001 GMT to Submit it to my group on Vimeo, email me details and if it follows the guidelines below then I will add it to my channel on Vimeo
Methods of judging to be announced soon. It may be a panel but most likely will be public voting…I will probably enter myself but just for fun, not in competition!
Very simple rules. Shoot ONLY on the new iPhone 3gs. Make as long or as short as you want, but don’t forget we all have VERY short attention spans. It can be one continuous take or edited. Pg13 content only 
Oh and it needs to be follow thses rule, and that rule is to make the most out of the small form factor. It needs to be utterly guerilla, I want to see you make the most out of filming in places you really shouldn’t film in and couldn’t film in with a proper camera. It can be any genre…So get out there and impress us!
Bloomfest 3: Deadline tomorrow Midnight US EST
Not long now so hurry up and get those entries in!! There have been some marvelous ones so far. I am so impressed! But more than that, I feel proud and humbled by the sheer quality of the work entered. I was worried that nobody would bother entering and this would be the last “Bloomfest” but maybe will do another one as there has been a great response.
I want to put out a big thank you to everyone, especially Peg Futrell and XR for their hard work, and also all those people who have made a film for the first time. Well done, am so proud of you!!!
Here is a small selection of the very different films currently entered. At the last count it was 35. Please visit the main page to see them all!
Bloomfest 3, less than a week to go…
Am so impressed by what has been submitted so far. Can’t wait to see the ones that people are still working on. Some of the productions values and films are superb. Don’t forget to get your entry in before the deadline Sunday March 15th Midnight Eastern time…that is 5 hours after GMT…I think!
3rd Film Competition! Great Prizes!! Fantastic Sponsors!!!
As promised here is the third and by far the biggest film competition I have launched so far.
Here are the guidelines!
First off it is narrative only. That doesn’t necessarily mean dialogue but it has to have a story. Fiction is the obvious path to take but you can make a non-fiction film.
Secondly, it cannot be longer than 3 minutes. There is no latitude to change that. You will need to be disciplined in this as unlike previous competitions I will have to be firm with this! Sorry!
Thirdly, you cannot use any copyrighted images or music. You must have them licensed or be royalty free or of course be your own compositions…
Fourthly and most importantly is the theme. This is where it gets fun. You have to reference a well known movie in some way in the film and I don’t mean just by having a film poster in shot. A line of dialogue, a style of shot, a plot device…you get the idea. Some sort of homage and you need to explain where this homage is in your film and from which movie it came from. Nothing lame like having a character called Roy because Richard Dreyfuss’ character in Close Encounters was called Roy. Be clever, be inventive, points will be given for that!
