Break-Out Box

This vid is an entry for Apple’s Insomnia Contest. If you like it, then vote for it

Here’s an interesting opportunity. Looks like there’s extended deadline if you apply through WITHOUT A BOX (May 1).

Student Films Across America is a touring show dedicated to high school and college filmmakers that will visit dozens of cities across the country with its 2-hour show. The lineup will rotate between stops, and each city will have one local student named the featured filmmaker. The final stop will be in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, for a full weekend of films of all lengths and all genres.

For those of you, like me, who want to get into Super8 filmmaking, here’s a challenge for you. Make a character driven observational documentary around the theme of citizenship. You can check out our delicious tag: super8.

You may also want to plug this feed in your reader as well. Since Kodachrome has left the building, you’ll want to make sure you have/get a camera that can meter the new Ektachrome film properly. Here’s a list: (64t)

CITIZEN SUPER-8 - sequel to Super-8 Cities
Following on from the success of Super-8 Cities comes a sequel project designed to raise the ante and see what celluloid filmmakers can do in an arena entirely dominated by digital production values: the observational documentary. Here is a trailer for the Super8 cities work.

The Flat Hat and the William and Mary News have published their coverage of our long weekend of short filmmaking. Read more at:

The Flat Hat: Long night, long weekend, short films

William & Mary News: Weekend of Filmmaking at 24 Speed

The short film contest is designed to give undiscovered filmmakers exposure and an opportunity to have their work reach industry professionals. Towards this goal, the 1st place film will be reached to leading industry professionals in Los Angeles and New York. The filmmakers of the winning film(s) will receive official recognition for their success, a $500 cash prize, as well as the Bulldog Award for Excellence. The Finalists’ films will be compiled on a special DVD, sent to the finalists. Close reading and analysis of films will be held at the Bulldog Productions’ Close-Up Film Conference, a day-long filmmaking and screenwriting workshop. Subsequently, the names and loglines of the winning films will be posted on the website and released to major producers and agencies in Hollywood.

Films will be judged by a panel of distinguished industry professionals, educators, and film enthusiasts. Films will be evaluated based on the following criteria: story and dialogue, characters and acting, aesthetics, theory and structure.

SPRING 2007 DEADLINE: March 15, 2007.

LATE DEADLINE: April 1, 2007.

http://www.yale.edu/bulldogproductions/

The FilmMakers Society at the University of Virginia is now accepting submissions to the Salmagundi Film Festival. Held each spring, the festival was founded on the spirit of celebrating student filmmaking through the exhibition of their films. Today it continues to promote a diverse community of student filmmakers, emphasizing the creativity and perseverance required for Virginia students to learn about film. The primary goal of the festival is to enlighten and educate audiences on the unique and creative community of Virginia’s student filmmakers. The festival showcases exceptional student films and additionally awards prizes to the best of our official selections.
Salmagundi is open to all undergraduate students who attend a college or university in the state of Virginia. The festival runs over a two day period with screenings of various long films as well as a shorts program. The shorts program is comprised of films running no longer than 10 minutes submitted by students across the state of Virginia. Prizes will be awarded for the shorts program only. There will also be a festival party on the last night. Details of the specifics to the extra events will be sent closer to the event date. [ 2007 salmagundi film festival ]

The 24 Speed contest for 2007 is now over. I’ve been hard at work getting the films encoded (thanks Kevin for the compressor exports) and ready for presentation on the web.

This year’s films were:

1. Citizen’s Arrest (Mockumentary)
2. Action Man (Action)
3. Cache (Mystery)
4. Chosen (Horror)
5. Elevator Music (Musical)
6. Most Likely To Succeed (Romantic Comedy)
7. Snap (Sports)
8. The Takedown (Gangster/Crime)

You can now view the site and the films on our web site.

I’ve also tried something new and made them available on our beta exploration of iTunesU. You can view them via iTunes here.

Paul Harrill, self-reliant filmmaker extraordinaire, will be visiting the W&M campus from February 23-24. Paul will serve as a judge for the 24 Speed contest and will kick off the CANS film festival screening, with a screening of his own films, at the Kimball Theatre on Saturday February 24 at 4PM.

About Paul Harrill

Paul Harrill is a Southern filmmaker. A native of Knoxville,Tennessee, Mr. Harrill received his Master of Fine Arts in Film & Media Arts from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

His short films include Gina, An Actress Age, 29, which follows a budding actress in Knoxville who is hired to bust a union-organizing effort. The film premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking. Later festival screenings included Clermont-Ferrand, Rotterdam, and the Museum of Modern Art’s New Directors/New Films, among others.

Brief Encounter with Tibetan Monks, a documentary, was included in Caveh Zahedi & Jay Rosenblatt’s 9/11-themed anthology, Underground Zero. The anthology screened at over forty festival venues and was awarded a Special Citation by the San Francisco Film Critics Circle in 2002. On its own, Brief Encounter screened on Cinemax on the one year anniversary of September 11.

Mr. Harrill has been an Artist-in-Residence at the University of Tennessee, and a fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Amherst, Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York and The MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

He currently resides in Southwest Virginia where has taught courses in Digital Film/Video Production at Virginia Tech since August 2006.

Self-Reliant Film (http://www.selfreliantfilm.com), Paul’s weblog, is devoted to the principles and practice of do-it-yourself filmmaking. The site receives over 50,000 hits monthly.

24 Speed has officially been launched for its third year and is accepting registrations. The contest begins on February 22, where teams of filmmakers will be asked to conceive, shoot, edit and prepare for public screening a short film.

This semester we’re pleased to have Paul Harrill, self-reliant filmmaker extraordinaire, to judge the films and hang out with us.

To enter, you must register by February 16. For more information and to see the archives from the first two years, visit the 24 Speed web site.