VF48Hours Lockdown Forum

Christchurch - fantastic year

in reply to Rocket Boy:

National finals being in Auckland has obviously been mostly about attracting theblargest attendance for a paid for event that also is important for national media coverage and providing press coverage for sponsors.

Population size AND participation numbers vlearly matter - as well as the location of the national organizers who previously had been Auckland based.

Interestingly with national organizers now in Welly and the short turn around between this and last years comp the number of teams entered in Auckland and Wellington was closer this year than ever before I think. But that was mostly due to a drop in Auckland rather than an increase in Welly.

I think its feasible that should a city centre eclipse Auckland in terms of the number of teams entered serious consideration re finals venue might be had - but until then the logic of 'largest city with largest number of teams creates largest audience and potential for ticket sales and press coverage' is hard to argue against.

Rules Missing

in reply to steelpotato:

Hey steelpotato - there's no rule saying you can't deliver 1920 x 800 in a 1920x1080 container with black bars top and bottom. I imagine in practice most of the heats playback software would treat a 1920 x 800 file correctly - but it's one more pain in the ass for organizers if something goes wrong so way better to have everything exactly matched to the same standard.

Certainly no one's going to be reframing a projector during a heat to make the aspect wider, so you are left with black bars top and bottom either way it goes.

Gems of the Screening Room 2k17

Thanks for the Gym Buddty shout out Liam and for the review!

Want your film reviewed? I'll do the first 10 in this thread.

Hey Liam would be great to get a review.

https://www.48hours.co.nz/screening-room/2017/auckland/gym-buddy/

Thanks!

2017 Auckland Finalists Discussion

Congrats to all the finalists.

A Friend for Life - Missing Pixels
Banned Practice - Rambunctious Gumption
Best Buds - There Will Be Snacks
Bookcase: The Seaquel - Prime Rib
Feeding - Southern Belles
On The Beat - PickleThugs
Pizza Money - Jovial Entertainment
Self Service - Miss Fire Productions
Sidney Manson and the Twin Factor 2 - Just 2 Guys
Snow Country for Cold Elves - Permanently Confused
Some Body at the Lake - The Creamery
Sue and Tim Play Conkers - Team Sprinkles
The Snapper - Michaels Baes
Time Terminal - Chillybox
Under The Bridge - Cool Story Bro Film

I imagine like most years the Auckland Finalists will be a fairly incredible and diverse bunch. Will be interesting knowing the list of judges this year as to whether that makes the finalist choices more or less contentious than prior years. No doubt all of the above are excellent films and it'll be a tight contest!

Calling out steelpotato

All those years back when steelpotato made those comments he was reacting to behaviour, and was just an ordinary member of the public.

Secondly, the review itself is not mean spirited - the commentary regarding the multiple posting is mean spirited and I do think came about due to a misunderstanding (looking at the multiple 1 star posts it looks like they are accidental reposts due to review site issues, not blatant multiple 1 star posts just to drag an average even lower.)

In saying that, the review that someone posted under the name Eclipse Entertainment does seem to be even more mean spirited than Steel Potato's actual review other than the one derogatory word which is a reference to actions being taken on the review site.

Can see your concern - but bringing it up now four years later publicly I'd hope that you can take into account both the aspect of miscommunication that seems to have happened, the fact that steelpotato was at the time likely reviewing EVERY film from Wellington, a marathon undertaking that I imagine made him particularly sensitive to people abuse the review site itself.

You can choose to ignore all that context because of the use of one rude word if you like, or you can look at it and see it was in fact likely a miscommunication all caused by some code on the site bugging out, and hopefully get past that rude word and underwhelming review.

Especially as I imagine you weren't the person in question who posted the rather non constructive reviews that Steel Potato was reacting to in the first place.

2015 Roll Call

Got a new last minute team entered - mostly made up of the old Artificial Nipple Team but with a few new people along for the ride.

Taking up the mantle of Team Leader I have a new team name "Ask Me Tomorrow". (Wanted to keep close to the Artificial Nipple name in letter order for the benefit of seeing some of the same teams in the Auckland heats, presuming alphabetical programming stands.)

Writer with a degree in screenwriting in Masterton and I'm keen to direct my script

I think Craig's point is a valid one - a 50 page script is incredibly difficult to fund, unless it is being targeted as a one hour television drama (which is fairly rare as a stand alone endeavor.)

The avenues for showing a 50 minute narrative short are almost non existent - no Festival will program a short that long, but it's too short to qualify as a theatrical feature in festivals as well (generally, absolute minimum is 60 minutes, realistic minimum is 70 minutes).

It's got no home on TV, unless it's specifically commissioned as a one hour drama for television.

It's too long for the web, unless serialized into shorter sections.

Someone who is looking for a producer to help them will in the end be told this by a producer anyway, so it's helpful to provide these sorts of answers.

Because if you are making 50 minutes of content, that's a lot of work - it's ALMOST a feature, but not quite (unless it's 50 minutes of boring content) in which case either the story is strong enough to expand out into a 80 minute feature script, or can be cut down to a shorter time.

What dictates the duration is not arbitrary, it's the market place. It's what can be sold, or gain attention at festivals, or gain attention online.

A 50 narrative short really struggles to do all those things - and as film making is a collaborative effort, not a solo endeavor, it really is up to script writers to write things someone wants to make.

All mediums have such limitations, if the work is going to be published. Children books and comics are generally 32 pages because that's how many pages you can get from the largest single printable sheet of paper.

Songs that are to be sold as singles have specific duration limits due to radio air time.

If you want to write scripts that never get made, it's all well and good to be ignorant of the marketplace - but I think someone who has a degree in screenwriting would want to actually have the scripts professionally produced - and that means working to the needs of the market place.

Christchurch film maker wishing to collaborate

in reply to Nexus 6:

I don't know about Christchurch - but I'd argue against that being true in New Zealand.

Here is the website for the feature film I just produced in Auckland, plenty of people who are passionate and talented worked on the project.

http://www.ghostbridemovie.com/

Not being in a major population centre is a problem, but it's not an insurmountable problem.

I remember seeing a fairly amazing short film play in a festival that was a single person crew about a toy soldier who had been left behind by his owner who had gone overseas.

It was by a guy from Timaru or something, he put it together as both a reflection of his isolation and because he literally didn't have anyone else to work with.

One thing that is an insurmountable problem is having a negative attitude and deriding other people for not getting involved.

If you want people to work on your projects you have to inspire them.

If you want to work on other peoples projects, you have to go to where the people are that will inspire you.

Now the comps over no one cares about 'making films'

The reality is the people who are into film production all year round generally are:

A) Studying film/trying to get into the industry, thus you need to approach students at a course

or

B) Working hard to get into the industry, thus likely in Auckland or Wellington

or

C) Working in the Industry, thus likely to be in Auckland or Wellington.

The reality is that it's hard to make films, short or features. I am in post on my first feature film as producer, it was an amazing opportunity I was given by the director who has more experience and was bringing on most of the financing - and it's come after working on a number of shorts, music videos, tvcs and television programs in various capacities for about 10 years.

But at the beginning, I was just where you are, making films for competitions and looking for projects to work on the rest of the time around my job. It took finding a like minded passionate individual who was desperate to just get stuff made to really propel me forward outside of competitions, while also searching for great material to plop down on my first decent project.

If you are a great writer which you say - don't worry about making shorts in Christchurch, write shorts and get them to producers in Auckland and Wellington - as there are larger production bases in those cities and it's more likely for those projects to be made.

Network, find student film makers to work with, don't rely on just friends but look much further a field. Making a film is like putting together a circus - the people involved generally are very individual and their personal lives often don't cross over that much outside of making a film, but WHILE working together they become family. Expecting people who aren't crazy to help you make a film... It just doesn't work. You need to go out and find people who are just as crazy about film as you 24 hours a day, and they are often hard to find, especially when you are not in a base with lots of production.

Finding that family can take a few projects, it can take working on other peoples projects as well as the ones you initiate, it requires being passionate, egotistical, humble, and fool hardy because film making is such a risky endeavor which takes so long to pay off that the people have to be ok with working damn hard and not seeing anything come from it for months or years (the average gestation for a non 48 Hours short of any consequence is likely to be much closer to a year or two than 48 Hours).

48 Hours attracts a large audience because it cuts through that intangible commitment and has a huge amount of camaraderie, but it's a form of temporary insanity that doesn't often extend beyond those two days.

You need to find more permanently insane people to help you make films, which means you need to have truly insane ideas to attract their intention and you need to be casting a pretty wide net.

Are there Peter Jackson Wildcards this year?

Yeah, I imagine NO ONE has watched them all for quite a few years now.

I do have the hint of a memory that there was a non Auckland city finalists film picked as a Peter Jackson wild card one year though.

Heat 11 - Auckland

I didn't attend the heat, or any heats for that matter this year - but on paper Heat 11 was always likely to be a monster, and I've heard from people that were there that it may have been the strongest individual heat in the history of the competition.

so when are we allowed to...

Very unlikely that City Finalists will be announced until the heats are finished.

Is this controversial, but "chick"?

Supporting anything that might rectify the gross disparity in all female production teams (female writer, director and producer) in the 'wilds' of the New Zealand industry, versus the all male production teams (female writer, director, producer) is I believe the point of that prize, which from memory is sponsored by Women in Film and Television.

It's there because a sponsor wants it there, and their reason for wanting it remains statistically very valid.

NZFF 2013 Wishlist

in reply to Steve Austin:

I want to see Jodorowsky's Dune AGAIN with you guys, so that's my number 1 pick...

(Sorry for the 'I was at the world premiere' at Cannes skite, but hell I only got to see 1 film while I was there so I might as well crow about it a bit. :) )

Also - it's a lot funnier and more entertaining than that trailer makes out.