If you’ve got an iPhone in your pocket you’ve got everything you need to make a short film. Or a full-length feature – although its probably best to start with a short.
Open to everyone, Straight8 has launched its first digital competition as part of the London Short Film Festival. Just shoot a 3 minute film with their free app, submit it for free by noon on Saturday 18th and the finalists will get to see their work screened at the ICA in London on Sunday 19th. You can enter if you are a famous director or if you have never shot more than someone blowing out their birthday cake candles. You can shoot on any subject, using any technique, experimentation and innovation is encouraged.
The Straight8 competition has been around since 1999, taking films to Cannes and screening them in West End cinemas. Previously the competition has always used Super 8 film. Competitors shot in sequence on camera and then sent the unprocessed film to the Straight8 organisers to process and judge. Scarily, the filmmakers didn’t get to see their films until they were screened at the end of the competition in front of hundreds of people.
This week’s competition uses the new Straight8 app. This makes some changes to the work flow, but the basic ethos remains the same. There is no editing allowed. Clips are filmed in sequence and the final film lasts three minutes. Filmmakers are able to look at the last sequence and decide whether to keep it or film it again, but once a sequence has been accepted there is no going back. And the whole film can be seen at the end, which makes the wait for the verdict less nervewracking.
Previously Straight8 has had to have an entry fee that covered the cost of buying, processing and sending a Super 8 cartridge. Thanks to the digital app this time round there is no entry fee. The app does not imitate Super 8 – at the ICA launch last night founder Ed Sayers explained that the point of Straight8 was never the use of Super 8 per se. Rather it was the discipline of shooting without editing, creating a short film quickly without lengthy post-production. It is this idea of making disciplined shot decisions which has been transferred over the app.
The app is well-designed and allows control over several of the iPhone camera’s features. You can choose to use the audio you record with each shot, or add professional music to the whole film at the end. Or both. Mainly though Straight8 is not about technical wizardry. Rather it is about raw creativity and making interesting films quickly.
Full details are available here. If you’ve got an iPhone then you have a week to make a three minute film. Get going, this could be your first step on the road to an Oscar!
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