Saturday 21 January 2012

Your Film Festival

How would you like $500,000 to spend on your next short film?  And have Ridley Scott and his team to help you with any tricky bits?

That's on offer from YouTube. First you have to submit a short video (including live action shorts, animation shorts, documentaries, web-series episodes, or TV pilots, up to fifteen minutes long) to Your Film Festival. Submissions open on February 2, 2012, and close on March 31, 2012. 

In June 2012, members of Scott’s TV/film production company Scott Free Productions will select fifty videos for the rest of us to vote on. Those fifty films will become a Channel, part of YouTube's reach into the world of filmmaking. The idea is to establish YouTube as the foot-in-the-door into Hollywood.

The top 10 will screen at the Venice Film Festival, while the winner gets a $500,000 production grant to work with the Scott Free team on a new project.  How many talented, but unknown, filmmakers will create original story-driven content for YouTube, in exchange for a crack at a large audience and a job working with Scott’s production company? My guess is lots.

Ridley Scott said of the new venture:
Short filmmaking is exactly where I started my career 50 years ago, so to be helping new filmmakers find an entry point like this into the industry is fantastic.
Here's a couple of videos from YouTube. The first one tells you all the same stuff, but with pictures and music. The second features some interesting filmmakers, adding their comments.




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