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THE NATIONAL 48-HOUR FILM CHALLENGE - EDINBURGH
Results for Edinburgh according to official website at 2 September 03:
1st Place: Vague Films. Title: Grip on Reality.
2nd Place: Two 7s Clash. Title: From Ed.
3rd Place: The Illegitimate Children Of Chuck Norris. Title: Panic Street.
See below for report on competition start:
Saturday 16 August 03 - Cameo Cinema Edinburgh
It's midday in Scotland's magnificent capital city. A fabulous summer day, hot as a tropical island. Over a hundred film crews are starting to shoot. On Monday, they'll be here Edinburgh's cutting-edge arthouse, the Cameo Cinema, to hand over the finished product.
The Cameo Cinema's an apt host for the Edinburgh leg of the national event. Every month, the cinema runs The Blue Room, a 1.5 hour showcase of locally-made shorts. The best film of the month enters a best-of-the-year competition. The Cameo's parent company Picturehouse www.picturehouses.co.uk runs film-making courses too - see their site for details.
The National 48 Hour Film Challenge's arrived. Slogan - Film Making Without Excuses.
National organiser, the remarkable Johnnie Oddball is the creator of the Challenge. He directs 160 team reps to a couple of brown bags. In London, organiser Louis Savy's doing the same at the Mayfair Curzon. In Bristol it's the Watershed. In Manchester, AMC Great Northern. Altogether, 4,500 people are making great films this weekend.
Paul Trijbits, Head Of The New Cinema Fund at the UK Film Council, supports the National 48 Hour Film Challenge in a practical way. The Film Council's given money to help the hugely complex administration of the event. And Paul himself gets stuck in here at The Cameo, stuffing information packs for the crews, and shaking hands with as many as possible. Looks like the age-old industry whine that the Film Council's not there at the grass-roots is in for a kicking.
OK Paul, what about the whinge from Cambridge Film Festival 03 that the Film Council's out of touch, and from stars of Young Adam that it doesn't come up with the money?
Paul Trijbits: 'I really regret not being at the Cambridge Film Festival'. Come on, the man was in agony with an ear infection. But what about the bitchy tirade against the Council that came out of Cambridge? 'It would be an understatement to say they were misinformed. A number of things they raised are exactly what the Film Council is doing. And it is all on the UKFC website.
But you didn't do anything for Young Adam? 'Yes. It received funding from our Premiere Fund.' OK, but aren't you really only interested in high-budget film? 'The thing that's thrown at us is that all we do is Hollywood Studio films or lowest common denominator British comedy. Also that we funded Gosford Park. Yes we did - because no other studio would make it. We also funded This Is Not A Love Song - a very low budget, left-of-field digital thriller. And The Magdalen Sisters. And Simon Pummel's Body Song - an extremely experimental film made from archives. And in this years Edinburgh Film Festival we've funded Intermission, One For The Road, and Noi Albinoi.'
What about people who win the 48 Hour National Film Challenge? '3 winners are going to the Berlinale 2004 Talent Campus, flights and accommodation paid. It's a one-week residential campus. Last year it was taught by Dennis Hopper, Spike Lee, Anthony Minghella and Wim Wenders.' There are a lot of other prizes, see Challenge Website.
Paul Trijbits is on-stage to welcome the crews. 'My job is to help you make more short films (scheme details on UKFC website), then feature films. In the 48 Hour National Film Challenge, we've done no more than support Johnnie Oddball and Louis Savy ... Don't forget: digital has many different facets. Don't just zoom in and out. And - enjoy it.' And he's off to chat with the crews and put up posters for the event. Give him a break, he's a genuine film enthusiast - and, sometimes unusual in film - a nice, friendly guy.
Paul Sullivan's shooting the documentary of the event, filming and interviewing crews as they wait to see into the brown bags. Ah, the brown bags. They're full of slips of paper, each with a single word. One's a genre, the other part of the title. They're unique, and each crew's given one of each picked at random. So every film can be completely different, and nothing can have been shot before.
Chatting with people from different crews, we meet : Brian Mather, Barane Chan, Helen Graham, John Livesey, Leisa Rea, Ian Kelly, Louise Mae, John Gallagher, Luke Rufo, Jane Saunders, Dave Barrass, Sheena MacDougall, Catherine Middleton, Iwan Seheer (with his two young sons, ready for crew-duty), and Lee Sellers.
Leisa Rea is crossing over from the Edinburgh Fringe, where she's directing Lizzie Roper's show Through My Keyhole at the Gilded Balloon. Lee Sellers is part of a company performing at the Fringe in Leonce and Lena, also at Gilded Balloon. They're going to try and fit filming round performing and flyering their show over the next two days.
Damian Kell, splendid in turquoise suit, is doing to-camera spots anchoring the documentary. He's in Newsrevue every night at C, Chambers Street, so 10.30 am (the start of the event) is a punishingly early start. Damian starred in Making Juice, The Making Of Juice, one of the London FilmMakers Challenge (2002 precursor to today's event)'s most successful films. Today his job is to meet and greet, help and encourage crews, and do logistics. Ah yes, there are organisers.
And here they are, in The Cameo at the crack of dawn, setting up microphones, desks, instruction packs as the filmmakers assemble outside. Johnnie Oddball and Paul Sullivan had to sleep in the car. With Edinburgh packed tight for the summer festivals, they drove up for midnight last night without a reservation. Florence Tissot is Creative Programmer for Short Film at The Curzon. London filmmaker Shobina Jay gets the crucial job of brown-bag superintendent. She's there to make sure no-one takes a few choices and decides on the best words to use. To avoid this, Shobina picks the slips out of the brown bags. Fiona Campbell is an electronics engineer in Edinburgh. She's keen to start making films. It's 9.30, an hour to go. There's mild chaos.
Joe Bateman's here, charming and well-organised. He calmly gets everyone in order while Johnnie works out technicals with the Cameo projectionist Malcolm Duff. London filmmakers and cinema goers may know Joe from The Curzon, where he's organised many events, including filmmakers' low-budget shorts showings. Everyone's changing into National 48 Hour Film Challenge Crew T-shirts. London filmmaker Benjamin Wade's looking efficient. It's beginning to look good. The doors open and the filmmakers come in.
There are around 160 in the audience. Some of the teams have sent one, some two representatives, so it looks like perhaps 100 teams or more. Over 600 teams are due to take part nationally. Johnnie Oddball runs a very sharp trailer on-screen, summarising the event. He sets out the rules - all films back to The Cameo by 1 pm Monday, at least 2 in the cast, 5 minutes long (full rules see Challenge Website).
The crews queue in alphabetical order for their title and genre. They include: 5 Dead Cockroaches, B-List Productions, Baby More Films, Celtic Connections, Fixed In Post, Funky Features, What Would Jesus Film, Sin City Rebels, Coal Face Productions, Duck Films, and many more.
And they're off. The crews head into town ready to go without sleep for a long time.
We run into EIFF's genial Artistic Director Shane Danielson. He's a muscular chap with bullet head, built like a boxer. He's standing outside FilmHouse in Lothian Road (a main centre of the EIFF) looking like a particularly dangerous bouncer at an upmarket casino. Today he's splendid in suit, tie and shades - the effect's very Reservoir Dogs.
Jeremy Boxer is here to observe the working of the National Film Challenge. He's Head of European Operations for Resfest (www.resfest.com), a digital film festival. Jeremy Boxer says they've been going for around 8 years, attracting films with budgets from £50 to £500,000.
Johnnie Oddball and Paul Trijbits head for the Edinburgh Film Festival(EIFF) Delegate Centre, near Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre, famous in its reputation for modern drama. We're in the EIFF's friendly Press Office, run by Head of Press Lindsey Taylor and fronted by charming Press Desk Manager Rachael Booth and her lovely, helpful colleagues including Nicola Edwards, Anna Maijala, Emma Pirie, Kate Riddell, and Anna Shaw.
Rachael Booth and Johnnie Oddball liaise over publicity for the 48 Hour Film Challenge, while UKFC Head of New Cinema Fund Paul Trijbits papers the Delegate Centre with Challenge posters. Who says these Film Council lads aren't hands-on?
John Park / Edinburgh / August 03
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008
www.fringereport.com
