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drinks Monday 1 September 08 Edinburgh Reunion in London
Topping And Butch Hit Leicester Square 26-27 September 08
Cannes Film Challenge 05
It's the 24 Hour Film Challenge deadline. Organiser Johnnie Oddball's editing films together for tonight's screening at the UK Film Centre. Nothing can go wrong. Cue tantrums and tiaras...
Dark Hunter producer Johnnie Oddball's 24 Hour Film Challenge took place in Cannes 14-15 May 05 with a screening of films at the UK Film Centre.
Whoops - I get up 11:30 am - the alarm didn’t go off. A cab’s here and 25 mins later I’m at the British Pavilion to collect film tapes from the teams who’ve taken part in the Cannes 05 24 Hour Film Challenge. It’s Sunday morning 15 May 2005, and it’s packed.
All I want is to collect all the films, so I can start to edit them together for the screening at 6 pm.
Apparently there’s a rumour the deadline’s been extended by 3 hours. What? I’ve only been up half an hour. I haven’t even turned on my mobile. I don’t mind stretching the deadline if the teams need it, but 3 hours would be crazy. The deadline is 12.30 pm – otherwise it’s not fair on the other teams. Anyone late is out of the competition - but their film will still be screened. To me that’s more important than winning. After all, it’s an experiment for everyone involved (including me) rather than just an event. Anyhow, the teams help other teams get their films finished – it’s amazing.
We have to exit the British Pavilion due to the number of people. The Kodak is too small, and the American Pavilion is for members only (and empty most of the time – nuts). We ask next door at the African Pavilion if we can come in, as they have space. The lady running it is amazed and kindly says - please do. It’s great - one of the best-furnished pavilions in Cannes.
Film-makers have been given an AVID laptop. Which is great, and most teams use them. 3 teams find it hard work as they have no editors. But we have editors in our staff, so we help their directors get the films done. It’s a hive of talent all in one place. It’s exciting and madness at the same time. All I can do is wait - and wait.
Another problem. One of the teams has used their own NTSC (the American TV standard) cameras with an NTSC Apple Mac laptop. They can’t get the film out of the computer. We try everything, including another NTSC camera from another friendly American team. No luck.
It’s 2 pm. We have almost all the films. But 2 teams are still trying to get their films off their laptops. One’s using AVID, the other Apple. They’re FA Productions and Team Moolabanga from New York. It’s Final Cut Pro versus AVID. Cameras are running out of power. For the NTSC team this is a nightmare, because the European TV standard is PAL, and the AVID is PAL. The cameras are from VMI, which has an endless supply of batteries. They give us two whole kits for free. They save the day.
I have to sort out the editing of the films for the screening. I always use two Sony PD150 cameras with a DV (digital video) lead camera-to-camera to edit the films together. Putting them together saves time stopping and starting every time at the screening. But there’s no quiet place. So where could I be on my own in Cannes?
The Iran Pavilion kindly step in. I ask if I can use their power to charge up my mobile phone. They are so helpful – what wonderful people. They give me a table, power, tea, fruit – and their time. I show them what I’m doing – they can’t believe it. The whole of the Iran film staff watch me edit the films together. They help me decide the winning films. We all sit down and watch them on their monitor. It doesn’t matter that only 3 of the staff speak English – they understand the films, and they’re as excited as me at the quality of the results. For the first time since I started doing film challenges, I have to be a judge on the event. In all the events, I ask people who work in the industry to come along. It’s so frustrating that often they don't take in that these films are shot in 24 hours – not with 6 weeks of pre-production. The Iranian film staff understand this immediately. In Iran they have to shoot everything in 24 hours most of the time. They’re amazed to see what these film makers have done in a day and a night in Cannes.
While I’m finishing assembling the films, I can hear – but not see - Darth Vader breathing from the red carpet. Then the film music comes, and the cheers from the fans. It’s electric. The biggest movie of 2005 is getting its first screening and I couldn’t care less. All I want to do is get these films cut together. No Star Wars movie is going to get me out of this seat.
I was more upset that I was going to miss the man who got me off my arse and out there doing this event and making feature films. He’s Robert Rodriguez, director of Sin City.
All done. The only two missing are the American and British teams still trying to extract their films. We need to get moving. I call our team at the UK Film Centre and they start running a DVD showing shorts from previous events over the years. I head over there with the new films on DV tape and go into the projection room to get ready.
Rudolf Buitendach, who made Lost In Cannes, asks if we can put his film on last for the TV crew from E Entertainment to see it. I say, no we can’t – we’ve already put his film into the final edit for screening. He asks can we stop the tape and put his new version in in 24p format? I say no, it’s already on the tape. With this, he goes into one with me. He says it will look bad, the sound will be bad. I say, we will try and forward past his film and put it on last – that’s all we can do.
When his film comes on, we forward to the next film. As soon as we do this, the event goes from bad to fuck-me-do-I-run-now-or-just-get-a-plane-home?
As soon as we play again, the tape breaks up, the sound goes, the picture goes mad. There’s nothing we can do. If we’d just left the tape running, it wouldn’t have happened. There’s an argument. I ask where in the rules it says that 24p or NTSC can be used? All our equipment is PAL. They say, in front of the TV crew ‘Did you chose PAL so just British film-makers could take part?’ Er, no, it’s because this is Europe.
It’s a nightmare bigger than anything I’ve had before. (Except there was one event when I dreamed about getting two parking tickets on the same day.) I have the UK Film Council people having a go at me, the film-maker having a go, then his actors - and all this while I had a packed-out British Pavilion screening going on behind the screen.
I can understand Rudolf Buitendach and how pissed-off I would be. The film-crew followed them from the start to the end. And the end is that he is not going to get his film screened. This is not for want of us trying. We had his film ready, it was fine, it worked, the sound and picture were OK.
Rudolf Buitendach goes in front of the camera crew. He says he doesn’t want to screen his film at the event. He’s pissed-off with his actors having a go at him, and he’s been up for 24 hours.
I’ve had 2 hours sleep over the whole weekend. The film crew ask me what the problem is. I explain that the player is PAL and his film is NTSC. I don’t want to pass the buck and make Rudolf Buitendach look bad. I say it’s my fault, not him or his team and leave it at that. We want to get everyone’s film played.
Eureka. The British team working in AVID announce they’ve got it onto tape. Great. We’ll put the remaining films on one at a time. It’ll take longer, changing tapes each time, but at least that way we’ll get them screened.
Everyone now gets worried their films won’t get screened. But it works, and we start getting them all shown. Only one team is missing – from New York. They’re using masking tape and a lead to get the sound from their G4. At one point we’re going to screen the monitor just to get the film projected - but nothing. The picture’s on the big screen, but no sound. The French projectionist is amazing. He keeps concentration through all the problems. He’s chilled while everyone else panics.
It’s done. We give out the framed certificate to the winners. The film-makers go crazy. They’ve stuck with it through all the tantrums and tiaras behind the scenes. They’re all really excited about the event – it’s fabulous.
But I find that for me, the buzz has gone. I’m so upset for the Americans. Right up to the last minute we were together in the projection room trying to get their film screened. They didn’t make a scene, or go to a TV crew like prima donnas and moan. They took it that they didn’t get their film screened, and still gave it their best shot. They were really thankful to have taken part in the event, they put in their absolute all. They gave the winners their best wishes - typical of their generous spirit.
I left next day thinking I had failed the teams who didn't get a screening in Cannes. But they said to me that they where happy to have been part of an event in Cannes. They want us to do another next year so they can make up for this year’s technical problems
The films will now be screened in London. We’ll try and get everyone together for a Cannes reunion and put on all the films in a cinema. This time no-one will miss their film. And there will be no technical problems.
Next? In London, a gender-equality event promoting women directors in film. And we’ve been asked to do a challenge in Africa. No more NTSC v PAL, just lions and tigers eating the crew. Now there’s an idea.
(c) Johnnie Oddball 20 May 2005
Details of events organised by Johnnie Oddball are at - Oddball Challenge and Digital Guerrilla FilmMakers. And see Johnnie's article on the Berlin Film Challenge 2004 and Paris Film Challenge 2004
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008
