| by Carol Allen
Meeting Dogme director Thomas Vinterberg
at the London Film Festival in the late
nineties brought home to me to the impact
digital technology was about to have in
terms of film making becoming accessible
to anyone who wanted to have a go. I had
been crewing on some short films for aspiring
directors just before then, but in order
to make even a modest fifteen minute film
on 16 mm with crew and actors giving their
services for nothing, they were having
to find anything between £2,000 to £5,000
to pay for stock, hire of equipment, post
production facilities etc. During our interview
Vinterberg showed me the digital camera
on which he had shot Festen. It was small
enough and light enough to fit into my
handbag. "Crikey", I thought. "With
a digital camera and the Dogme philosophy
- using only available lights, props etc
- anyone can make a film now. Even me."
It has however taken
me a while to get it together. Three
years ago I scraped together the money
to buy a decent quality digital camera,
shot a goodly amount of footage of my
friends for the practice films I intended
to make - mini DV tapes are really cheap
now - and bought myself an editing programme
off the internet. But somehow I never
found the time to knuckle down and learn
how to use it. Until two days before
Christmas, when my attention was drawn
to the "60 Seconds of Fame" short
film competition being mounted by BAFTA
and Orange as an ancillary to this year's
BAFTA awards to celebrate the tenth anniversary
of their partnership. Unfortunately because
of the Christmas break it was too late
for me to draw it to the attention of Close-Upfilm
readers, but with a closing date of 4th
January, not too late for me to get my
own act together.
The object of the
competition is to encourage anyone with
a good idea for a one minute film based
on the chosen theme "Celebrate" to
have a go. As David Parfitt, Head of BAFTA's
Film Committee says: "This is a fantastic
opportunity to give the public the confidence
to realise their creativity and to encourage
them to actively participate in the filmmaking
process", while Hattie Evans, Head
of Film Orange adds: "It's really
exciting that the competition is open to
everyone from budding directors with digital
video cameras to students with video phones.
This competition gives everyone the chance
to be involved with BAFTA.”
With the world closed
down between Christmas and New Year,
I needed an idea that I could shoot by
myself in my own living room. And I got
it one evening, when listening to the
Beatles "Rubber Soul" album
and the track "In My Life":
"With lovers
and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all"
I had my story, "Celebrating Friends",
and I had all that footage and several
carrier bags full of old photographs going
back over the years. Unfortunately I discovered
from the competition website, I couldn't
use the song that had inspired me as my
soundtrack - no copyright material was
allowed - but there was a library of music
tracks which one could download and use
for free for the purposes of the competition
only and it wasn't difficult to find something
suitable.
As this was going
to be the story of me and my friends,
in order to create a coherent visual
narrative I was going to have to video
myself - and anyway, I had no other actress
available. After doing a dry run in my
living room, balancing the camera on
various bits of furniture and trying
to do a hand held panning shot, I realised
I was going to have to buy a tripod. I
then made a list of the shots I needed
to link my existing material together.
Videoing oneself is an interesting experience
- setting up the shot, flicking the LCD
screen over so you can see what you're
shooting, getting into position and then
realising you're going to have to do it
all over again because you've chopped the
top of your own head off! But by the end
of the afternoon, I had my footage "in
the can".
Next stage was to
select the shots I needed from my existing
tapes, upload those plus the results
of my afternoon's shoot into the editing
programme, along with the still photographs,
which I could scan into the computer.
Learning to use the editing programme
was to put it mildly a challenge. But once
I'd mastered the basic principles of arranging
the shots in order on the timeline and
how to trim them fore and aft, it went
reasonably swimmingly. My first cut though
came out at 1'45", so a whole chunk
had to come out of the middle. I was then
reduced to cutting fractions of seconds
out of the various shots and dumping a
couple in order to get it down to 59".
Putting a title on proved to be surprisingly
easy, as did adding the music track and
learning how to fade in and out at the
beginning and end of my little movie. The
final stage was to "export" my
video into one of formats listed as acceptable
on the site.
I was now ready
to put my film onto the "60
Seconds of Fame" site. The procedure
was to first fill in a registration form,
which then took you to a page, where you
had to click on a black screen to start
downloading your film. Only when I clicked,
the page went dead on me! Help was however
at hand in the form of a link in case of
problems to enable you to e-mail technical
support and with a little help from them
I finally managed to get my film through
in time for the deadline. As this is the
first year of the competition, there were
obviously technical teething problems.
I was apparently not the only one to experience
them. But my film and those from all the
other hopefuls did eventually get through
and up on the site, where they are all
now available for you to view, give a rating
to and add your critical comments.
Although the exact number of entries has
not yet been announced, a visit to the
website demonstrates that there a lot of
aspiring film makers out there and the
competition is fierce. Doing a count of
the films competing in London region alone,
there are 95. Several of them are really
impressive. There are dramas and comedies,
animations, abstract meditations, family
celebrations and a lot more. And some of
them have indeed been shot on mobile phones.
The site is well worth a visit and not
only to browse the films themselves. Even
if you're not one of those, who entered
the competition, if you're an aspiring
film maker, you will find useful advice
on film making, recordings of the masterclasses
that were held throughout the country in
November and one minute films by professional
directors Martha Fiennes, Ken Russell and
Julia Jason.
To access the website go to: http://www1.orange.co.uk/60secondsoffame/home/ And
if you're curious to view my little movie,
you'll find that at: http://www.60secondsoffame.co.uk/bafta/sixtysec/_entry/402882920f1542fd010fea71b8822330/jsps/entry
So what happens next? As well as currently
being viewed and rated by visitors to the
site, the films are also being assessed
by a panel of judges, who on 29th January
will be announcing up to five finalists
in each region of the country. The public
then have until midnight on Monday 5th
February to vote for their favourite in
each region. On Wednesday 7th regional
winners will be announced on BBC regional
television news. The 15 regional finalists
will then be invited to the BAFTA Awards
ceremony at the Royal Opera House with
their films being shown in Covent Garden
Piazza as the stars arrive. The overall
winner will be chosen by a BAFTA panel
and announced at the Film Awards on stage
in front of the Piazza big screen and the
winning film will be featured during the
Film Awards broadcast to an audience of
millions.
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