Roughcut 7th May 2017 Plaza Cinema Truro @RCfilmnight
O region, the Cornish film production company (leading lights brothers Simon and Brett Harvey) presented its second short film challenge competition - to produce a 51 second film on the subject of "1967 - the Summer of Love" at WTW's Plaza Cinema Screen 2 in Truro.
As I entered Truro I was struck by the youth of the audience. Here present in the room were many of the film makers and competitors and many were in their teens and twenties and most were local....film is the medium of youth ..... I sat next to a group of film producers from Newquay - a team of four in their late teens and next to another group of Porthleven families where the kids were the film-makers. The results were born out in this . . amazing evening of 50 second films
The call out was posted internationally and 33 films were submitted which the audience voted on - there was a great atmosphere as Simon Harvey introduced the series thanking the sponsors Falmouth University, WTW and O Region
We were each given voting slips to elect our favourite 51 seconds but as it was dark in the cinema you could not write comments or read the titles on the voting form so one quickly got lost as to which film was which .....and because credits and titles had very little time to roll .... remembering which of the clever animations (and there were several) was which became a challenge,
There were no completely duff films ( a few self conscious student navel gazing ones). A lot of care had been put into them technically. Some were opportunistic having very little connection with the title challenge but just being 51 seconds long....one about STIs was funny but completely irrelevant, There were common themes of love over the ages and only a few really made wide imaginative response to the call, We had a back-to-the-future pipe playing hippy come visit a student flat which I quite liked for its fun,
The winners were I think
1) A Casual Commute - a beautifully designed animation - a grey crowd of 1984ish regimented suitcase-carrying, bowler hatted, stick people - transform into a whirligig flower power splash of colour in the 1960s with a clever use of the "Wheel of COlour" idiom. Funnily enough the futuristic short "Reaching 1-9-67" by Daniel Simpkins also had that regimented feel and was a cleverer idea I thought (but no award for this one) - in terms of screen play and mood -1984 ish dystopian feel -the best in my opinion
2) Hana Backland's "Sue and David" - a very rounded, neat and engaging romance and history of a relationship is described in a 51 second Haiku film. Nice warm feeling without too much nostalgia...life affirming in very understated British way - Brief Encounter certitudes.
3) Hey Fruit by Year 7Film Club @collegepenryn
4) Audience Prize rather predicatably went to "From Prickles with Love" a cute hedghog steals a hippy chick being romanced by bandana bedecked, guitar playing due in a stop motion animation
5) Young Persons Award Hip Hip Hooray directed by Nedward113
Also overlooked was the excellent Norwegian "Summer of Love 1967" where an dream and a photograph on the wall take an old woman back to her youth by Eirik Gustavson
Ruby Ingelheart's clip of a flower girl getting back to nature walking around in soft focus woods in the buff was pretty, deft, innocent and featured a rear end that reminded me of the soft focus bottom feartured in the Athena Calendar Tennis Player "White Dress" of 1976 which adorned so many school boys' bedroom walls. Quite daring and 60s like in its sense of female sexual freedom and style`
The challenge is funded by Falmouth University Television and Film Schools with cash prizes of £500 to the winner and £250 to other participants. Not only does it present the University in a very innovative and challenging role but it also meant that some award winning films by its students could be screened as part of the programme which otherwise would only have been 32 minutes long!
This included a piece called I think "The Royal Swanston" which examines the ego of a puffed up luvvie whose arrogance and self-satisfaction gets a workout, Filmed in a black box as if in a Pinter play, the dialogue was intellectual and challenging - I did not entirely follow the argument which was abstract and examined te. Some excellent character acting by the lead and good camera and lighting work portraying an insufferable bore . The better work from Falmouth University undergraduates was, again I think, (no programme reference) called The Reunion which features a late twenties female going back to a university reunion party and enduring the exaggerated and little disguised ambitions of her contemporaries - an odious Audi driving female accountant who defines her progress by the model she owns, a couple of intense proud parents keeping up appearances of nuclear family cliche but - well drawn local cast actors (Dan and Charlotte from Owdyado) Ciaran Clarke in a cameo as a globe-trotting shagger propositioning the hapless Holly who is stuck with her boyfriend in a dead end job in dead end normality
All in all the evening was a triumph of getting (as it turned out largely) young people 16-30 engaged in a challenge and really coming up with the goods` Eat your heart out BFI this is how you engage with that most elusive generation for you BRILLIANTLY
O region, the Cornish film production company (leading lights brothers Simon and Brett Harvey) presented its second short film challenge competition - to produce a 51 second film on the subject of "1967 - the Summer of Love" at WTW's Plaza Cinema Screen 2 in Truro.
As I entered Truro I was struck by the youth of the audience. Here present in the room were many of the film makers and competitors and many were in their teens and twenties and most were local....film is the medium of youth ..... I sat next to a group of film producers from Newquay - a team of four in their late teens and next to another group of Porthleven families where the kids were the film-makers. The results were born out in this . . amazing evening of 50 second films
The call out was posted internationally and 33 films were submitted which the audience voted on - there was a great atmosphere as Simon Harvey introduced the series thanking the sponsors Falmouth University, WTW and O Region
We were each given voting slips to elect our favourite 51 seconds but as it was dark in the cinema you could not write comments or read the titles on the voting form so one quickly got lost as to which film was which .....and because credits and titles had very little time to roll .... remembering which of the clever animations (and there were several) was which became a challenge,
There were no completely duff films ( a few self conscious student navel gazing ones). A lot of care had been put into them technically. Some were opportunistic having very little connection with the title challenge but just being 51 seconds long....one about STIs was funny but completely irrelevant, There were common themes of love over the ages and only a few really made wide imaginative response to the call, We had a back-to-the-future pipe playing hippy come visit a student flat which I quite liked for its fun,
The winners were I think
1) A Casual Commute - a beautifully designed animation - a grey crowd of 1984ish regimented suitcase-carrying, bowler hatted, stick people - transform into a whirligig flower power splash of colour in the 1960s with a clever use of the "Wheel of COlour" idiom. Funnily enough the futuristic short "Reaching 1-9-67" by Daniel Simpkins also had that regimented feel and was a cleverer idea I thought (but no award for this one) - in terms of screen play and mood -1984 ish dystopian feel -the best in my opinion
2) Hana Backland's "Sue and David" - a very rounded, neat and engaging romance and history of a relationship is described in a 51 second Haiku film. Nice warm feeling without too much nostalgia...life affirming in very understated British way - Brief Encounter certitudes.
3) Hey Fruit by Year 7Film Club @collegepenryn
4) Audience Prize rather predicatably went to "From Prickles with Love" a cute hedghog steals a hippy chick being romanced by bandana bedecked, guitar playing due in a stop motion animation
5) Young Persons Award Hip Hip Hooray directed by Nedward113
Also overlooked was the excellent Norwegian "Summer of Love 1967" where an dream and a photograph on the wall take an old woman back to her youth by Eirik Gustavson
Ruby Ingelheart's clip of a flower girl getting back to nature walking around in soft focus woods in the buff was pretty, deft, innocent and featured a rear end that reminded me of the soft focus bottom feartured in the Athena Calendar Tennis Player "White Dress" of 1976 which adorned so many school boys' bedroom walls. Quite daring and 60s like in its sense of female sexual freedom and style`
The challenge is funded by Falmouth University Television and Film Schools with cash prizes of £500 to the winner and £250 to other participants. Not only does it present the University in a very innovative and challenging role but it also meant that some award winning films by its students could be screened as part of the programme which otherwise would only have been 32 minutes long!
This included a piece called I think "The Royal Swanston" which examines the ego of a puffed up luvvie whose arrogance and self-satisfaction gets a workout, Filmed in a black box as if in a Pinter play, the dialogue was intellectual and challenging - I did not entirely follow the argument which was abstract and examined te. Some excellent character acting by the lead and good camera and lighting work portraying an insufferable bore . The better work from Falmouth University undergraduates was, again I think, (no programme reference) called The Reunion which features a late twenties female going back to a university reunion party and enduring the exaggerated and little disguised ambitions of her contemporaries - an odious Audi driving female accountant who defines her progress by the model she owns, a couple of intense proud parents keeping up appearances of nuclear family cliche but - well drawn local cast actors (Dan and Charlotte from Owdyado) Ciaran Clarke in a cameo as a globe-trotting shagger propositioning the hapless Holly who is stuck with her boyfriend in a dead end job in dead end normality
All in all the evening was a triumph of getting (as it turned out largely) young people 16-30 engaged in a challenge and really coming up with the goods` Eat your heart out BFI this is how you engage with that most elusive generation for you BRILLIANTLY
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