darren
Poobah Emeritus
Carmel and I have discussed the Banff Film Festival many times over the past several years. We feel that "back in the day" the films were real indy efforts and often produced by a few friends that were having fun the backcountry. Today, a lot of the films are funded by six figure grant money and are much more commercial. As the commercial feel / professional level of the films has increased, our interest in the festival has gone down.
I've been kicking this idea around for a while and this weekend, Carmel, Chomp, and I discussed it. Our Dr. McGillicuddy fueled brain storming session resulted in the following proposal:
The First Annual VFTT Film Festival
Short / Feature films can be submitted in the following categories:
General Mountains - hiking, backpaking, MTB, mountain culture etc.
Climbing - rock, ice, mixed, bouldering, indoor
Snow Sports - skiing (tele, alipine, xc, you name it), snow boarding, etc
Water Sports - canoeing, kayaking, surfing, fishing, etc.
Miscellaneous - wildlife, outdoor oriented comedy, etc
Each category will be broken into Shorts less than 5 minutes, and Features between 5 and 30 minutes.
Judging: the idea is that all submissions will be judged by a panel and 1st and 2nd place selections will be made. It is TBD if the panel of judges will be from VFTT or outside.
Prizes: If this generates enough interest, the possibility exists to get prizes provided by sponsors - maybe EMS, REI, rock gyms, etc would be interested in providing prizes in exchange for sponsorship of the festival.
Entries:
Right now we are thinking that films will be collected until September 2009. After judging, winners will be annouced in late September. There will then be a showing of the winners and other judge's picks in early October. The location of the showing will be determined by the amount of people interesting. For example, if there are only 40 or so people interested, then the showing could be in the loft of my garage. If it turns out that there are a hundred people interested in seeing the showing then we will have to look at charging admission and renting a hall or auditorium. An alternative would be to make a large screen and have the showing in a field / camping area - however it would then become weather dependant and the sound would most likely not be good.
We are certainly not looking to compete with the Banff Film Festival or anything remotely close to that scale. We do however recognize that there is a ton of talent on this website and in the Northeast outdoor community as a whole. I am stoked to see what a grassroots effort like this can produce. It will be very cool to see what "a bunch of hikers" can create using all the new technology that is available to us.
This could easily go either way; it could sprout and die, or it could take off bigger than expected. If the idea does catch on and grow, we will certainly need help to pull it off so volunteers will be welcome.
This thread can be used for thoughts / comments / discussions. I will also be posting a poll to see how many people think they will submit a film and also how many would be interested in attended the showing.
Aloha,
- darren
I've been kicking this idea around for a while and this weekend, Carmel, Chomp, and I discussed it. Our Dr. McGillicuddy fueled brain storming session resulted in the following proposal:
The First Annual VFTT Film Festival
Short / Feature films can be submitted in the following categories:
General Mountains - hiking, backpaking, MTB, mountain culture etc.
Climbing - rock, ice, mixed, bouldering, indoor
Snow Sports - skiing (tele, alipine, xc, you name it), snow boarding, etc
Water Sports - canoeing, kayaking, surfing, fishing, etc.
Miscellaneous - wildlife, outdoor oriented comedy, etc
Each category will be broken into Shorts less than 5 minutes, and Features between 5 and 30 minutes.
Judging: the idea is that all submissions will be judged by a panel and 1st and 2nd place selections will be made. It is TBD if the panel of judges will be from VFTT or outside.
Prizes: If this generates enough interest, the possibility exists to get prizes provided by sponsors - maybe EMS, REI, rock gyms, etc would be interested in providing prizes in exchange for sponsorship of the festival.
Entries:
- You do not have to be a member of VFTT to submit a film.
- There will be no fee to submit a film.
- You can enter one film into each category.
- Films can be sumbitted in a pc format or a playable DVD format
- Films can be motion picture films or picture slide shows set to an audio track
- Films will be submitted on cd / dvd via snail mail - no 20 MB emails please
Right now we are thinking that films will be collected until September 2009. After judging, winners will be annouced in late September. There will then be a showing of the winners and other judge's picks in early October. The location of the showing will be determined by the amount of people interesting. For example, if there are only 40 or so people interested, then the showing could be in the loft of my garage. If it turns out that there are a hundred people interested in seeing the showing then we will have to look at charging admission and renting a hall or auditorium. An alternative would be to make a large screen and have the showing in a field / camping area - however it would then become weather dependant and the sound would most likely not be good.
We are certainly not looking to compete with the Banff Film Festival or anything remotely close to that scale. We do however recognize that there is a ton of talent on this website and in the Northeast outdoor community as a whole. I am stoked to see what a grassroots effort like this can produce. It will be very cool to see what "a bunch of hikers" can create using all the new technology that is available to us.
This could easily go either way; it could sprout and die, or it could take off bigger than expected. If the idea does catch on and grow, we will certainly need help to pull it off so volunteers will be welcome.
This thread can be used for thoughts / comments / discussions. I will also be posting a poll to see how many people think they will submit a film and also how many would be interested in attended the showing.
Aloha,
- darren
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