Saturday, 25 September 2010

And onto the next one...

Tuxedos-a-plenty adorned the foyer of Cineworld Cinemas in Northampton this month with the arrival of the third Film Northants short film festival.
More than 120 people attended the growing event, which aims to showcase and promote film-making talent in Northamptonshire. The evening coincided with the announcement that the festival has been nominated for a Pride in Northants award for Raising the Profile of Northamptonshire. For the committee this was the icing on the cake after our hard work throughout the year. Winners will be announced on October 1st 2010.
The awards ceremony was a fantastic success, and by far the best festival to date. The quality of films had risen, the change of venue from Vue to Cineworld was an excellent move and everyone had huge smiles on their face just to be there.
Having private access to the Cineworld bar made all the difference, as guests and finalists arrived early and had a drink to calm their nerves before walking down the red carpet and posing for photographs.
The screening itself was improved with graphics on the screen, a smooth flow of films (no DVD ESC signs flashing up on the screen) and the addition of a film including cryptic comments from the judges.
Host Quentin Falk was also a great addition as he interacted with awards presenter Bruce Green extremely well and interviewed all of the three winners, making the whole evening more of an event.
First prize winner Love Is... won the public vote by a stonking 37% (grabbing themselves a £500 Jessops gift card), followed by second place winner Barney with 23% of the vote and third prize winner Fitzy Wrapper with 11% of the vote. The remaining 5 films had fairly even votes amongst them and they all received film merchandise goodie bags. The makers of Barney had double success this year as they also won the Judges' Choice award netting them a £200 Jessops gift card. The three winning films were a great mix of thriller, comedy and documentary.
In previous years the screening and awards has run ahead of schedule but with all the interviews, photographs and prize giving we were running slightly late. When I eventually shepherded everyone to the bar for the post-screening reception, my committee member in charge of food and drinks greeted me sharply with: "Where have you all been? You took an hour not half an hour!"
We got fantastic comments on the night from everyone who attended including Northampton Mayor, and our Visitors Book was brimming with compliments including:
"A wonderful selection of films! Hope the talent in Northants continues to grow."
"Brilliant films, brilliant idea. Can't wait for the next one!"
"Fab evening, amazing to see my film on the big screen."
"Brilliant evening! Although I cringed when I was on screen! "Will work harder to try and win next year!"
Helping the committee on the evening were Northampton Youth Forum, a band of excellent volunteers who checked tickets, marshalled guests, took photos, filmed video footage and served food and drink at the reception.
With the volunteers and committee there were 15 people involved in running the event, a great improvement on the 3 people running around like madmen last year, and probably why we got lots of nice comments about the event being very well organised.
Post-event there has been a great buzz particularly online with winners and guests sending me their photos, video footage and web links of the evening so I can update the Film Northants website which continues to get hundreds of hits everyday.
Viewing statistics for each of the eight shortlisted films on the website have also come in and there were more than 2,300 hits during the month they were online.

Feedback forms are also coming in and I am already thinking of ways of improving the event next year. First up is the Judges Comments film which needs developing, and also possibly including a Youth Award if we can get enough youth clubs and forums on board to enter films.

I think the best thing to come out of the awards this year was the feeling it gave all of the finalists and their cast and crew. There was an immense sense of achievement and they all received a great confidence boost which will encourage them to continue making films and invest in their talents.

Sunday, 19 September 2010

Last minute preparations


The votes are cast, the bubbly is ordered and the DVDs have been tested. Just a few more preparations now until the red carpet opens tomorrow night.

It has been a busy week and Monday will be the last push to get the ceremony in order. Thankfully the Film Northants committee have all booked the day off work so we can get everything ready in plenty of time.

This week the voting had a last minute spurt with more than 500 individual votes cast in total. The website has also been in great use with more than 1400 unique users this month, amounting to almost 3000 individuals accessing the website since it was launched in May. That's more than 6,000 page views in 5 months. This is a vast increase in the amount of visitors Film Northants had in its first two years within the Chronicle & Echo website.

So the winners of the public vote 1st, 2nd and 3rd, have been decided and the trophies are currently being engraved in a top secret location. The four judges have also got together to decide the winner of the Judges' Choice award, who will receive a £200 Jessops gift card. This was an excrutiating process and two films in particular were equally close contenders, but finally a decision was made, all will be revealed tomorrow evening.

I have also spent the week getting everything in order for the cinema, including buying a spotlight for the host, sorting a film music playlist and testing the finalists DVDs. There was a slight panic mid week when one of the discs wouldn't play and the finalist was on holiday, but it has all been sorted now and the films looks and sounds fantastic on the screen.

A new addition to the screening this year will be a short film of three of the judges discussing the final eight films and what they enjoyed about them. Sort of X-factor style but at The University of Northampton rather than Simon Cowell's sun-drenched LA mansion. Feel free to give us feedback on whether it works or not. There will be a volunteer from the Northampton Youth Forum going around the reception to get all your feedback, comments and thoughts on the evening.

This morning I attended the UK Film Lab screening at Cineworld. The organisation which is working in partnership with Film Northants, runs film schools in the holidays for secondary school children across the county. The result of the film schools is a 10 to 15 minute film made entirely by the pupils. Film Northants hopes pupils trained at these summer schools will be encouraged to enter Film Northants 2011. Look out for their literature tomorrow night.

Last few jobs tomorrow are to pick up the canapes, collect the bubbly and wine, and set up at the cinema with all the trophies, prizes, lighting, food and drink.

Hope to see you there at 7pm. A full report of the event with photos, videos and quotes will be on the Film Northants website on Tuesday afternoon (fingers crossed!). Good luck to everyone!

Friday, 3 September 2010

cushions, scripts and cancellations

It's been a manic week for Film Northants with the finalists announced and voting getting underway on September 1st.



It seems like a crisis has either arisen, been averted or been resolved, several times a day and I have been chained to the email.



And it all started so well. The giddy finalists all sent their photos in on time and copy reached the Chron a day before their deadline. Then on Wednesday (my 31st birthday - eek!) there was a fantastic article in the Chron and the voting absolutely exploded. By lunchtime (after I sorted a couple of teething problems) we had more than 100 votes, and thanks to the great little bit of software we are using (micropoll) there is no chance of cheating, as it blocks an IP address once someone has voted. Even if they think they have voted a second time, it doesn't register on the results. I know all this because I spent about a week testing it.



The same day whilst I was making cushion seat covers (I really know how to let my hair down on my birthday) Dean Twaites, director of Barney and Film Northants 2008 winner, was on BBC Radio to talk about graduating from university and setting up his business Timecode Pro. He also gave Film Northants a good plug, even if the producer did keep saying he won the competition last year, when in fact it was two years ago. Dean entered a film last year but it didn't make it to the final, so this year he is even more determined to claim back his crown.



But it won't be an easy task. A sneak peak of the voting shows that all of the films are neck and neck, and it could still be anyone's award. So make sure you go online and vote.



The voting up and rolling, the committee had a meeting and planned the running order, timings and format of the screening and reception on September 20th. Tickets will be in the post in the next week. Northampton Mayor Councillor Marianne Taylor also confirmed that she will be attending the screening and the guestlist is mounting up. It should be a packed cinema, fingers crossed. Thankfully we also have help in the form of Northampton Youth Forum so there will be plenty of people on hand to offer guests canapes and bubbly at the reception.



There are still a couple of pairs of tickets for the public going spare, so get your hands on them by following the details on the Film Northants Finalists page.



As I was saying, it was all going swimmingly, when the stops started to come out on Thursday. First there was the matter of a small disagreement over one of the final films. Much two-ing and fro-ing on the email finally resolved the matter about 24 hours later. Secondly awards presenter Claire Young pulled out. Then she pulled back in again, and then a day later she pulled out again. Claire has been asked to do some filming in London on the day of the ceremony and cannot guarantee that she will be finished in time to attend the ceremony. The committee was not impressed. Fortunately help was at hand via the charismatic charms of film critic Bruce Green, who does the weekly film news and reviews on BBC Radio Northampton. Not only are Bruce and the BBC stumping up prizes for the festival, but Bruce has kindly agreed to step into Claire's shoes and present the awards. More details will be put on the website next week. Thanks Bruce!


Next up I had a meeting with Stacey Swift, winner of 2009 Judges' Choice award for his film Tuhfah. Since then Stacey has made an excellent feature length film entitled Stabbing for Jesus. It is a satirical mockumentary about Christian extremists in the vein of Brass Eye. Stacey is now developing and rewriting the script with the hope of getting it professional made and he has already meet with a regional producer. He hopes to film it all in Northampton to keep the setting local. I have been giving him advice on how to develop the film and knocking ideas around. It is great to see that Film Northants has given someone the inspiration to go on and develop a feature film and also been able to connect them to the right people in the industry. Watch this space for more details...

My last task of the week was to send out a press release to local media to encourage people to vote. BBC Northampton snapped it up and contacted me to see if they could interview two of the other Film Northants judges. They were not available and I had already been on twice! AHH! However I suggested they speak to the aforementioned Stacey Swift to get a winners perspective. They thought this was a great idea and all being well Stacey should be on the radio tomorrow around 12.20pm on 104.2FM.

Another boost to my day was looking at the Film Northants website stats. It had more than 1,000 hits in August and only a few days into September and it has had more than 500 already. This is far higher than when the festival was on the Chronicle & Echo website. Having a dedicated website is a real bonus. Further good news is that all of the prizes have arrived. There is tonnes of film merchandise from 20th Century Fox, film goodies courtesy of BBC Radio Northampton, £500 Jessops gift card for the 1st prize winner and a £200 Jessops gift card for the Judges' Choice winner. There are also annual cinema passes to be won. Again it is our best ever year in terms of prizes.

So the glass is definitely half full at the moment and all hiccups have been sorted. Just keep those votes coming in as you have until September 17th. It would be great if we could hit the 1,000 votes mark.

Hopefully there will be no more issues over the weekend, as I'm off bridemaid dress shopping with my best mate who is soon to be wed.

NB: whilst writing this blog the internet crashed, so I have had to re-write half of it again, perhaps I shouldn't be off shopping after all...

Monday, 23 August 2010

Film entries under the spotlight

Killer instinct in Love Is...




Barney the bike enjoys a tickle in Barney

What do a filler kiwi fruit, love-sick bicycle and evil DVD all have in common? They all feature in the entries of Film Northants 2010.

Anthropomorphised objects appear frequently in this year's contenders, which were all shot on location in Northamptonshire. The deadline has now closed and all the submissions are awaiting the verdict of judges who have drawn up a shortlist of eight finalists.



Although there were some stand-out films that the judges immediately agreed upon, lots of wrangling and arguing went on between us to establisht he eight best films. The criteria set out to judge the shorts were an evaluation of each of the film's structure, creativity, entertainment value and technicality. However the emphasis was on whether the film worked as a whole and was an original concept rather than if it was technically perfect and filmed on a flashy camera.



We have now agreed on a final eight, although admittedly there was a lot of compromise and one of my choices was strongly rejected. The finalists will be announced exclusively in the Northampton Chronicle & Echo on September 1st.



The festival is now in its third year and it is definitely becoming noticeable that the quality of entries is rising and word is spreading amongst country film-makers. What is particularly interesting this year is the tone of the films. In the 2008 launch year there was a mixed bag of everything from home videos to horror flicks, in 2009 there was a darker tone with films filled with paranoia, mystery, revenge and death, perhaps reflecting the gloom and uncertainty of the financial crisis. But in 2010 the theme running through the majority of films is humour and quirky twists. Perhaps people can see a light at the end of the recession tunnel or indeed want to deal with economic turmoil through wit rather than misery...or it could just be coincidence.


Whatever the reason many of the films have their tongue firmly in cheek, and the awards screening on September 20 should make for a very fun and funny evening.



Come September 1st the voting will open online and then the real battle begins. In previous years I have predicted the winner but this year I literally have no idea who will win, or even who the top three will be, it is such a tight competition. The next tough challenge will be to decide upon the Judges' Choice winner, and also get the awards ceremony organised, on time and on budget.



If only I had an army of anthropomorphised ants to help with the preparation!



To watch all the entries and vote for your favourite visit http://www.filmnorthants.co.uk/

Thursday, 29 July 2010

Everyone is talking Inception


In case you're wondering this is a diagram circulating the internet with the impressive claim of explaining the intrinsic complexities of Hollywood hype machine Inception.
The latest film by Chris Nolan (of Batman Begins, Dark Knight and Memento fame) starring a maturing-with-age Leonardo Di Caprio and plethora of other up and coming Brit and US stars, plus a few reliable old hands (Michael Caine, Pete Postlethwaite).
Cinema goers in the UK and US are going mad for this big budget, special effects blockbuster which attempts to graspe the mantel of high-concept, high brow status in the process.
It is one of the most tweeted about topics on Twitter this week as people try to unravel the plot, and The Guardian Film Blog seems to find an excuse to write about it every day.
I saw it at the weekend with my two psychologist parents, and they were less than impressed to say the least. Plot loop holes, a lack of jeopardy and a string of too-loud-for-my-mother set pieces, in their opinion did not make up for the groundbreaking special effects and dramatic pacing. I on the other hand had mixed feelings, as did my husband. We enjoyed the spectacle but found it rather superficial. It was trying really hard to be clever, but it really was not.
That said it had more brains than the usual blockbuster and was a vast improvement on the remakes and re-imaginings plaguing cinema screens in recent years. Like a cross between Nolan's previous projects Batman Begins and Memento, it played on themes of memory and loss, but these were just a coat hanger for shoe-horning in special effects like turning a New York street upside down, and having a group of sleeping people float in a zero gravity hotel room. The effects were actually the clever bit, not the dreams within dreams, within dreams and yet another dream. Are they awake? Are they dreaming? Do we care???
But despite my own mixed feelings (and there are also mixed reviews, although mostly positive) whether the film is good or bad, it really doesn't matter. What matters is that is has got people talking about film. And coming in the week the ConDemnation government announced the axing of the UK Film Council, that can only be a good thing. My parents may have claimed not to like the film but we were all talking about it for an hour afterwards, and still musing over it the next day. My mum also said she did not sleep well the night after seeing the film and I always think that is a sign of a film that makes you think.
A few days later I saw the third in the Twilight Saga, Eclipse, and despite initially being a fan of the books and films, I found it utterly uninspiring, rather dull, and completely forgettable. Some may argue (particularly teenagers and horny housewives) that it is equally as entertaining as Inception and that it may be, but it lacks the 'stuck in the head' factor.
Inception is by no means the masterpiece everyone is making it out to be, but that is not to belittle its significance and impact. People are talking and tweeting about it, creating diagrams to explain it, and using it as a platform to discuss the power, influence and effect of dreams and the possibility of planting thoughts. It is The Matrix of the social web generation and in my book anything that gets people excited about film whilst also enabling them to talk about grand theories no matter how flawed, should be applauded.

Thursday, 22 July 2010

Big Society: where's the fun?

Today I attended a YMCA youth conference in Northamptonshire in a curious attempt to network with other organisations in the county and promote my community film festival Film Northants. And although I was a little dubious that there may be too much talk about statutory bodies (that's council services to most people), and indeed the talks focused perhaps a little too heavily on these, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a really useful event and I made lots of great contacts and inadvertently picked up tips on how to get our little grassroots organisation recognised by other voluntary groups. There was however a lot of talk about 'engagement', 'participation' and the the ConDemnation's (ConLib coalition) favourite new fad The Big Society.

And like the vicar at my old middle school used to say in his weekly assembly "Now that got me thinking..."

There is an increasing wave of thought that people, rather than government, ought to be running their communties, councils, police forces and schools, and we should all just dig in and volunteer our services for free. In principle I agree that this is a great, if not somewhat misguided and idealistic, approach but I do think it misses the point. Yes people do get involved in community groups, charities and the voluntary sector to achieve a sense of 'making a difference' and giving something back to the community, but there are many other less altruistic motivations as well and so there should be.

Take for instance my own involvement in Ghanaian charity FREED UK and my founding/running of Film Northants. My volunteering for both these groups has been either accidentally or socially motivated. And by socially I don't mean a sense of 'social action' as described in the ConDemnation's policy on Big Society, but the fact that in these groups I mix with friends and do things that I enjoy and have a genuine interest in - they are pretty much leisure activities. And I think that is crucial to getting people engaged in volunteering.

Volunteering is not necessarily about about doing good but it is about doing something you enjoy with friends, that you feel passionate about. I used to play netball in a team as a hobby and now I run a film festival with a team of friends, in my eyes as a hobby. This is what all this talk of Big Society is missing. It all sounds a bit do-gooding and window twitching, and not enough about volunteering actually being a fun, social activity.

Film Northants is something that I do because I love film and I am curious about local talent. To me it is not a case of volunteering my time selflessly, it is about selfishly doing something I want to do.

And in all honesty my involvement in FREED UK came about because I fancied a trip to Ghana as I thought it would look great on my journalism CV, would be an exciting experience and I would get a good tan. Since then I have made friends at the charity and again it has become a social activity. At the meetings we chat and catch up, we go for lunch and we are invited to one another's weddings etc. Fundamentally it is not a chore and not a job.

In a similar vein, but on a slight tangent, my friends recently laughed at me for attending a resident's meeting. Admittedly I was the youngest person by about 30 years, but I went in essence because I am nosy and I wanted to know what was happening in my little area.

For those people thinking about embarking on a mission to join a charity or volunteer themselves, I would say don't. You need to fall into it almost by chance. I know from experience that when I set out to be a 'volunteer' and decided Victim Support sounded ok it never really worked for me. A great organisation, but for me it was too much paperwork and I didn't always agree with the way they ran things. I now feel guilty that they spent money training me and I only lasted 12 months.

Setting out to be a volunteer can often be short lived. Instead it may be better to get involved gradually maybe via a friend or set up something yourself.

And volunteering is such a bad word anyway, as it has connotations of onerous tasks and sickening worthiness, perhaps it should be renamed.... any suggestions?

Tuesday, 20 July 2010

Film Northants 2010 begins

For some the summer is the time of holidays, BBQs and sitting back with a glass of Pimm’s but for the organisers of Film Northants it is mad rush to get publicity out, entries in and a red carpet premiere organised for September. And as founder and chair of the festival my days are rapidly being filled to the max.

The Northamptonshire film festival is now in its third year and has stepped out from under the wing of the Northampton Chronicle & Echo, to set up as an independent not-for-profit group. There is a fully formed committee (rather than me running around like a loon trying to do everything) and we were lucky to be successful first time at getting funding from Northamptonshire Community Foundation.

The event is still run on a relative shoe string by volunteers but funding has enabled us to scoop Quentin Falk as awards ceremony host, and confirm Claire Youngs (2008 finalist on BBC show The Apprentice) to present the awards. We also have a £500 Jessops gift card first prize, plus the usual cinema passes and movie merchandise. Not bad considering the first year we relied on one annual cinema pass to entice entries.

We have also moved venue from Vue to Cineworld Cinemas (due to that old cliche ‘creative differences’). The benefit of the move means we have an on-site bar to hold the after show champagne reception, an in-house PA system, free parking and permission to put up a massive banner advertising the event in the cinema foyer.

But the biggest change this year has been going independent which has really allowed the festival to reach out to a wider community. The Chron has been supportive from the start but being their festival meant other rival media organisations sadly wouldn’t publicise the event. Unfortunately it is an all too familiar story in local media that local papers, magazines, TV and radio stations would often prefer to compete for, than work together, on community events.

However since becoming an indy event we have been inundated with media requests! Film Northants has appeared in radio interviews, magazine articles, website pages, school newsletters and has even been invited to a YMCA conference.

Another new thing for us this year is the launch of our own website http://www.filmnorthants.co.uk/ which is getting hundreds of hits each week, and our Facebook group which allows local film-makers to share their news, views, trailers and short films.

The winners of the past two festivals are currently out filming their 2010 entries, so it will be a tough competition. We hope to be seeing some entries trickling in over the next month, with the usual flood in the last week before the deadline of August 20.

Since things appear to be ticking over nicely, maybe I do have time for a Pimm’s after all...