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.

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!

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...