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!