From Sam Goldblatt of the 48 Hour Film Project: 

The 48 Hour Film Project (48HFP) will tour to Edinburgh for the first time ever in 2008.  Over the May 16-18 weekend, Filmmakers from all across Scotland will compete to write, shoot and edit a short film in just 48 hours.  All films will be screened at The Cameo on May 20 and 21. The 48HFP is the world's oldest and largest timed-film competition and takes place annually in over 60 cities around the world with more than 30,000 filmmakers competing to win the title of "Best 48 Hour Film of 2008.

The winning Edinburgh team will be invited to attend the Filmapalooza Awards Weekend (held previously at South by Southwest and Cinequest).  The winning 48 Hour Film of 2007 is being screened at the Cannes Film Festival, and the same is expected for 2008. Filmmaking teams of all levels will meet on the evening of Friday, May 16 at The Cameo where they will receive a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue that they must work into their short film.  Teams have until 7:30pm on Sunday, May 18 to write, shoot and edit their films.

All films will be judged by Paul Dale, Film Editor for The List, and Ian Hoey, General Manager of The Cameo, and awards will be given in several categories.  "We're excited to be playing host to this challenge," says Hoey.  "I'm sure it will not only be a keenly contested competition but great viewing entertainment as well."

Learn more about The Inaugural Edinburgh 48 Hour Film Project at The Brass Monkey (14 Drummond Street, Edinburgh) on Wednesday, April 23 at 6:30pm with a free screening of The Best 48 Hour Films of all time. To see selected 48 Hour Films, go to www.48.tv.

Registration for the competition is £45 and now open to anyone and everyone at www.48hourfilm.com/edinburgh.

Excellent-looking competition, submitted by Holly Barnes Thomas of the Society of St James:

The Society of St James, Southampton's local homelessness charity today launches its own film competition, The Home~less Movie Competition, open to the general public and to its service users and residents too.

The film competition asks only that the film be about homelessness and run no longer than three minutes. Holly Barnes-Thomas, the competition's creator explains: I really wanted to create an opportunity for people, especially the Society of St James' residents, to express themselves about homelessness. It's a great chance to raise awareness of the hardship of homelessness and help people to understand what its really like.

"It's a great chance to raise awareness of the hardship of homelessness and help people to understand what its really like." Holly Barnes-Thomas The competition is unusual in that it is open to national filmmakers as well the charity's service users and will offer a ‘buddy' system to link up people who have experienced homelessness with filmmakers.

The competition is also supported by local, award winning filmmaker, Alys Hawkins who produces animated short works from her railway arch studio in Southampton.

The competition will be judged by a panel of professionals in the fields of homelessness and film, with a glitzy awards ceremony in December.

For more information on the competition, rules or entry please contact Holly Barnes-Thomas on 023 8063 4596 or holly@ssj.org.uk .

From the brilliant Global Voices website , comes news of three contests for vloggers around the world. Two are on Spannish sites but are open to anyone anywhere. One is for mobile movies, one to promote causes you care for and the last to report news through online video. More details and sample films from previous winners at Global Voices :

From Spain, ElPais.com brings us the Movil Film Fest, an online mobile 1 minute video contest. Although it is geared primarily to locally made movies, which they call “national”, there are no restrictions regarding nationality of the producers, although only the local films will compete for the main awards, videos from outside Spain will have their own category. All the videos have to be less than 1 minute long and have been shot with cell phones or PDAs, what they call mobile communication terminals. There is time until April 21st 2008 to submit a video...

The second contest is a worldwide contest based on myspace.com social networking site. They are requesting for youth between 14 and 24 years of age from all around the world to “Film your issue” in more than 30 seconds but less than 2 minutes. Prizes include internships at different organizations such as USA Today, The United Nations and the Humane Society, however there are citizenship restrictions and mostly the winners will have to pay for their tickets, lodging and meals during their internships, and the $5000 USD College scholarship is only valid for US citizens, making the prizes themselves less attractive for international participants. However, the winning videos would be broadcast on different networks, TV stations and websites, making street cred and bragging rights the likelier reward for the foreign participants. Already some videos have been uploaded for this contest, and participants have time until April 14th to participate in any of the several issue categories.

Another chance to win money and make a name for yourself is the citizen journalism video contest is being organized by VideoNews24.net[es] . Although it is used mostly by Spanish vloggers (video bloggers), it is open to any person who wishes to participate. The contest opened on March 1st and will run to July 31st. The top three videos will be chosen from those with more hits and highest ratings given by other users and then the winner chosen from them. The complete guidelines to participate can be found by following this link [es].

At the touted advertising rate of $60 per 1000 web video views, this could have earned the producers up to $3m for a two minute short, with no notable initial outlay.

With the Studios showing no sign of responding to the seemingly reasonable demands of the Writers Guild of America, and the threat of a joke-free Oscar ceremony on the horizon, the LA Times is reporting that writers are now forming new and powerful online alliances, as suggested by Marc Andresson in November. At least three have adopted a co-operative model last seen in Hollywood in the heydays of United Artist, originally a co-op founded by Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford.

Some, ventures, such as Will Ferrell's FunnyorDie.com has seen one no-budget short (below) top 50 million views. At the touted advertising rate of $60 per 1000 views for professional quality video, this would have earned the producers up to $3m, with no notable initial outlay.

{snippet ferrell}

From the LA Times (via BoingBoing):

Dozens of striking film and TV writers are negotiating with venture capitalists to set up companies that would bypass the Hollywood studio system and reach consumers with video entertainment on the Web.

At least seven groups, composed of members of the striking Writers Guild of America, are planning to form Internet-based businesses that, if successful, could create an alternative economic model to the one at the heart of the walkout, now in its seventh week.

Three of the groups are working on ventures that would function much like United Artists, the production company created 80 years ago by Charlie Chaplin and other top stars who wanted to break free from the studios. "It's in development and rapidly incubating," said Aaron Mendelsohn, a guild board member and co-creator of the "Air Bud" movies.

submitted by BAFTA

'60 Seconds of Fame' is back. This exciting and innovative short film challenge was launched by BAFTA and Orange in 2006, and attracted more than 250 entries. This year, aspiring filmmakers are invited to submit a 60 second short film, based on the theme ‘unite'. The winning film will be featured on the BBC1 broadcast of the Film Awards, watched by millions around the world.

FilmingFolk are now accepting submissions to their 2008 Short Film Script Competition. Get your script turned into that all important short film.
 

Do you think you could inspire the public to take action on climate change?

If so, we want you to make a short film that encourages us to do just that.

If you've got a video camera - even a mobile phone - and lots of great ideas, you could have your piece broadcast exclusively on Sky, reaching one in three homes across the UK. Want to know more? Of course you do!

Go to http://www.skycast.com/greenshoots

Veteran Hollywood screenwriter Syd Field held a two-day workshop for wannabe writers in London’s Bloomsbury last weekend (12th/13th May), in association with Moviescope magazine. The event drew in participants from far-flung lands: “there are nine different countries represented here today,” as the man himself said. Suchandrika Chakrabarti joined them.

Syd began the course with a short biography. He started his career in documentary filmmaking and network TV, before moving into literary and film criticism for magazines. After a few years of reading screenplays for production companies, he was invited to teach at Sherman Oaks College in Hollywood, alongside someone called Paul Newman teaching acting… Just prior to holding the workshop, Syd had been in India, working as a consultant on the BAFTA-nominated film, PK5, with Rakyesh Mehra.