Free Range Film Festival - 30 Seconds of Fame

Free Range Film Festival encourages work of any genre or medium, so whether your 30 second film is a teaser for a longer film, an infommercial, an advert, a promo, a Vox Pop, whatever you come up with send it in for the chance to win some great prizes. Free Range encourages entrants from Interstate and Over-Seas as this year they are streaming the screening night live on the Free Range Festival website.

Other fun things to do with the festival is the People's Choice Film voted on YouTube, and the chance to have your work screened on Channel 31, Victoria's community television station.

Best thing is that entry is free.

The event is held next door to the charming Railway Hotel in Brunswick, Victoria.

Noise TV: Editors Wanted

Noise TV are looking for editors who are interested in editing content for their program. Noise TV operates out of Noise Bar on Albert St in Brunswick, Melbourne. Noise TV describe their objective as ...

"a springboard for emerging (and re-emerging) talents of the music, film, art and fashion worlds."

This is a good opportunity to boost your showreel, gain some experience editing, and make some industry contacts as you go.

If you would like to enquire about helping out contact ...

Marjetka (Roarhouse Coordinator)
marjetka [at] optusnet.com.au

St Kilda Film Festival Spies

I am sending two investigative agents to the St Kilda Film Festival Opening Night on Tuesday the 6th of May to review the event. These spies know what they know about film and that's it, they aren't regular film buffs. As with sending Dale Slamma to the Sydney Underground Film Festival, I am hoping their reports point to an angle of difference on the regular write-ups we are bound to read. One of them will at least growl effectively at the lemon & lime brigade and the other's sense of humor should undo any politically correct sentimentalities ushered across the theatre in pursed silence by hooting I'm hoping.

The two under-cover agents will be revealed next week. Things have been pretty quiet around here on the snuffboxfilms Blog, but in actual life things have been pretty hectic, so I guess that is always the way. Currently I am partitioning a few scripts for an upcoming television series I want to put into production and that causes hermit behavior. One thing I did manage to make was a digital business card that I can easily MMS or Bluetooth to people rather then pull out someone else's business card from my wallet and scribble my details on the back of it.

The only entertainment I have been watching is David Renwick's series "One Foot in the Grave" starring Richard Wilson. Renwick is one of Britain's most talented contemporary writers having written for The Two Ronnies and Not The Nine O'Clock News. Richard Wilson of course plays the cantankerous Victor Meldrew and sometimes it just fits perfectly after having a soiled day where everything goes wrong and everyone bugs you somehow. Along with "Open All Hours", "One Foot in the Grave" is in my top ten of television series, a dag I know I am, but it is just so damn amusing to me, everyone else can go and love Raymond.

The Brunswickians

Whilst Richard is composing a paper on Censorship and Robert's methodology on Feature Film Production is circulating, I have put aside my essay on nouveau Soviet amateur smut, to do my bit for the film industry problem. My simple little scheme is not based around any Industry Night or Short Screen Event where filmmakers blow in and blow out rather then practise circular breathing in their congregational habits.

It is more so derived from the fact that contemporary society sees us less and less stimulated by ideas and more and more stimulated by effect, unfortunately these days we have less reason to want to sit down and think about things, and this is reflected by the now extinct Philosophy Degrees, because philosophy as tedious as it may seem was one of the ways of cracking down fundamental ideas that may have encrusted certain sectors of our community such as business, religion, domesticity, sociology etc. The art of conversing and planting the seeds has dwindled down to a few hardened thoughtful types who in the end no-one really gives two seconds to anyway. So in the tradition of all those writing movements like The Inklings, The Beats, Algonquin Round Table, The Olympiads, etc.

I have sought to create a space many, many years ago where artists could congregate once a week to refresh their insensibility and inspire each other. What I wanted to avoid was a "doing space" and create more of a thinking tank, where getting thoughts and getting tanked were each viable options. The problem in this country is dissemination of personalities and ideas which means that if we were to ever see each other we'd be mostly like ships that pass through convenient gaps in our domestic lives. So, what I have come up with is every Friday starting in two weeks a nightly/evening meet up where any artist whether they be musician, painter, writer, filmmaker, poet or actor etc can go and at least saturate their sorrows and successes amongst others essentially in the same boat or similar life-raft. These evenings are not designated to be hardened ideas palaces or knitting groups but rather casual meet-ups where the talk can be had, large or small, productive or just plan useless.

The name I have come up with is that of the Brunswickians for no other reason then the meeting place I have chosen is the back shed of the Retreat Hotel in Brunswick. The reason for this is that this particular shed offers under-cover smoking, drinking and lounging facilities no other pub or venue can really cater for. So those of us more cashed up each week can supplement the others more empty of pocket.

The time I have designated is 7:30pm every Friday starting in two weeks (16Th of may), and the duration of the evenings can be determined by those attending. Attendance is not mandatory, indeed I want the evenings to be freely open to whomever bothers or doesn't bother, regularly or irregularly to show up. This way the evening will remain loose and the hardened attendees will become the core of the meetings. Anyone is welcome to attend although what they get out of it is up to them, so whether it be a hang-over or the start of a working relationship, or just a reprieve from the ills of lack of creativity, doesn't matter a toss.

Blink and you'll miss it film festival.

This is film on radio in a way with the Inaugural triple j tv with the Doctor Blink And You'll Miss It Film Festival, not Doctor Who but Triple J's Doctor whom I've never listened to but here is an opportunity for filmmakers to enter the second round. Full Terms & Conditions can be located here.

All you have to do is upload your film.

Films must be 'G Rated' so that means dust off your fancy dress Wiggles outfit (Do not put on your Wriggles outfit accidentally) and stay clear of swearing, nudity and authentic looking violence. If you must say the word 'shit' then say it in French, if you must show sex then make it educational with lots of images of ovaries and sperm fish, if you must be violent then throw tantrums off camera at the Gaffer and D.O.P - your film will then be suitable to be watched by children and, when I come to think of it, most adults.

John Jameson Productions

Time is running out fast for submissions into the John Jameson Whiskey promotion to have one of your short films funded, or fueled, by malt. Only two weeks to go as the dealine is April 30th. The judging panel consists of Russell Boyd, Jan Sardi, Lisa Hensley and Jane Scott. John Jameson Productions will fund 3 winners $20, 000 to make their short films, that's not loose change by any stretch.

All you need is the idea for a 3 minute film to go into the rounds of elimination, really what have you got to lose? Worst case scenario you are putting all your eggs in this basket, hanging all your hopes on winning, if you lose you can ask James Jameson if they can't send you a bottle of whiskey to drown your cinematic sorrows with.

Young Einstein

I am here to plug my own appearance on The Einstein Factor this June 13th at 6:30pm on ABC 1 (That's the Australian Broadcasting Corporation), and this photo above is the second in my collection of photos of me with Peter Berner. I plan in the next five years to have at least ten, and hopefully keep on getting them until I have the largest collection of Me with Peter Berner photos in the world. I think it is important to have goals don't you?

Yesterday I joined a team of trivia hopefuls at the St Kilda Film Festival cinema trivia night. We ended up tailing every other team but to be brutally honest, the questions they asked were pretty uninteresting. They had a Star Wars series of questions which was almost tiresome to sit through. The music section was Oscar winning music, how boring is that? The general knowledge was a heap of lines from Australian movies and sad as it comes they chose lines from Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Muriel's Wedding and Crocodile Dundee - I'm so sick of hearing those films mentioned, the smug reminiscences of the audience on guessing lines from those films made me even more ill. We still hold on with whitened knuckles to the piffle we've contributed to the world stage in cinema, we still seem to be getting warm fuzzy feelings instead of, which would be more useful, startling and unnerving panic.