I went over to the Raindance Film Festival hoping to use my hard-won festival pass to get into NightWatch, which is supposed to be an exuberently over-the-top Russian fantasy thriller. Alas, it was sold out, perhaps because it’s been labeled the must-see film of the year by Quentin Tarantino. (By which I mean that Quentin Tarantino has decreed it a must-see film, not that it is a film that must be seen by Quentin Tarantino.)
Instead, I watched the best films of Straight8, an annual filmmaking competition in which filmmakers are given a blank cartridge of Super8 film and challenged to shoot a short movie with it. The catch is that you have to hand in your film cartridge undeveloped, which means (1) you can’t do any post-production on your film, and any edits have to be done “in-camera” by turning the camera off, pointing it at the next shot, and turning it back on; and (2) you don’t get to see your finished film until it’s projected onscreen at to a full theater.
In its adrenaline-fueled let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may spirit, the event reminds me of the 48 Hour Film Challenge, although in other respects it’s completely opposite. The 48 Hour Film Challenge requires your film to be more-or-less improvised on the spot, but the Straight8 festival, by demanding that you edit your entire film on camera, requires a great deal of advance planning.
In any case, the results were interesting. Some were only successful in context. Others– in particular, a quirky short about a guy who grows colour televisions in his garden– would be charming and funny even if you didn’t know the restrictions under which they were made.
I hadn’t heard of the event before today, but now I’m highly tempted to enter it next time around.