Dreams of Stardom

Moviefest is a short film making competition. You have to make a 5 minute film based on a given topic (MovieFest Topic or MFT). This year the topic was The Lesson. Filled with enthusiasm from the highly enjoyable experience of the 48 Hour Film Competition, Debbie and I decided that we were very keen to enter the competition this year. We ended up entering 3 times, with different groups of people. With Mighty Power is a superhero origin story about a young woman who is bitten by a radioactive (flying?) spider, and becomes a hero. It is a moral tale about the importance of saying thank you, and was a lot of fun to make. We made it with a stripped down (as in, fewer members, not fewer clothes) version of the Jenni's Angels team. No film/TV industry professionals are allowed in the competition, so we had to do without some of our more experienced team members. One thing that was actually very good about not having any professionals around was that we were all on a level playing field, and could contribute our ideas or skills without feeling too daft or out of our league. I think it was a very positive learning experience for the team, and should feed nicely into future Jenni's Angels outings. Life Lesson #12 is an instructional video on how to get a date for the school ball. It was made with students from Debbie's school, but with more teacher involvement than is allowed for it to be a school entry. I think the kids have to operate the camera and do all the editing for it to be admissable as a school entry, and Debbie and I did those jobs. It was a lot of fun to make, as there were some great students involved, and physical comedy is always fun. Teach Him A Lesson is a film I refer to as being a 'film school' style film. It's serious, and a little ambiguous. It's about a woman who's deeply unhappy in her relationship, and is struggling to come to terms with a recent loss. We only had 4 people in the team for this film, so we all had to work pretty hard to get it filmed in one day. It does contain a whipping scene, which means it may be disqualified for violent content. Never mind - a lot of fun to make in spite of the serious content, and a very nice counterbalance tonally to LL12. The dream of course is that all three films will make it into the regional finals (in about a week and a half), and that one of them will win the competition. This is unlikely, but that doesn't stop me wanting it. It's slightly more likely than placing in the 48, as there were something like 400 entries in the 48 hour film contest, as opposed to less than 20 in the hobbyist category for Moviefest. We'll find out how our little films fared after this weekend. Fingers crossed that there were no technical hitches (we did play the tape back through the TV and didn't spot any problems) and that we get some good feedback from the judges. And that we win ;)