2007 Insomnia Film Festival
Apple is sponsoring a 24-hour film festival for high school and college filmmakers. If you fall into this demographic, absolutely do it. You get 24 hours to write, produce, edit, score and deliver a 3-minute short film incorporating specific elements they only announce on the day.
I’ve had the pleasure of being a judge for the equivalent contest at USC, and while many of the resulting films are terrible, they’re mercifully short. A handful end up being truly inspired.
Some advice, since I obviously want my readers to win:
- Think about the most obvious ways to incorporate the required elements. Then don’t do those.
- Avoid bad puns. If all you have to offer is a witty title, you won’t score.
- Go funny. While there will no doubt be one or two dramatic shorts in the finals, the winner will be funny.
- Don’t forget to write a script. It’s tempting to rush out and start shooting. Spend a few of those first hours writing. What is the story? How does it progress?
- Sound matters more than picture. If we can’t understand your dialogue, you won’t win.
- Lighting matters more than resolution. A cheap camcorder with thoughtful lighting is better than a Red One at noon.
- Prepare to edit. You don’t want to get back to your computer only to find it’s impossible to get footage from the UDX-HR5 into the Mac.1
- Protein, not carbs. Because you’ll likely be working all night, sugar will send you into a crash.
- Plan ahead to think of what locations, props and (most importantly) people you might have at your disposal. It’s also fine to think of general story ideas, but don’t get locked into anything. If the required elements feel tacked-on rather than integral, you won’t win.
- Lock your picture edit with enough time to tweak sound and music.
Other thoughts and suggestions? Add them in the comments.
(Thanks to Daring Fireball for the link.)
- It is, incidentally. I had to install Windows in order to use Sony’s proprietary software to access the camera. Uggh. ↩
Articles
October 1st, 2007 at 10:44 am
Find a good A.D. type NOW. The right person in that role can save you enormous amounts of time and energy that you’ll need for getting the creative stuff right.
October 1st, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Some advice from a 48 hour film project veteran; Plan ahead, but be flexible. Test your equipment before the event (crashing a computer during editing can be heart breaking). Feed your cast and crew and lastly, have a location with access to a restroom.
Good luck to anyone participating
October 1st, 2007 at 4:01 pm
This sounds like fun, and any festival is good, but I find it sad that this festival is a blatant rip-off “the shootout” 24hour film festival (started in Newcastle, Australia)… Only difference is that the shootout restricts editing to in-camera…
The shootout is now in 5 towns including
http://www.theshootoutboulder.com/press.htm
Now I love you mister August, but I feel you will say something along the lines of “close, but no donut”… Which I find disappointing for my friends who invented it…
October 1st, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Make sure you have gas in the car and cash in your pocket.
October 1st, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Are you referring to the Ed Wood contest? What year did you judge?
October 1st, 2007 at 7:27 pm
How many videos do you guys think will be posted? If you go to apples main site this competitions kind of hard to find.
October 1st, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Don’t know when the Newcastle 24 hr fest started, but I did my first one in L.A. about 6 years ago. And that was not the first time it had been done here.
In Seattle they have one surrounding the film festival going on about 15 years I think.
And so on.
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:34 am
Matt (#5):
Yes, it was the Ed Wood contest. I think it was three years ago that I was a juror. The theme was “Rebel Without a Bra,” which ended up in way too many “brah” (surfer-talk) references.
October 2nd, 2007 at 11:40 am
Ah, man! I missed you by a year. I did mine in ‘03, “Harry Palms Hotel.”
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:04 pm
There’s also Hayah Film Competition ;-)
October 8th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Can’t wait to enter the contest. I won a MacBook Pro and a copy of Final Cut Studio last year for a thing I did called Fresh-Films, and haven’t had a chance to make anything serious with it yet, just graduation/wedding videos and such. Nothing where I can actually tell a story though, which is why I’m so excited about this. But I signed some friends and I up for this, and we can’t wait to make the film. We’re hopefully gong to borrow a GL-2 and some boom-mics from the school, since most of us are in Broadcast Journalism and such, so the film should look great.
October 10th, 2007 at 12:43 am
everyone is going down. we are going to win. prepare.
October 10th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Thanks for the advice. This is the first time me and my friends have ever done anything like this, so all the help we can get is greatly appreciated. Make sure to rate our video, team name crème de la crème. Good luck to everyone else involved!
October 10th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
I am really excited about this. This is a first for me so i am a little nervous as well but it should be fun! good luck everyone
October 11th, 2007 at 1:47 am
Do high school students stand a chance?
October 11th, 2007 at 3:23 am
I actually participated in this event last year, and it was a lot of fun. Our video got crushed, but that’s okay. We were proud of it. And we got some good feedback.
It looks like things are a little more organized this year, on Apple’s part. Which is great. I remember the site being hard to navigate last year. Which is weird. Since it’s Apple. You’d think they would have that sort of thing on lock-down.
Anyway, I’m excited about it. I get a kick out of thinking that there are going to be people all over the place all filming at (more or less) the same time. Pretty neat.
October 11th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
First of all Mr. August I love your work. Your films are amazing. Second, high school student will stand a chance if they have been trained properly in cinematography and editing techniques. Also, winning this competition will need a higher level of technical expertise than your average person. If a high school student has been taught how to handle a camera, audio equipment, and editing software by a qualified instructor they should have no problem competing in this competition. Finally, there are over 2200 teams entering this competition. This means that no one should feel comfortable with where they are at either technically or creatively until the entire thing is over. DO NOT BE OVERCONFIDENT!
October 11th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Lovely contest idea, but it is too bad Canadian students cannot participate. Will there be a Canadian version of this contest? Apple Canada, are you listening?
Best of luck to all who enter.
Jim Ferr, Mac Team Leader / Server Specialist Durham College of Applied Arts and Technology Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
October 11th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
I can confirm…2200 teams registered…going to be a tough year!!!
-Zane Productions
October 14th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Just got through with this at 3 in the morning. It was awesome! We did a video called “It’s Mine!” and we’re proud of it. It would be an honor to get into the top 25.
I’ve been getting a lot of production equipment together this year and the one thing I haven’t been able to afford quite yet is Final Cut Studio (I’m planning on getting it by the end of the year). We cut our project in Final Cut Express and we seriously need a software upgrade!
October 15th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
This was a ton of fun. I have never been so happy to spend close to a constant 24 hours working on a shoot. Check out team “Sweet Veet”.
Although I must say getting in to the top 25 seems to be more of a popularity contest, rather than it being judged on the quality of the content :/
October 15th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Now I know way they named Insomnia, I call it quit at 6:25 in the morning (Pacific), he he he, did not got any sleep.
October 19th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Me and my buddies had a really fun time making our film, “A Vicious Cycle.” I luckily didn’t have to stay up all night and edit it. Check it out.
October 19th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I had not heard of this contest until my friend recruited me about two weeks before the contest. Luckily, it was during my school’s fall break, so I was able to recover on the Monday and Tuesday afterwards. It was an awesome experience; my only regret is that if all goes as planned, I’ll be graduating next May and won’t be able to participate again.
I did find out what happens when I get no sleep for 24 hours…the patrons of the Clarksville, TN Waffle House were subject to my random laughing early that Sunday. But I’m so glad I participated.
Oh, and for the shameless plug: we are The Mid-Season Replacements, and the video is “Greg and the Pocket Watch.” It’s on YouTube, because for some reason Apple’s Insomnia site is not, as yet, updated for viewing and voting.
October 20th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Hello,
Is anyone else unable to view their entry in the Apple Gallery? Check this out: http://edcommunity.apple.com/insomnia_fall07/item.php?itemID=786 It’s just not working! I’ve told apple many times thus far, but they have ignored me. I have a site dedicated to my entry in the meantime: http://www.freewebs.com/insomniafilmfestival/index.htm
Please help.
November 4th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
The Apple Gallery is ridiculous. The registration form after logging in confuses everyone I’ve talked to and doesn’t work most of the time. Our thumbnail doesn’t even work. Many people have complained about their videos not playing!
I know Apple sent out their “formal excuse” as I call it, but no matter what they say I’m convinced this contest has been poorly executed from the moment they failed to get the website up.
All of this has significantly hurt the amount of ratings our videos would have received otherwise.
We all put a lot of effort into this and we deserve a fair contest.
Have a Jolly Good Day!