Spark, Facebook and Colenso have joined forces to create the Tall Shorts Film Festival, flipping the traditional landscape film format on its side with a vertical-format film festival for the mobile age.
The
Festival's call for entries asks that submissions be no longer than two
minutes, that they are shot in portrait format and that they
incorporate the theme of light.
Says Sarah Williams, head of brand, communications and experience for
Spark: "Right now in New Zealand we have over three million potential
filmmakers, each carrying a powerful camera in their pocket. The Tall
Shorts Festival honours their format of choice for capturing and sharing
their lives, elevating it from our everyday social feeds to its own
festival."
Says Dan Wright, ECD, Colenso BBDO: "The constraints
and opportunities of the vertical format provide a creative challenge
for compelling storytelling, so we're looking forward to seeing what
people come up with."
Award-winning director Taika Waititi will
judge entries, with the entire showing and judging conducted through the
Facebook Live platform. Waititi will be looking for films that embrace
the format for storytelling and composition.
Not only will the
winner have their work seen by the film icon and promoted by Spark, they
will also take home a prize of $10,000.
To exemplify the kind of creative filmmaking that can be made in mobile format, Spark has released a short film called Dot. The clip is a love story with a twist, based on the 'three dots' scene from the Little Can Be Huge video launched last year.
Says
Andy Blood, creative strategist at Facebook: "Orson Wells said
something like, 'The enemy of art is the absence of limitation', so it's
nice to see a film festival with a new limitation: that entries must be
shot in portrait format (9:16).
"While the older generation
might find this tricky, younger film-makers won't think twice about it.
And with so many native tools to play with (Camera AR, Boomerang, Gifs,
LIVE,) we could see some really genre-bending entries. I'm looking
forward to seeing how people push, stretch, accommodate, or break the
format.
"As the Guardian just wrote (about Steven Soderbergh's
made on iPhone movie 'Unsane'): 'It's the skill of a great artist to
turn a limitation into a strength, and indeed, Soderbergh has harnessed
the potential of the gizmo in your pocket to create a striking and
affecting new visual dialect.' This is a new visual language. I can't
wait to be wowed."
Entries are open from April 1 to May 13. To enter, contestants must post their films to the Festival's Facebook page Facebook.com/SparkTallShorts, where it will be checked against the competition rules before appearing on the wall.
Live judging will take place on the evening of May 20. More information can be found at facebook.com/sparktallshorts.