MOON PIRATE I have this idea for a movie about a Moon Pirate who returns to his Eastern Coastal Town humble beginnings and provokes a moral crisis in the community.

The SoCal Film Group, a digital filmmaking project, is hosting an interesting film contest at L.A.'s Silver Lake Film Festival this March 24-26 called The Lost Weekend Instant Film Contest.

Here's a beaut of a twist: You have 48 hours to conceive, write, cast, film, edit, and premiere a short film. You register, you show up with your equipment and crew, they give you some parameters, a randomly chosen genre and a few items and off you go. And be sure to come back with the film that's gonna knock the judges socks off.

Filmmaking as an Olympic Sport. Check here for the exact details.

I can't wait to watch the final shorts. 48 hours, a lot can happen and probably will.

Filmmaking | Contests | SoCal Film Group

Delivered unto you by Grouchogandhi precisely at 2:14:00 AM

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Prey Alone is the best thing to come out of the Digital Crowd to date.

For around $80K, 4 days of live action shooting and 18 months of rendering the computer generated backgrounds, Irish filmmakers Stephen St Leger and James Mather create a new standard in digital movies with a first-rate, fast-paced suspense-and-chase thriller. In a quarter-hour.

The seamless world between the dark and gloomy virtual sets, the spot-on actors and the film's frantic pacing throws up a new bar in homegrown digital filmmaking. Off-Hollywood productions can work. All this perfectly executed with off-the-shelf computers and software.

As the Prey Alone web site states:

It uses the latest up to date digital film techniques but didn't cost a fortune to make. It is in fact the first digital home movie. None of the backgrounds even exist - they were all created in computers. 9 home computers that the directors hooked up together and arranged to operate like a high end digital TV post production system. It's a home movie!

It's a little more than a home movie but not by much. The filmmaking duo of St Leger & Mather is another Digital Crowd accomplishment. And for Ireland, no less. Word is they've been signed by William Morris; a sure-fire happy day one would guess.

Honestly, Prey Alone is probably the best thing I've seen in a long, long while. The car-chase sequence is just fantastic!

As a friend of mine commented, "Lucas could learn a lot from those boys." Watch it now!

Movies | Digital Film | Prey Alone

Delivered unto you by Grouchogandhi precisely at 9:20:00 PM

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