Fourdocs » FourDocs competition

Online Pitching Competition winner

Rebecca Frankel — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:33:55 +0000

The online pitching competition really got people thinking about how to make a visually interesting taster for a film. One that leaves the audience with an understanding of the style and subject matter of the proposed film, and a thirst to watch more. However, it couldn’t merely be a trailer for a longer film. After a four-hour round table watching panel, we finally came up with a winner – A Patagonia Tale, about Egidio, a 70 year old patagonian gaucho.

Lucas Gordon and Santiago Burin des Roziers (joint directors) will be receiving £5,000 to buy a camera of their choice.

The beauty of this pitch is that after taking you into Egidio’s world, you really want to stay there and see more. By mounting the camera on the dog in the hunting scene you see the filmmakers have an idea of how to use motion to create excitement, to contrast with the stillness of everyday life. There is no visual trickery, this is just a very well-shot character study, which is simple and stunning.

Born and bred in the beautiful Andes mountains, Egidio works the land every day with no more than his bare hands. Isolated for periods of up to three months due to the harsh weather conditions, he is perfectly adapted to survive. High mountains, deep rivers and lack of roads isolate him, making human contact a rare occasion. Egidio lives out of his cattle, chicken and sometimes even has to hunt wild boar, pumas or deer for a meal. A heartwarming man of few words, Egidio was born to live this way. He is one of a kind.

The five other shortlisted pitches varied in style, involving animation, still photos and poetic scenes. They were:

Daniel Edelstyn’s How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire
Colin Dewar’s Sphere of Influence
Clarrie Pope’s Absolute Woman
David O’Hara’s Steel Town
Richard DeDomenici’s Cross Rail

You can watch these in the Passat Pitching section of watch films.

Do you think we choose the best pitch? Which one would you choose to develop into a longer film?

Holly Ross’ film and pop video – button cute!

Rebecca Frankel — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:07:26 +0000

Holly Ross is the director of A Anderton Presenting, which was one of the winners of the My Family and Other Animals theme that aired on Channel 4 earlier this year. I asked her about herself, and this is what she sent me. [Make sure you check out her v cute pop video I Like Birds But I Like Other Animals Too.]

I am a film maker from Lancaster, which is a little historical city in the north west of England. At the moment I work as a producer/director for ITV Border in Carlisle making regional programmes for them but what I enjoy most is thinking of ideas for short films that I can film in my spare time and then making them!

I really really love making documentaries. What I love about documentaries is finding passionate and interesting people with amazing stories and putting their story and perspective on life ‘down to tape’. There are a lot of people in the world who are worth recording and in my work I hope to open up the door to these people’s lives and let viewers stand on the door mat agog! For me, it’s all about finding great people with spectacular stories, or filming the mundane in a spectacular way. Someone once said I was like the ‘Diane Arbus’ of television. I went red at that cos I really really like Diane Arbus.

I also write and play music too. I am in a band called The Lovely Eggs. We have a record out at the moment called ‘I Like Birds But I Like Other Animals Too’ on Filthy Little Angels Records, and we have played in some nice places like in Amsterdam and New York and on a steam train. I sing and play guitar and sometimes I write the music for the documentaries I make. I am going to America soon for 5 weeks and I am driving all the way down Route 66. I hope to make a film about it. I hope to makes films about lots of other things. I have too many ideas and not enough time. I am hoping my film being shown on 3MW might open a few doors for me that I might want to walk through because I am passionate about this and really want to make it as a film maker. xx

Bursary winners announced – 8!

Rebecca Frankel — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:20:34 +0000

We got lots of very high quality entries to the FourDocs bursary scheme. After looking through the applications I was totally impressed with the dedication of people who get out there and actually make films, instead of talking about it.

Some people had been filming a subject for years, others became so obsessed with an idea they just had to make it, and another decided to make a personal investigation about their heritage into a film. What we were looking for, as stated in the T’s & C’s, was strong visual ideas that stand a good chance of being selected at film festivals. We had a difficult time with the judging, because there were so many deserving projects that £1,000 would really help elevate. In the end, we actually decided to give to out eight bursaries to films that were all fairly advanced (ie most of the filming had already happened), made by filmmakers with a broad range of backgrounds, including artists and an actor, as well as seasoned doc makers. The winners are:

I Won’t Go – Georgina Hurcombe
The Blanket Men – Barry Curran
We Rob Banks – Nicola Harman
Down and Out – Chris Martin
Way of The Morris – Tim Plester
The Reapers – Jacob Cartwright & Nick Jorden
The First Day – Hannah Skrinar
Of Kings and Queens – Ian McDonald

I’ll be writing more about each project in detail over the next few weeks. Sorry to everyone who wasn’t successful, and remember – you still have until the end of this week to enter the Passat online pitching competition to win £5k for a camera. I’m off to IDFA tomorrow morning, but am on email if you have any urgent queries about what you need to submit (a visual pitch/taster up to three minutes long). If there are any problems with fourdocs@channel4.com, you can drop me a line – rebecca.frankel@magiclantern.co.uk

My Home Town Winners

Rebecca Frankel — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:05:22 +0000

Whilst hanging about in the bookshop waiting for my friend in the telephone reception unfriendly BFI last night, I spied a copy of Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg DVD.

It was way exciting to turn it over and see that the winner of the My Home Town competition (In Case I Disappear) actually had their film on the disc, even though I knew they would. So thanks Marie at Soda Pictures for helping to put together such a great competition with us! I find it exciting that we were able to offer distribution for some of the entries on the Internet, television, DVD and at festival screenings.

The four which will air on 3 Minute Wonder as a series early next year, and each get £1,500, are:

In Case I Disappear – Simon Aeppli
Parade – Mathy Tremwan
My Amersham – Marco Williamson
Stratford Side B – Christopher Chen

So congrats to them, and everyone who entered. You can now watch all 12 shortlisted films in the new My Home Town player, or leave comments about individual films in the blog. Do you think we chose the best films? And what did you make of the way Lee discussed them? Let me know…

Review of Christopher Chen’s Stratford Side B

Lee Kern — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:54:32 +0000

This was an alright little doc. It came together quite neatly at the end.

The friction of a resident’s real experiences contrasted with a corny Tour Tape could have been corny itself – but it kind of held it together. It must be a pain living under the shadow of Shakespeare’s quill.

All in all I’ve enjoyed watching the films in this competition and if I’ve seemed harsh at some points grow a thick skin. This is just one man’s opinion. I’m not arguing THE way. I’m just championing what I like. You should champion your own style and your own voice. If you don’t march to the beat of your own drum your step will be all over the place.

The one thing I would argue having watched these films is this: if your doc is just visual journalism or a pictorial statement of facts then I doubt the film has any longevity. It’s simply an info-mercial. Once you’ve absorbed the information you don’t go back. Most documentary on TV approaches this model. It is designed for just one night’s viewing and maybe a repeat. It’s not a painting that you could look at again. Or a piece of music you could put on repeat.

I want documentary to approach something more akin to art and for doc-makers to acknowledge that the viewing of films is not just sitting in a lecture hall. It is a sensory experience and you should appeal to those senses with the use of rhythm, sound and the internal interplay of picture and imagery. Watching a film is a physical experience it is not just cerebral.

Someone said they thought I’m more interested in form over substance which couldn’t be further from the truth. Everything I’ve ever championed has been about the spirit and soul of a piece and that this should be given precedence over gloss, sheen and “professionalism”. However the visuals of your film are the corridors to the content so you’ve got to be on top of it otherwise you won’t communicate your message and you won’t communicate the feeling you wanted to – you won’t communicate whatever it was you wanted to communicate to the audience.

Now everyone make films. Disregard everything anyone tells you until you make the film you want. Bye.

Review of J D Thomas’ Melancholy Objects

Lee Kern — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:28:37 +0000

I’m not sure how many times I could watch this. In particular the music became grating after about thirty seconds and then it carried on ad infinitum.

Again it had that feeling of late night filler you used to get on TV where there might be a couple of minutes you need to fill in the schedule at some ungodly hour and so they stick in something that doesn’t really go anywhere or do anything. Who knows? Maybe the feeling I had of wanting to get away completely echoes what it’s like to live in Bargoed, South Wales?

Review of James Graham’s Little Apple

Lee Kern — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:08:04 +0000

This film did my head in. I hated the voiceover and couldn’t really understand a lot of what was being said.

My mind wandered a lot not because I’m simple but because the whole rhythm of it felt so nothingy. The only point where I started to get a bit interested was when the form completely changed at the end and we had a bit of an interview with the ventriloquist. I think it’s cos the puppet and old lady thing was doing my head in prior to that. It was a bit like a terrible insert from the kids show, Rosie and Jim. Anyway, that was the only time in the film where there was a gear change and where the rhythm felt a bit dynamic and sprightly.

I definitely think there’s something in the idea of using a dummy in a doc though. Personally I would have written and delivered the voiceover as if it was a real life interview – not assume a kind of kids TV storytelling patter. (Or just do an intervew with a real lady). Then I would have had played the interview over imagery of the “lady” moving around the house – but all shot in soft focus or concealed in late afternoon shadow. Then I would have revealed the dummy only towards the very end. That’s what I would have done. Anyone got any other ideas for using dummies/puppets in docs?

Review of Mathy Tremewan’s Parade

Lee Kern — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:47:01 +0000

I didn’t like this. It felt like I was on a school trip to a museum and pressed a button on a display in order to listen to a recorded actor tell me what life was like “back then”.

Sorry it just wasn’t for me. It had echoes of those daytime history channel programs where you have pieces of archive footage or re-enacted events which have been made to “look old” in the edit by clicking on the, “make it look old” button you get on all the editing software owned by the history channel. They also have a sound effect machine that has either the sound of a plane, the sound of Nazi boots marching, or the sound of Hitler shouting.

Reveiw of Jahmar Bennett’s Experiences

Lee Kern — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:20:12 +0000

The editing wasn’t hitting the right notes for me. A lot of the pictures to voiceover were either too literal or incoherent.

There was a lot of the latter. My brain couldn’t always makes sense of the connection between the words and the pictures

Is that because I’m a rubbish viewer? Or is it cos the editor didn’t communicate successfully enough to me as a viewer what was perhaps obvious to them? The result was that as a viewer I began to increasingly lose my grip on the film’s narrative and in turn my interest waned.

The photos were also totally discordant. There was no visual uniformity to them, and no reason to suspect this was a deliberate stylistic choice. It began to feel like the pictures were dragged from google image searches, and were simply the first pictures found that sort of made sense to the narrative. Pretty harsh but what do you want from me? There’s a credit crunch on and that’s hitting praise too.

Review of Adam Neale and Jasmine Hetherington Wilkes’ Hidden From the the Night

Lee Kern — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:20:19 +0000

There was a really nice tone and feeling to this film. There was a warmth and likeability to the filmmaker and how they came across.

And that really counts for a lot, especially if telly is the route you want to take. (You’re gonna have more success if you come across as likeable as opposed to coming across like a bastard.)

There was a stylistic unity to the visuals of the piece and the editing hit the right notes and kissed the voiceover on the cheek in all the right places. There was a sweetness to the voiceover. It was very simple but really sincere. And this was all complimented by the music and indeed the sentiments within. Really lovely to see a film about a hometown that wasn’t wraught with bitterness or frustration. But that’s Brighton for you. What do you expect? Bloody, happy bastards.