05 Jameson First Shot premiere and workshops

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2015 Jameson First Shot premiere and workshops --

Wed, 01 Jul 2015 13:33

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SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE: The Jameson First Shot competition premiered the 2015 winning films, The Mascot by South African winner Mark Middlewick; The Library Book by US winner Travis Calvert and Boredom by Canadian winner Stephan Tempier; at a green carpet event held at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles on 27 June. Initiated by Academy Award-winner Kevin Spacey and president of Trigger Street productions Dana Brunetti, and this year featuring renowned actor Adrien Brody, the short film competition offers emerging directors an opportunity to springboard their filmmaking careers.

Brody, who had a say in which stories were selected, said he was drawn to the humility in this year s scripts and liked that they featured characters with frailty and flaws. He commented, I gravitate to something odd and complex in stories. South Africa winner Middlewick expressed his increased motivation to locally produce feature films in the future, to which Spacey commented, South Africa is a remarkable country with an interesting history. It s nice to hear when someone wants to do films on what they know, and encouraging to hear that Mark wants to go back and make home-grown movies.

In addition to the screenings, Jameson First Shot held its inaugural Weekender event on 26 June at Siren Studios, which featured sessions and panel discussions on a number of aspects of the production sector delivered by industry experts. The first session, Budget and No Budget Filmmaking , was hosted by VP of Trigger Street Productions Carter Swan and panellists; producer Lisa McGuire, director/ composer Frederick Scott and producer Joshua Caldwell; who shared with attendees their experiences in creating films with little or no funding. The following session, Ding Dong the Pitch is Dead: Long Live the Internet generated discussion around online platforms and the new possibilities and challenges faced by filmmakers in the digital era. The session was hosted by Polaris PR publicist Greg Longstreet and featured Greg Goodfried, head of talent at UTA Digital; Betsy Koch, executive producer at Funny or Die; Dashiell Driscoll, senior content producer at Funny or Die and president of Supergravity Pictures Marc Hustvedt. Longstreet also hosted the session The Little Film that Could featuring Paramount Pictures head of acquisitions Eben Davidson and founder of Preferred Content Kevin Iwashina, which offered filmmakers advice on interacting with potential executives and participating in the film festival circuit. Attendees were also given the opportunity to create their own one minute film using the Straight 8 app in an interactive session titled Linear No Going Back Filmmaking hosted by Ed Sayers of elevenfiftyfive.

Watch The Mascot; The Library Book and Boredom.

Written by Carly Barnes

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