Insomnia Film Festival

Apple is sponsoring a contest for college students to create a film in 24 hours called the Insomnia Film Festival. The grand prize is a copy of Final Cut Pro and an 80G video iPod. I went to look at the terms and conditions to see how odious they were, expecting the worst. I was surprised in that Apple is not asserting full ownership of the work and waiver of all your rights, but does specify that you grant them a free license to redisplay and redistribute it in perpetuity. So, Apple preserves the right to do things with it at their will, but doesn’t subtract that right from you. That’s a step up from typical in this sort of thing.

If you look in the fine print, you have to be a current student of an accredited college and the film has to be made on a Mac. I’m eliminated by the first rule or I might think about doing. The basic idea seems to owe a lot to the 24 Hour comic book format, pioneered (I think) by Scott McCloud and popularized by Dave Sim who reprinted many in the back of Cerebus. It’s also a little bit Iron Chef, because when the contest begins they’ll publish the three elements to be included and then the film is due 24 hours later. Presumably, they’ll be elements that would be difficult to just drop in to prepared scripts and films, but we’ll see.

Overall, it sounds interesting. If I were in college, I’d probably do it. For videobloggers, this should be a cakewalk. I’d love to see a prominent vlogger take this. Even better would be if a team from the Carolinas takes first. Paging Mark Welker!

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dave

Dave Slusher is a blogger, podcaster, computer programmer, author, science fiction fan and father. Member of the Podcast Hall of Fame class of 2022.

One thought on “Insomnia Film Festival”

  1. Heck, why not participate anyway? So what if you won’t get any chance of the booty – the fun is in the challenge, and then you’ll have something to show off. Maybe organize a sideline to the official contest? Of course, this is similar to a 48-hour video project in which another friend of mine has been involved, which evidently visits various different cities for local events. Of course I have no pointers at the moment…

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