Portable Film Festival

Choosing A Category

There are six categories to enter in the Portable Film Festival 2009. Here's an explanation of each, with a few things to consider:

1. Short Film

Welcoming directors of all nationalities, backgrounds and proficiency levels, Portable's flagship category presents incredible stories, true and imagined, from around the world! Whether they're premiering on the internet, or have been part of traditional site festivals, they're all side-by-side, fighting for the prize...

What we want: Really great storytelling, a great script, a reason to care about the people who inhabit your film; things that may be funny, scary or moving, but use portability, technically and conceptually, to its fullest.

What we don't want: When we say short we mean short - nothing over 30 minutes for this category. Reel it in, buster, or step up to the feature. When we program, we consider how things are gonna look displayed on a portable device - if you're using subtitles, please consider your viewer with size, position and colouring. And possibly don't shoot the whole thing in a static long shot.

2. Music Video

Big acts, better ideas - for us, music video is all about the art of rocking out. Make the song work in a way that no one ever imagined it would, and you could be walking away with music video top honours!

We want: Clips that feature design, ideas, and even stories, as bold as the music it accompanies.

We do not want: Performance clips of bands playing live in studio or traditional settings - your video has to do more than just illustrate the playing. This isn't a category for general music content, so don't you be entering a first-hand capture of a gig, or a YouTube-style clip of you breakdancing...and remember, we're judging the video, not the music!

3. Look At Me

Look at Me is all about people taking their stories, their causes, and themselves online and to the masses! From bedroom bloggers to beatboxers, stand-up comics to crank-callers, here's our recognition of the most inventive people who are using online video to further their cause.

We want: webisodes, online serials, promos, video podcasts, be they one-offs or part of an ongoing series; people using online video in some way to draw attention to their work or what they do...

We do not want: YouTube videos of you and your friends doing something quote-unquote wacky.

4. First Hand Capture

New technology means new ways of telling stories and new ways of capturing moments...

Imagine sitting around minding your own beeswax - then boom! History happens, and you've got your handy cell phone/digital camera/media type recorder there. Kinda like that bit in Cloverfield where people are all recording the Statue of Liberty's demise before the monster gets 'em. Of course, it doesn't have to be about mass destruction, or even monsters - but as eyewitness material, it has to engage us, show us something new, unexpected or just plain special.

And if you're planning on thinking big by thinking small and shooting via cellular with your latest film, this category is the place for you...

We do want: portable-shot stuff that thinks outside the square with its production; clips that show us things we could never have seen before - the unexpected, unbelievable and surprising. Storytelling that uses cell phone production to weird and wonderful ends.

We do not want: Sub-Funniest Home Videos crap of drunk people taunting other drunk people, cats falling into toilets, or combinations of the two.

5. Get Animated

Films that take great ideas back onto the drawing board, Get Animated is Portable's dedicated animation category.

We do want: animation that pushes the boundaries of the medium, whether that be in stop motion, claymation, new-media or more traditional forms.

We do not want: Remember, Fancy tricks don't compensate for a lack of story - don't let your medium overwhelm your message.

6. Features

Last year, Portable took to long form for the first time! And you know, it produced some of the most interesting, most watched entries in the whole festival, tipping a few onto great things...

Do you have a reel sitting on the shelf that never gained distribution? This is your chance to get your work watched by a new, diverse audience and push the boundaries of traditional cinema.

We do want: Full, epic, feature content. We want to represent the new breed of independent filmmakers using the internet to give their content the start it needs.

We don't want: Just because you've shot something that's 80 minutes long, doesn't mean it's gonna get in. Quality, as in every category, is king.