Rushes Soho Shorts 2008

Seen any good shorts lately? No? Well if you’re based in London’s trendy Soho district then you’ve got no excuse?!? For the past 10 days the Rushes Soho Shorts Festival has dominated the cool zone with its mix of promos, docs, ads, idents and – obviously – super shorts. Last night saw the awards being dished out by a variety of Fiennes, Winstones and Popes. The Reel was there to give you the lowdown.

We love shorts on The Reel. And we love Rushes. In fact, we’re pretty fond of Soho too. So when those mighty forces collide to form the Captain Planet of short film festivals – The Rushes Soho Shorts – we readied our heinies, memorised our A-Zs and set about town. Celebrating its 10th year, this year’s festival played host not only to a series of top-notch shorts and promos, but also to seminars, talks, panels and masterclasses ranging from Fashion in Film to Gaming Blitz. With free entry to the majority of events, all lucky punters needed to have was a copy of the festival programme, a working watch and an affinity for film.

The screenings themselves were a triumph, being shown in ace screening rooms including Soho House, 22 Below and the Curzon Soho. Over the course of the festival more than 150 pieces were shown to eager audiences and expert judges in order to skim the cream from the crop. In each category – Animation, Broadcast Design, Music Video, Documentary, Newcomers and Short Film – three finalist were chosen, with the winners being announced in last night’s star studded bash. Here are the results:

ANIMATION

1st “Standup”
Dir. Joseph Pierce
National Film and Television School

2nd “The Control Master”
Dir. Run Wrake
Sclah Films

3rd “Sony Bravia: Play Doh”
Dir. Frank Budgen and Darren Walsh
Passion Pictures

SHORT FILM

1st “Souljah”
Dir. Rikki Beadle-Blair
Team Angelica

2nd “Eel Girl”
Dir. Paul Campion
Chameleon Pictures

3rd “El Hoppo!”
Dir. Marcus Shepherd
Dan Films Ltd

BROADCAST DESIGN

1st “1 in 7 Children”
Dir. Susannah Hayes
Ferocious Films

2nd “BBC iPlayer: Penguins”
Dir. Vince Squibb & Darren Walsh
Passion Pictures

3rd “Don’t Let It All Unravel”
Dir. Sarah Cox
Aardman Animations

MUSIC VIDEO

1st Mika - Lollipop
Dir. Bonzom
Passion

2nd Spektr: Things That Go Bump In The Night
Dir. Thomas Pors
Simulakrum

3rd One Eskimo: Hometime
Dir. Lucy Sullivan & Matt Latchford
Gravy Media

NEWCOMERS

1st “Love Does Grow on Trees”
Dir. Bevan Walsh
Keel Films

2nd “Covered”
Dir. Jack Laurance
Covered

3rd “On The Upside”
Dir. Peter Bunzl
Peter Bunzl Films

DOCUMENTARY

1st “A to Z”
Sally Arthur
Arthur Cox

2nd “Adi Dassler”
Martin Krejci
Stink

3rd “I Dreamt of Flying”
Alex Bland

As always the bash was hosted in fine style by Word stalwart Terry (Dani, I love you) Christian in Café De Paris. Celebs of note included Joseph Fiennes, Nick Moran, Jaye Griffiths, Magenta Devine, award-winning director Tim Pope and Jaime and Lois Winstone (who the Reel editorial team managed to mysteriously enrage). As for the winners: despite being fairly animation heavy, the selection was of an exceptional quality, the victorious pieces managing beauty, depth and the occasional shock. Lucky UK subscribers will get to see a selection in a special feature in the August Issue.

Speaking of the event, Joce Capper – Managing Director of Rushes and founder of the festival – had this to say: ‘Our 10th has been a huge success! We did our utmost to meet the demands for great events and film programmes that our audience expects. It is a completely full on annual challenge, one we enjoy, argue, laugh and rise to. Beating expectation year on year is our goal and one we fulfill. The standard of entries was brilliant, as was the amount we received. Everyone knows Rushes Soho Shorts is about screening exceptional films.’

For more info on the event, and some beautiful snaps of beautiful people (Reel types included) check out the official site - www.sohoshorts.com. To see what the wonderful Rushes peeps do for a day-job, give their site a look too - www.rushes.co.uk.

All we can say is, roll on number 11!!

NewsReel 01/08/08

As always, please send any news and press releases to sam@thereel.net and we'll do our best to include it here.

The UK MVA's are coming
The deadline for entries to the UK Music Video Awards is fast approaching. All entries need to be received by the 12th August for the awards show that is due to take place on October 14th at the Odeon in Leicester Square. The team behind the event, who also run the BFI South Bank’s highly successful BUG strand, has also announced a People’s Choice Award and a separate award for the best video produced for under £2,000. For more information go to www.ukmva.com.

Shark attack

The closing date for this year’s Kinsale Sharks Awards is only a week away. There will be no extensions for any entries this year due to a significant increase in the volume of entries that need to be processed, so go to www.kinsalesharks.com to join the last minute scramble to enter work.

Short and Sweet
Next week’s Short and Sweet (London’s only weekly short film evening) will be held at the usual time and place:

MONDAY: Cafe 1001, 91 Brick Lane
TUESDAY: AKA Bar, 18 west central street

Films start at 7.30pm both nights and entry is FREE.

This time featuring some great work from the following directors:

Steph Green
Nick Alhmark
Toko Plastic
Karen Kelly
John Williams
Annette Habel
Tomek Ducki

A new wave
Wave Recording Studios has announced its opening of a new office in Amsterdam. Wave Amsterdam’s plush new office is on the Herengracht; a street at the heart of the city’s buzzing media centre. Facing the canal on one side and a central courtyard on the other, Wave is on the 2nd floor of a newly refurbished building and boasts over 600 square metres of floor space.

The ambitious venture for the company that was founded in 1999 comprises of three studios and will service Dutch, Pan-European and UK markets. Warren Hamilton, co-owner and creative director at Wave said of the relationship between the new and original office, ‘The only difference between Wave London and Wave Amsterdam is 500-miles; the two offices will offer the exactly the same service and personality.’

The Amsterdam studios will be helmed by a hi-profile new signing: Alex Nicholls-Lee, who previously worked at Scramble for over a decade, and is both an experienced sound designer and used to working with Dutch clients. He’s worked on Adidas’ ‘Last Man Standing’ and the D&AD winning Pepsi ‘Gladiator’ spots. Joe Mount will also be joining the Amsterdam studio, crossing the North Sea from the company’s London office. He recently won a Conch sound design award for his work on Skoda’s ‘Giggle’.

A call for more smalls
Following on from their recent Paramount and Comedy Central sponsored Comedy Shorts competition, The Smalls has opened their call for entry for their 2008 Showcase and Awards in association with Creative Review and devilfish. The competition and event celebrates small films for small screens – celebrating the opportunities bought about by the internet and mobile phone screens.

A selection of entries will be screened at the London Design Festival on September 17 – 18th and the best entry, as judged by a panel of leading industry figures, will win The Smalls Awards 2008.

The deadline for entries should be up to five-minutes long and submitted by 5th September. For more information go to www.thesmalls.com