![]() |
|
![]() |
![]() |
NEWS JUST IN
Polar Bears take YouTube
9 October 2007
A few months ago, a small group in Melbourne produced a short piece of animation designed to highlight the cause and impact of global warming. What emerged was a one minute delight which has quickly taken off around the world on the internet. It is now being short-listed for international awards and has been featured by YouTube, who put it on their front page. This kicking things along nicely (600,000 hits and climbing) and the popularity of ‘The Polar Bears’ is described by the originating small group in Melbourne as ‘deeply satisfying’, ‘somewhat in excess of expectations’, and ‘just a small one thanks and I really must go’.
Short-listed from over 800 entries across 45 countries in the recent Filminute competition - www.filminute.com/2007
Short-listed in the recent Friends of the Earth international film competition - www.foe.co.uk
Over 600,000 hits on YouTube (at last count) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDIP71Lviys
This is the little viral marketing campaign that could.
Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne (www.christinemilne.org.au/) commissioned Melbourne media producers Eskimo Productions to develop an animation that would ‘generate a heart response to trigger action on climate change’. Over 600,000 people can’t be wrong!
Cake Tin wins 2007 Moondance International Film Festival award
1 October 2007
Occasionally the right thing happens to the right people. Cake Tin, a (very, very) low-budget short film, won the Sandcastle award for Best Short Film at the 2007 Moondance International Film Festival. The award was made jointly to director Rosemary Riddell, now a New Zealand judge, and her husband and producer of the film, long time film stalwart and good bloke, Mike Riddell.
It was shot in Dunedin with rising doco star Scott Mouat coming in off the bench when illness - or perhaps starvation - struck down the DOP, and with the help of the Dunedin Film community.
It is a great result for a great group of people from a great town.
www.caketin.org
COMING SOON TO ASTRONOUGHT ONLINE
Kakapo
To be shot in Fiordland this summer. Scott Mouat has special access from the New Zealand Department of Conservation to film the first attempt at a new breeding programme for the beautiful but endangered Kakapo.
Scott has been working on this project for many years and is a young but much respected natural history documentary maker with the beautiful Primeval Paradise to his credit. He is a graduate of the University of Otago/Natural History New Zealand film school. His film will record these first efforts to use newly developed science to protect this beautiful bird and will document how close it has come to going the way of the now extinct Huia.
Primeval Paradise
Scott's first film, shot with the typically helpful and wise assistance of Michael Stedman, CEO of Natural History New Zealand (NHNZ) is a beautiful contemplation of Ulva Island off the south coast of New Zealand.
www.elwin.co.nz/home.html
Grahame Sydney
Grahame is, deservedly, one of the pre-eminent artists of New Zealand with an international reputation and patronage. He is also an original thinker and has a wonderful eye. This is now to be applied to the making of several documentary films produced by his company Hinterland Productions with Huntaway Films.
The first of these will be “The Old Dunstan Road” a record of the first gold trail from the coast to the gold fields of Central Otago. This film will traverse the extraordinary landscape which, through his remarkable paintings, Grahame has revealed for all to truly see. It also tells a story of another time.
Hinterland and Huntaway have other Sydney projects underway including a series on major New Zealand artists scheduled for 2009.
www.grahamesydney.com
www.huntawayfilms.co.nz
Violin
Sponsored by Astronought and shot this year by Huntaway Homestead Films and Elwin Productions, it would be remarkable if it was just the story of the 2007 Michael Hill International Violin Competition with its beautiful music, wonderful instruments, striking location and very clever, enthusiastic and dedicated young people - with a trilling finish! But its not. We'll let you know.
www.michaelhillinternationalviolincompetition.com/
|
![]() |
|
|
|
|
