Film Forum West Midlands

Hello there,

Film Forum’s next meet up will be on Tuesday 13th October at the Victoria Pub on John Bright Street in Birmingham from 6pm.

For those that haven’t been to a meet up yet, here’s what happens! We meet up each month to get people from all aspects of filmmaking in the Midlands together to chat and start building networks of friends and contacts.

It’s very informal and is really up to you if you approach it as a casual drink or an opportunity to make new contacts and get projects off the ground. Contacts made through the social evenings have helped film projects to flourish and the variety of creative types attending has been very encouraging.

So, come on down, say hello, tell us what you are up to and hopefully we’ll all benefit from some interaction.

Here’s the address: The Victoria Pub, 48 John Bright St, Birmingham, B1 1BN

Here’s the Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=142120700881&index=1

I hope to see you there.

Birmingham’s Flatpack Festival is set to arrive once again this coming March from the 23rd – 28th, this time seeking a helping hand behind the scenes!

The festival organisers are looking to appoint somebody in the role of ‘Festival Coordinator’, if you are thinking about applying be quick though as the deadline is 28th Sept 2009. Further information about how to apply on their blog.

Submissions Wanted! Flatpack Festival are also calling for short film submissions, so if you’re a filmmaker and you would like to send in a short film, simply fill out the form which is available here.

Left to Right: Tom & Andrew

We thought it was best to keep these introductions to a minimum before we actually get to meet you all in person! Needless to say we’re honoured to be given such roles for the development of FilmForumWM, and we’re looking forward to talking to you guys on how we can, together, take FFWM to the next step. As Louis’ kindly already mentioned, we organise an evening called Filmrats; an almost estranged cousin to FFWM where we aim to help local filmmakers and musicians showcase their work in an environment where they can socialise and make contacts with other filmmakers for (fingers crossed) a beneficial outcome.

Okay, so shameless plug finished, on with the brief introductions:

Tom

Hello! I’m currently a freelance journo (please don’t judge) in both music and art, and have worked with both national and local publications. Knowing the importance of local art/media, I can’t wait to work with you all and hear your views on how we can further build the WM film community!

Andrew

Hello! I’m a freelance Writer/Director & Editor who has been making short films now for the past six years before, during and after University. I’m currently working on several new short film ideas, music videos for up and coming artists and in the developing stages of a feature idea. I’m very much looking forward to running FFWM as I believe it’s nothing but beneficial and much-needed for our community.

Told you they were brief…but hopefully we’ll get to talk a little more at the next FFWM meeting! Look forward to meeting you all.

Tom & Andrew Hewson

Hello folks,

After a few career developments, Ian, Rill and I have decided that we’re not able to devote the time to Film Forum WM that it deserves. After building FFWM as something that we’ve always felt was needed in the region we obviously want Film Forum to carry on and grow.

Filmrats organisers, Andrew and Tom Hewson have really impressed us and will now be taking up the reigns here. So not only will FFWM be able to carry on the meet ups with a fresh vigour, it will incorporate some nifty screening events to give you new and exciting ways to share your work and expertise with other filmmakers in the region.

Ian, Rill and Louis will hang around in a supporting role and are currently co-organising a Flip Festival animation screening event, FlipSide, with Animation Forum WM set for the beginning of November – more information to come when confirmed.

If you want to help out in anyway, either by contributing to the blog or offering resources for Film Forumm events get in touch at info@filmforumwm.co.uk

In the meantime you can keep up to speed with Ian and Louis at Dice Productions and with Rill at her website.

Now give Tom and Andrew a big woohoo and round of applause as they introduce themselves…

Dice Productions, that’s us (cheeky), have been asked to bring successful London comedy film night, Popcorn Comedy, up to Birmingham.

Shorts on Screens is the latest chance for Animation Forum WM membersto mingle, share an after-work drink and share their animation from 6.30pm on Wednesday 30th September at The Victoria, Birmingham.

Rather than submit animated shorts in advance for a sit-down screening, simply bring along a mobile phone, mp3 player or laptop pre-loaded with your best animated work, and share it with fellow animators over a drink.

Animated work can mean short films, commercial work, experiments, showreels; anything you think would be of interest to others AFWM members.

If you don’t have such snazzy mobile technology, simply bring along a USB stick or DVD and play it on one of the many laptops we’ll have setup around the room.

If you decide to do the latter, please ensure that you bring the animation as a rendered (compressed) video (e.g. avi, mov, flv , etc), not as an enormous uncompressed video file or with a rare and unusual codec, as these are unlikely to work.

Don’t have anything to show? Then feel free just to turn up and chew the fat with AFWM members, be they animators, scriptwriters, producers or voice-actors, you never know what might happen.

Entry is free and to attend simply RSVP using the Facebook Event page or todavid.luke.allen@bcu.ac.uk.

Shorts on Screens will take place in the upstairs room of The Victoria (where Shorts on Walls @ Flatpack was held last March) and can be found here.

Electric December, a short film competition led by Watershed for under 21s has its deadline coming up on the 25th September. So get cracking and submit your short film online.

http://www.electricdecember.org/generic/submit.html

(via Brendan O’Neill)

FFWM member Gillian Stapleton has come forward to ask for help in the form of an Accountability Mentor for a script she is working on.

The genre is period drama/romance. The story is called The Singers and is set mainly in 1960. It is about a jazz singer and an aristocrat and their romantic involvement with each other.

The script has gone through 3 drafts and has two metors, John Humphreys and Adam Hamdy. It made the Screen WM script grant short list twice before this draft but I plan to do the scriptment and the synopsis in my own time without any funding.

When complete, I also plan to get some kind of production team together.

If you feel you can help Gillian, get in touch with her at gillianstapleton@hotmail.com