2026 Spring Video Challenge
The Spring Video Challenge
Films to be shown on the BIG SCREEN in the Club – Friday 1st May. Entries must be in by Sunday 26th April. They must be shot at 25fps or 50fps (if you don’t know how to do this please ask me or other committee members and we will sort it out). Winner to be picked on the night by the audience. Videos must be no longer than 6 minutes in length to give everyone a chance of getting their video on the screen on the same night. You can enter more than one video. In fact, the more the better.
I’m giving you 2.5 OPTIONS so people with less fancy cameras can still be involved and those who have never made a complete video story can also have a go. This is best done as a team effort so please do encourage your team to get involved (oddbods, weyfarers, pathfinders and pioneers)
Firstly, Darkness or Grey and Rainy (as an extra variation). And secondly Greenscreen Mark II or B roll footage.
1: DARKNESS (main option)
if not dark then overcast and ideally raining (secondary option)
After being glued to my screen watching “Station Eleven” on Prime, I decided that the next challenge should be about darkness. Alas the Station Eleven camera (ARRI) and lens (Masterbuilt Superscope) have a combined cost of about £1,000,000. We don’t have £1,000,000 but we do have the weather. The next two months are our last chance before the spring kicks in to make videos in the dark that rely on candles, torches, the moon, and small desk lamps for lighting.
Candles can create an atmospheric feel which is ideal for dinner parties, mystery stories, ghosts, panic attacks and insomniac stories.
All these dark tales are from “Station Eleven” (on Prime).
1. Upset hostess spills her wine over the table and storms out. This is an example of a candlelit Dinner Party sketch. A young lady recounts a recent sighting that obliquely confirms to the hostess that the young woman is having an affair with her husband. Namely the younger woman attempted to make a small encouragement in favour of the hostess’s SECRET life’s work that only the hostess’s husband would have revealed to a young attractive woman and only if they were intimately close. The husband realises too late that the young woman has spilt the beans and tries too late…….
2. Or outside a supermarket late at night, after they close (great for BIG cinematic scenes – Sainsburys in Guildford has a deserted car park late at night)… Many a tale can be told on a large canvas in the dark.
3. Illuminated foliage at night can look like you are on an alien world or post-apocalyptic earth (this can be filmed on the Downs after dark – for example on the grass at the Newlands cafe carpark after the cafe closes)
4. A tale about a stranger or ghost or weird creepy noises in your house.
2: The second option:
Greenscreen challenge part 2 or B roll.
Now that you have either seen or had a go at making a Greenscreen video you might want to take it further and think of an extra clever snippet to show people at the club or a whole short video. We’ve had flying cars, flying boxes, strange Egyptians, and oil paintings that come to life – perhaps the next greenscreen project is to get Tracy Eman’s “Unmade bed” into an oil painting.
This is the competitions officer entering the Matrix via greenscreen.
Then, for those who are unsure about making a complete video but want to be involved how about filming B roll: Boiling kettles, stirring spoons, boots squelching in the mud, closeups of elbows, knees, bottoms, eyes etc. Shots that are not on the main story line but are added later to give the story more depth. They are often the most interesting shots in an entire movie… Weird views or humdrum life of brushing teeth or turning the dishwasher on.
Click here to upload your video
Entries must be in by Sunday 26th April. They must be shot at 25fps or 50fps (if you don’t know how to do this please ask me or other committee members and we will sort it out – the Blackmagic software is free for iPhone).
John Hawthorne
(Competition Officer)
competitions@surreyborder.org.uk