Virgin Media Celebrates Short Film Making With Virgin Media Shorts 2013 Awards Ceremony Tonight – We Attend Red Carpet Event!
We’re delighted to publicise that Virgin Media will announce the winner of the sixth Virgin Media Shorts competition at a prestigious red carpet awards ceremony tonight and I will be covering this event on behalf of theappwhisperer.com.
The annual event, this year held at the iconic BFI IMAX cinema in London’s Waterloo, is billed as the biggest short film competition in the UK with the aim to find and mentor the next big thing in British filmmaking.
The short list includes 13 films, the last of which was picked based on ‘Twitter buzz,’ and all are available to view online via the Virgin Media Shorts website, along with dozens of entries that sadly didn’t make the final cut.
Virgin Media notes the awards have a good track record creating real careers in film: “Our winners don’t just get their work seen by millions of movie lovers, they turn industry heads too. Our 2009 Grand Prize winner Luke Snellin with Mixtape was nominated for a BAFTA, is now a regular on the film festival scene and is set to direct his feature debut, The Wanderers later this year.”
Virgin Media adds: “Meanwhile, Oscar Sharp, who clinched a BIFA nomination for his 2010 winning film Sign Language is working on a new film starring Olivia Colman and Sean Dooley. 2011 winner Jason Wingard, director of the sc-fi thriller 2:20, is, with his BFI backing, in pre-production on his latest short.”
“Finally, last year’s winner, Jennifer Sheridan, has almost completed her follow-up to the adorable Rocket and recently submitted a script to the BFI. So, winning Virgin Media Shorts is certainly somewhat of a life-changer!”
From what we’ve seen so far of the 2013 entries it’s an impressive and varied bunch, covering several genres from drama to comedy and romance with flair. It’s also great to see that documentary film making hasn’t been neglected, with an insightful, amusing short about the smallest shops on the high street.
Virgin Media will announce not one but three awards tonight including those sponsored by Nikon and TiVo.
Those awards are…
The Grand Prize Winner
£30,000 funding to make their next film, along with “money-can’t-buy” expert mentoring from the UK’s leading film body, the British Film Institute.
The Nikon People’s Choice Award
A public vote via Twitter and Facebook held in September and October 2013 will see one filmmaker pocket £5,000 film funding, mentoring from the BFI and Nikon digital SLR camera equipment worth up to £5,000.
The TiVo Award
Virgin Media customers got to vote with their TiVo remotes and crown our second the second ever TiVo Award Winner. The winner will win Virgin Media’s TiVo service for a year, assuming they are an existing Virgin Media customer.
An impressive panel of judges includes BAFTA award-winning director and screenwriter Shane Meadows, director of Ian Dury biopic Sex and Drugs & Rock & Roll Mat Whitecross and film critic James King.
Also on the panel are two-time Virgin Media Shorts shortlisted filmmaker Jason Wingard, Senior Production & Development Executive at the BFI’s Film Fund Chris Collins, fashion, portrait, advertising photographer and Nikon Ambassador JohnWright and Virgin Media’s Chief Operating Officer Dana Strong.
We’ll be at the awards ceremony tonight, meanwhile you can follow Virgin Media Shorts 2013 on Twitter @VMShorts and join the conversation using the hashtag #VMShorts.
Good luck tonight to all those shortlisted!
Nick Spence
Nick Spence has been a freelance writer for over 10 years working for a range of publications and websites. Nick has a keen interest in all things Apple and a great love for creativity including art, design, photography and especially illustration. Nick is a keen iPhoneographer and can regularly be spotted around London photographing anything and everything, but especially cats, because they simply aren't enough pictures of cats on the Internet. Feel free to follow Nick on Instagram as @nickfromupnorth.
