A while ago we put on a film making competition together with our partner, IdeasTap. The winner, Samuel de Ceccatty, created a wonderful short film called Dave's Wild Life using our wildlife sounds as his inspiration. On the back of this, we thought it might be nice to do a little research for you to come up with some of the best film making competitions that are out there and open at the moment. I’ve only listed some of them below but there are so many out there, but a couple of good places to start looking for competitions are on IdeasTap, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Rushes Soho Shorts and ShootingPeople. If you're particularly interested in mixing science with film, the Wellcome Trust has some great funding competitions. So, if you are looking to break into the film industry, entering competitions is a great way to get some exposure and you could win a pretty great prize at the same time. Take a look at our blog about how the Library can help filmmakers and get creative.  

Virgin Media Shorts
Now in their sixth year, the Virgin Media Shorts competition has discovered young filmmakers like Luke Snellin, Jason Wingard and Jennifer Sheridan. It's a great opportunity for aspiring film makers and has one of the biggest prizes available, including £30,000 worth of funding for your next film, mentoring from the BFI and national screenings. Entries should be two minutes twenty seconds or less (to be precise) and the closing date is July 18th 2013.



The Grierson Awards
Established in 1972, the Grierson Awards are in honour of the pioneering Scottish documentary filmmaker John Grierson, famous for Drifters and Night Mail and the man widely regarded as the father of the documentary. With Grierson there's more opportunity to win an award due to the number of categories, including arts, history, science and contemporary theme, as well as for first time and student filmmakers. The closing date for entries is Friday 31st May.



UK Film Festival
This year, the UK Film Festival will run from 13^th to 16^th November. The Festival aims to celebrate the cultural diversity of films made in the UK and also welcomes films from all over the world. The categories include, best short film, best music video, best animation, best documentary, best student film and best feature film. The deadlines start from 27^th May to October 7^th>, depending on your category and your submission fee.



Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival
Encounters is a great place to meet other people from the film industry and all the creative industries in general, it's not just about screenings it also offers discussions, workshops and other interactive events throughout the festival. Encounters accepts films from all over the world, which are under 30 minutes in length but can be from any genre (animation, live action drama, documentary, experimental, music video). Deadlines range from June to July. 



The London 48 Hour Film Project
Filmmakers from all over the London area will compete to see who can make the best short film in only 48 hours. The winning film will go up against films from around the world for the title "Best 48 Hour Film of 2013". The competition is likely to take place in September 2013 but other cities will be taking part throughout the year.

For the last six months, Olivia has been my right-hand lady, helping me run events, writing this blog, working with our partners and spreading the word about the British Library to a creative audience.

She's been an absolute pleasure to work with and was so invaluable during Spring Festival, particularly the Fashion LATE and Spring Market.  If you follow this blog, a lot of the articles have been written by Olivia, so we'll miss her a lot!

As it's her last day tomorrow, I thought I'd ask Olivia a few questions about her time here at the British Library...

Tell me about what you’ve been doing at the Library?

So I started in October as an intern and since it was my first real job since leaving university, I was ever so slightly overwhelmed. Since then, I’ve been working in the marketing team, focusing on the creative industries, and for us here at the Library, that’s focused on film, fashion and design. So this has mainly involved putting on events for creatives and partner organisations, analysing some data on our target audiences, writing reports on the film and fashion industries and obviously writing the brilliant Inspired by…blog! I’ve also managed to dabble in a few of the other sections, working closely with business marketing for the Library’s Business & IP Centre, as well as working with public programming, which involves all the events that we put on for the general public inspired by our collections.

What have been the highlights for you?

That’s an easy one. The biggest highlight was the Spring Festival. Getting to see all the hard work that we put in come into fruition was so rewarding and it was amazing to see people’s reactions to things that I had actually thought of and implemented. During the Festival, I have to admit, the LATE was my fave. Although I was super stressed on the night and leading up to, it all went pretty much swimmingly and it was really great getting to meet so many people in the fashion industry and work closely with Central Saint Martins.

Have you seen any weird and wonderful collection items?

For some reason, the one collection item that really stands out that I’ve seen whilst I’ve been here was a stamp! It was during a showing by the Philatelic department to the whole marketing department and we were shown the first ever printed stamp. We got to hold it (under supervision) and at the end the curator asked how much we thought it might be worth. Turns out it’s insured for millions of pounds! Everyone was in total shock that a stamp could be worth so much money but it’s amazing that something like that has been preserved and you can actually hold it.

So… what’s next?

Good question! I’m planning on going abroad for a few months to work to try and build up my CV a bit more, and actually I feel like the Library has prepared me really well for going for another job, giving me CV and interview training. I’m hoping to stay in the creative industries since it’s great to be able to go to work and actually be interested in what you’re doing, I just have to decide where exactly my strengths lie. Hopefully when I come back there might even be a place for me here! 

On Wed 22 May 13 we’re running a free event in London for creatives to come and see a whole room full of amazing, artistic maps from our collections.  Anyone can book a place, and you can meet our Maps Curator and find out how you can use them for inspiration.

To celebrate our upcoming event, here is a series of some of my favourite maps from our Prints Shop to show you that maps aren’t always as you’d expect...

 

 

 

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