PIMP MY TV Winners!

Our most recent Frenzy, PIMP MY TV, left us with a whole lot of great films. The results are in, and the winners were:

First Place: THE JOY OF PAINTING by Mascot Wedding

Second Place: DOUBLE DARE by Nick-Hell-odeon & FAMILY MATTERS by Comedia A Go-Go (tie

Audience Award: AT THE MOVIES: THE MOVIE by The Fattest Thumb.

PIMP MY TV: Top Ten Finalists

PIMP MY TV, our latest fake trailer making competition, has come to a close, but I'll be god damned if this contest didn't bring out some of my favorite videos we've ever had on this site.

If you haven't had a chance to check these out yet, I highly recommend spending some time in your work day afternoon to get caught up with the Top Ten finalists in this competition, as each of these had our judges tearing their eyeballs out with indecision when it came time for them to choose the ultimate winners.

In alphabetical order, then, our Top Ten PIMP MY TV finalists were:

AT THE MOVIES - The Fattest Thumb
CONAN BEGINS - FOGAR!
DESIGNING WOMEN - Infamous, Not Famous
DOUBLE DARE - Nick-hell-odeon
FAMILY MATTERS: AS DAYS GO BY - Comedia A Go-Go
INTERVENTION - Zeta Haay Theta
THE JOY OF PAINTING - Mascot Wedding
MACGYVER: THE MOVIE - Digital Limit Productions
MONSTERS: THE LEGEND OF FATHER MUERTE - Gravid Visuals
MR. ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD: THE MOVIE - Adios Mofo

Film Heavyweights to Judge McCracken Ad Contest

Hey gang, I was forwarded the following press release about a new filmmaking contest sponsored by the McCracken Austin mayoral campaign team and I wanted to forward it on to the Alamo community. I for one, have no doubt in my mind that Brewster is the ONLY choice for mayor in the upcoming May election and I am excited to be able to do anything to help him win this race. Even if you don't care at all about the race but you have some chops behind the lens of a camera, this is still a great chance to get four of the most influential figures in the film and gaming world to lay eyes on your creative work. Details on the contest are below:

McCracken Campaign and Austin Film and Gaming Heavyweights Announce Citizen Ad Competition

Robert Rodriguez, Richard Linklater, Elizabeth Avellan and Richard Garriott will be final judges of Your City – Your Vision – Your Ad competition. Winner to be aired during Daily Show/Colbert Report Hour.

(Feb. 2, 2009 – Austin) Austin filmmakers Robert Rodriguez, Richard Linklater and Elizabeth Avellan, and gaming pioneer Richard Garriott will join Brewster McCracken to serve as final judges for a TV ad competition sponsored by McCracken’s mayoral campaign.

The Your City – Your Vision – Your Ad competition will invite Austinites to articulate their vision for Austin’s future in a 30-second TV spot. The winning entry will be aired in the Austin region for a week during The Daily Show/Colbert Report hour in April.

“This election is about unifying our city around a common vision for Austin’s future and making it a reality,” said Mayor Pro Tem Brewster McCracken. “I believe we have a shared vision, but we each describe it differently. This competition will create an opportunity for professionals and amateurs alike to capture their vision and share it with the whole city. And having their work viewed and judged by four of Austin’s most accomplished film and digital media pros will be a pretty exciting opportunity for our creative arts community.”

Filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, co-founder of Troublemaker Studios, put it more plainly: “You make the movie, and I’ll bring the popcorn.”

Because the airtime will be purchased with campaign funds, finance rules require the campaign to add disclosures to the winning ad before it is aired. However, this is not a “Brewster for Mayor” competition. It is a creative competition. Entries should not include mentions or visuals of any candidate – including McCracken.

“Just as President Obama said last fall, this election isn’t about me and my future. It’s about you and your future,” McCracken said. “I want this ad competition to reflect that principle.”

The entry period will open February 23 and close March 20. A volunteer advisory group of Austin film and digital media professionals will review entries and determine a list of finalists from which the final judges will select a winner. The winning ad will be announced on April 3.

Select entries will be featured on McCracken’s campaign website throughout the mayoral campaign.

More information about the competition, including legal disclosures (permissions/copyright/etc) and technical specifications regarding competition entries will be posted on McCracken’s campaign website (www.brewstermccracken.com) this week.

Pimp My TV!

For years now, Hollywood executives who can't stand the thought of original ideas have pumped through product after product of feature films based on TV shows from days gone by. GET SMART, MIAMI VICE, THE DUKES OF HAZZARD, THE BRADY BUNCH, and the list goes on and on and on. Some of the time, these Hollywood reimaginings are actually pretty good, and a feature film can manage to breathe new life into the TV show it stole from. Other times, these feature films are the god awfullest piles of poo poo ever.

But have we seen the best? Have we seen the worst? What about all the TV shows that have never had the chance to be made into a feature film? Why haven't I seen GOLDEN GIRLS GONE WILD? Or Ridley Scott's AMERICAN GLADIATOR? These are projects that need to be green lit now, damn it! Unfortunately, I don't have a direct line to the executives at any of the major studios, so my dreams will go unrealized for the foreseeable future. But even if the actual movies can't exist just yet, we can still all imagine how cool it would be if they did. And that's where you come in.

For this Filmmaking Frenzy competition, we're asking teams of filmmakers to put together two to three minute trailers for a TV-based movie that has never existed, but really probably should (or shouldn't, depending on how you look at it). You can choose any TV show from any time ever to base your feature film trailer on, and teams can repeat the same title if they want to, but none of the entries can be based on TV shows that have already been given the feature film treatment.

Registration for PIMP MY TV will be $10 a team and will open up at Friday, January 9. The contest ends, and films are due online and in DVD form on Friday, February 20. We'll have screenings at the Alamo Ritz starting Monday, February 23 and announce the winners at an awards screening later that week.

BLOODSHOTS Winners Announced!

The judges and juries have spoken, and the winners for this year's Bloodshots festival were officially crowned at the Fantastic Fest Awards Ceremony on Monday night. And now, for those of you who couldn't be there live, here are the results:

First Place
Scottish Rite Productions - Meet the Maydays

Second Place
Clasico Entertainment - Cock Blast: the Game

Third Place
Take Me To Your Leader - Galaxy of Fatality

We'll have details coming soon for the next Frenzy, so keep your eyes peeled! Just don't literally peel your eyes until next year's Bloodshots, because that kind of footage really belongs in a horror film.

BLOODSHOTS Finalists!

The ballots have been counted, the online votes have been tallied, and the results are in – here, in no particular order, are the finalists for the 2008 BLOODSHOTS Filmmaking Frenzy:

Fogar! – Death at Dawn
Lean Mean Green Screen Machine – Killing Time in the Breakroom
Bleutuna – Well, Shit
Scottish Rite – Meet the Maydays
Team Good Enough – Silver City
Clasico – Cock Blast
Image Creation Entertainment – Road to Hell 3
You Got Severed – Episode 43: The Womantis
One Zero Nine – Exhibit H
Strike Films – Blood Oil
Take Me To Your Leader – Galaxy of Fatality

Congratulations to all the finalists, and we hope to see you at the Best Of Screening this Sunday! If you can make it out, shoot me an email and I’ll have two tickets for each filmmaking team available at will call on Sunday afternoon.

At that screening, we’ll be watching all of these movies, and pausing in between to hear feedback from our judges, who will be scoring each film and choosing the ultimate winners. We’ll announce the top three teams at this Best Of screening, but the final winner won’t be known until the official Fantastic Fest Awards Ceremony on Monday night.

Stay tuned for future Frenzies. Our plan right now (which is completely subject to change) is to do some sort of holiday special Frenzy in December. I’ll keep you posted.

Fantastic Fest Bumper results!

First of all, I wanted to thank all the teams who submitted bumpers to the Fantastic Fest bumper contest. We had a great response from the contest and thanks to you, Fantastic Fest audiences will not be suffering from festival bumper fatigue. All of the entries we received will get screen time in front of fantastic fest features.

Based on the audience voting, we have determined the winners in the contest. The top ten films are as follows:

Report Card
Hyper Fighter Joseline: Cookie Warrior
Just a Day
Batty Daddy
Fist of Noodle
A Run to Remember
I Love You Jean-Claude Van Damme
Silent Lucidty
The Boy Who Can't Land
Barb's Baby Back Ribs

These will all be getting heavy rotation before films at the festival and each of these teams will get a $100 prize pack from the Alamo Drafthouse. We will be emailing each of the teams this week to arrange shipping.

The grand prize winner in the Fantastic Fest Bumper contest was both an audience and Fantastic Fest programming staff favorite. From the makers of Hobo With a Shotgun, again starring the curmudgeon hobo himself, Team YER DEAD takes the grand prize with REPORT CARD (embedded below).



Also, the programming staff is also awarding Black Magic Rollercoaster's DING DONG DASH a special jury mention. This film left many of us absolutely speechless and literally gasping for air. The full-frontal male nudity was a bit too spicy for the Filmmaking Frenzy audience at large and it was pulled from the website early in the voting. To the delight of few and the horror of many, however, I personally guarantee it will get PLENTY of screen time during the festival.

Thanks again everyone for taking part and we'll see you on the next Filmmaking Frenzy adventure!