Deadline – 31 December 2019, 11:59pm.
Hey, team!
This is our first attempt at creating a homework assignment for listeners of the Mistakes Were Made podcast. Each month we will be accepting entries for the most recent assignment, which will include certain rules the creator(s) must follow. So long as these details are found within the piece, the film will be accepted as a submission. There is no submission fee, there is no award money – these films are simply an excuse to practice the discipline of your craft and potentially reach a wider audience. Our purpose is to educate ourselves, and each other, by creating as much content as possible. We want to see what works and what doesn’t. We want to see you at your most experimental. We want to break the mold.
One month you may be shooting an action sequence revolving around a stuffed animal, and the next you may be working Play-Doh on your kitchen table to develop a stop-motion sequence. We want to break you from your comfort zone and force you to work in a new and interesting way, one where you may find insights for future projects or new ways of thought. We encourage participants to do the uncomfortable and break every rule imaginable. This is an opportunity for you to get weird, and see what comes of it.
Theme
– We’re looking for your take on a Christmas Movie with a twist!
– KEY OBJECT – Bizarre Stocking Stuffer. Whatever it is, it must fit inside a traditional stocking.
– No specific genre
– Must be filmed in one location. I.E.- You can use multiple rooms in one house, but you cannot leave the house.
– Must include a Tracking Shot, where the camera pursues or is pursued by the subject being filmed.
Guidelines
– Films must be between 5-15 minutes in length, including title sequence/closing credits.
– Films must be emailed to nightmareboxproductions@gmail.com with the title “HW#1 Submission – (YOUR TITLE)”.
– Any and all participants in your film MUST be credited, whether they wrote, directed, acted, or simply walked by the camera. No film ever came from one mind alone, and every person involved deserves the credit for the whole.
– Any and all equipment used for the film MUST be listed in the emailed submission. If you’ve mastered an incredible shot with an affordable camera, captured an interesting piece of audio with a cell phone rather than an audio recorder, or wrote your screenplay in Notes rather than Scrivener, we want to hear about it.
– Have fun! This is not a competition in so much that there will ever be a verifiable winner, we simply want you to do what you can with whatever you’ve got. Think of it as guerrilla filmmaking. Don’t stress yourself with an unattainable budget or with renting expensive equipment to get the shot you know you could do without it. Focus on working with what you can in the time you can set aside, and share your journey with us.
Kristin and I will be playing along each month, and you will be able to view whatever content we create, on thenightmarebox.blog, at the end of each month. Alongside this, we will post between 3-5 listener submissions to our YouTube page. These will be ones that we feel garner further review, based on stylistic choices, story arcs, or a particular scene. These will be the films we discuss during the first podcast of each month, the same show where we will reveal that month’s assignment.
The game is free, and the challenge is yours. We hope to see what you can do!
I love you,
Brett
The Nightmare Box 
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