Straight 8 and 12 Pies Premiere

Last night we went over to the Renoir cinema to watch our Straight 8 film 12 Pies for 12 Bridges for the first time. Thanks to the Straight 8 people for putting on a good night and show, and congratulations to anyone who got a film through to the showing. It was pretty nerve-wracking waiting for it to come on, wondering if the film would come out properly, wondering if it would be as we expected, if the sound would match up, hoping it wouldn't be complete pants etc. Well, thankfully it wasn't quite the unmitigated disaster that it could have been, and some kind (drunken?) souls even laughed in the places that we hoped might be funny. And a few cheers afterward. Ta for that, whoever you are.

If you haven't come across it before, the Straight 8 competition involves making a three minute film on one super 8 cartridge (supplied and marked by the Straight 8 organisers), with no editing, no re-takes and no room for errors (or at least your muck-ups are there for all to see captured on film). You send the undeveloped cartridge back to the organisers, and the sound you record separately and send on a disc. The first time you get to see the picture against sound being the cinema screening, with a lot of other people.

It was a fantastic experience seeing a film you've made on the big screen, quite different to when we've had commercials in the cinema - probably largely because we hadn't seen it until that point. It has to be said that there were some properly quality films - clever ideas and very detailed productions - the ones that stood out for us were The Invention by Rob Oldfield, Zombeef by Darren Walsh, My Dog by Ed Kaye & Alex Mavor, Carrots & Spaghetti by Mooch & Dave, and The Desert Society by Marta Besevic. Cracking stuff.

And here, if you're interested, is 12 Pies For 12 Bridges...