PushPlay is a short film competition which in 2017, its inaugural year, generated wide interest from the filmmaking community and over 400 submissions. The competition’s aim was to help unearth emerging filmmaking talent and showcase their work to the world.
Ben Hyland’s short “88” was selected as the competition winner by a panel of industry leaders for its evocative story, powerful message and compelling character development. Ben took home a grand prize consisting of a film production suite and a two-day mentoring experience with Oscar winning cinematographer Michael Paleodimos.
The video below captures Ben’s experience with Michael, and how LaCie and PushPlay have supported him on his journey as a filmmaker.
Here, Ben describes his experience …
When I initially heard that I had won the LaCie #PushPlay competition I was over the moon. It had been several months and being completely honest I’d forgotten that I’d even entered. Suddenly I was the winner of a European filmmaking competition and it felt great.
The two day mentoring with Michael Paleodimos was superb. Getting an insight into the workings of high end production was invaluable. I initially went to the meet the folks from LaCie at Jigsaw24. They had sourced all the cool prizes including a new G5 camera, a selection of lenses, a drone, a new MacBook and of course a wide selection of LaCie drives. All up it was 15k worth of stuff.
Moving on from Jigsaw24 I met Michael at Glassworks in SOHO. A post production house. We spent the day in a grading suite and I brought my own footage so I could experience that process on my own work. It was fantastic to watch and learn.
The following day we went to Panovision. They’re a kit hire company. We spent the day playing with lenses and doing lots of different tests. This is where Michael really came into his own. His knowledge of both the tech and the creative methods of storytelling was fascinating and I got so much out of the day.
All in all I had a fantastic experience with the competition. I’d highly recommend anyone thinking about entering to just submit your work. Who knows next year it could be you.
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Find out more about our latest film contest #InMyElement today. Submit a film which shows us you in your element for a chance to win a state-of-the-art video production suite worth $15,000.