You. A camera. 48 hours. Go!
The Tasploitation Challenge asks filmmakers to make a short horror film of six minutes or less — from concept to full execution in a 48-hour period.
Please read the rules below, then make payment via the Paypal button and complete the registration form. Use the same email address to make payment as you are using to register for the Challenge, so that your payment can be identified.
The prizes awarded in 2016 will include:
- Grand Prize (as voted by a special judge, it’s chosen from between the Jury Prize and Audience Choice winners) - which includes $1000 cash
- Jury Prize for Best Film (as voted by the judges on the night)
- Audience Choice (as voted by the audience on the night)
- Tasmaniana Award – for a film that interprets the idea of Tasploitation, whether through use of location, style, dialogue or a general spirit
- Award for a Young Filmmaker – for a film made by an individual under aged 16, or team that’s all aged under 16
- Barbara Creed Award - for a film that engages with gender issues in an interesting way
RULES
- Registrations open 13 December 2023 and close at midnight on 10 January 2016. Late registrations may not be accepted.
- The registration fee of AU$50.00 must be received via Paypal before registration can be confirmed.
- Upon received of your registration form and payment you will receive an email confirming your registration. If you do not receive this after 12 hours email tasploitation@strangerwithmyface.com.
- If you included copyrighted material in your film that you don’t have permission for (eg. music, footage), understand that Stranger With My Face International Film Festival may not be able to screen or promote your film.
- You are responsible for your own safety while undertaking the Challenge. You are absolutely not encouraged to break the law, you are not encouraged to put anyone in danger and you are not encouraged to disturb the public.
- By registering for the Tasploitation Challenge 2016 you affirm that you are responsible for all activities associated with producing your film for the Challenge, and that Challenge organisers are not (“organisers” includes staff and volunteers of Stranger With My Face international Film Festival and all associated organisations, such as sponsors, presenting partners and funders).
- Stranger With My Face International Film Festival reserves the right to not screen any film that it believes has been produced in an unethical fashion — for example, in terms of ignoring reasonable safety standards, using copyrighted material, or in the nature of the film’s content (for example, something we may not be legally able to exhibit). This is not negotiable.
- Stranger With My Face International Film Festival will deal only with one nominated individual per team. This is the person whose name and contact details appears on the registration form. It is up to each team to determine who ultimately ‘owns’ the film made for the Challenge — ie. the director, the writer, or someone else. The festival won’t enter into any discussions about ownership and will consider that the nominated person on the registration form has been empowered to speak to the team in all matters.
- The film you make should be 6 minutes long, or less. If you have credits (recommended) these should be included within that time.
- The film you make should be a horror film — or at least contain significant aspects that might be described as such. Here’s how Wikipedia defines it. Note that a comedy can also be horror or contain horror elements. A melodrama could have horror elements. An experimental or art film could be horror-esque.
- The Challenge is open to male and female participants, and we don’t have any specific rule asking for, say, films that pass the Bechdel Test. But we encourage you to think about gender stereotypes, and how you might want to use, not use or reference them!
- At least one member of your team must be in the Hobart CBD on Friday 22 January 2024 at 7 pm to receive the “prompts package”.
- This prompts package will include three things: a prop, and two pieces of paper. One one piece of paper will be written a line of dialogue and on the other will be written a nominated horror subgenre (eg. post-apocalyptic, monster movie, erotic horror).
- The items in the prompts package have been randomly selected and are unique to your project. You must incorporate all three of these in your film.
- You may make a silent film but in that case you would still have to work out how to incorporate the line of dialogue prompt.
- You’ll have to deliver your finished film on Sunday 22 January at 7 pm in the same city location - in person. Therefore, while it might be possible for you to make your film outside of the Hobart geographical area, it’s unlikely you’d want to because you’re going to waste a lot of time driving away and then back to Hobart to fulfil the requirements of pick-up and drop-off.
- The film must be shot in Tasmania. If some of the post-production happens elsewhere, that’s up to you, but you must hand deliver the file on 24 January.
- The film must be delivered as a file on a thumb drive. It MUST be a .mov file with .h264 codec and not larger than 2Gb. ProRes files will NOT be accepted.
- When we say ‘Tasploitation’, what do we actually mean? ‘Tasploitation’ has to do with the idea of an ‘exploitation’ film, in the sense of a B-film (see Wikipedia’s definition) and it refers to a film that’s made in or about Tasmania. But you’re free to interpret the concept however you like.
- In the case of a team of young filmmakers (ie. under the age of 16), an adult must register on the team’s behalf and indicate in the note field at the bottom of the registration form that this is the case. By doing so the adult indicates responsibility for the well-being of that team in making their film for the Challenge and agrees that Tasploitation Challenge organisers (and partner and association organisations) is in no way liable in the event of accident, injury or work practices that contravene relevant regulations.
- Persons under the age of 18 cannot be admitted to the main awards screening of the Tasploitation Challenge 2016. However, a “young teams only” screening is likely to be available for them to attend, to be advised.
- The registration fee entitles each registered teams to tickets to the awards night on 25 January (up to 5).
Please first pay your registration fee by clicking on the button below and submitting a Paypal payment of $50.00:
THEN complete the registration form:
From now up until 22 January feel free to ask questions and chat with your fellow contestants in the Facebook group. You can also email us with any queries.