Update, March 2011: As we all know, this has been a wholly unexpected winter, not just for us in Minnesota, but for everyone around the country. With temperatures well above average and nary a school cancellation in sight, we clearly picked a most atypical winter to gather footage. While the submissions we received were lovely, we’d love to gather even more footage, covering a wider variety of subjects and locations than were possible this year. The small number of truly wintry days prevented many interested folks from shooting. Given this, we decided that we will press “pause” on the piece for now…and hit “go” again in November 2012 (or whenever the first snow flies). It’s still in our sights to produce a tasty little piece, but it will have to wait patiently through this unusually warm spring, and then summer and fall before we pick up our cameras again…and hope you will too. Please contact us if you have any questions. Thanks!
Project: A cinematic love poem about winter in Minnesota
Run time of final piece: 3-4 minutes
Description: We are producing a short film about Winter. Our intent is to create a beautifully filmed and edited piece, featuring stunning visuals and a lush soundtrack by a local artist that gets to the heart of the matter. Winters here are long and tough. We feel somewhat defensive about them. We are the butt of national late night jokes because of them, and yet...we are undeniably proud of them, and of ourselves for living vibrantly and creatively through them. Winters in MN are beautiful - simultaneously stark and colorful, sun-dazzled and dark, solo affairs and community spectacles. People who don't live here don't know. We'd like to show them, and to remind ourselves, that this season is something helps make us who we are. The film will be a curated compilation of the best, most evocative work submitted from around the state. With local filmmakers contributing footage on a large range of subjects, we aim to capture what is truly unique about winter in Minnesota.
Why crowdsourcing? We are crowdsourcing footage for two reasons: we want to create a portrait of winter as experienced by a number of different people, in a number of different neighborhoods, by people of different ages and backgrounds, from around the state; and we think the collective result will be more beautiful and surprising than anything we could have set out to film ourselves.
Production Team: The directors and producers of the film are Susan Bernstein and Mary McGreevy of Seven and Sixty Productions (www.sevenandsixty.com). Seven and Sixty produced and directed "Why We're Here," a short film exploring what unites people together in the Twin Cities. Initially released in January 2011 to a short list of family and friends, the film went viral, was picked up by traditional media and has been viewed, to date, by over 100,000 people around the world. The Director of Photography is Adam Olson, Cinema Faculty at Minneapolis Community and Technical College.
Media Sponsor: Metro Magazine will be our media sponsor for the project. (http://metromag.com/)
Compensation: Alas, this project is not for financial compensation, but our goal is to make a beautiful and moving piece of such high-quality/production value that it is seen throughout the region, the US, and beyond. Everyone whose work is included in the finished piece will be named in the end credits.
Submission Guidelines: Your work will have a much greater chance of selection for the project if the following guidelines are kept in mind.
Filmmakers: All footage must be shot in Minnesota.
Technical specifications:
"Feel" of the Piece: We're looking for work that captures the emotion and beauty of people, nature, and our surroundings in the context of winter. Successful submissions will be gorgeously shot, graceful, lyrical, reflective, emotional and energetic. High priority will be given to work that comes from an unusual point of view, both technically and stylistically. We are inspired by Andrew Clancy's "A Year in NY." http://vimeo.com/31159101
Partial Shot List: This list is only a suggestion of things we think would lend themselves well to this piece. We are interested in seeing these shots - the obvious crowd pleasers and winter events - but we're also interested in more subtle choices and observations. We encourage full use of your artistic sensibilities and vision. The assignment - "Winter in Minnesota" - is open to your interpretation.