MoMo Winner’s Masterclasses for OnePlus + $10k to be Won + Moment’s Festival

Giacomo Mantovani’s short film “Plastic Garbage – Scourge of the Seas” was an Official Selection for the MoMo back in 2016. Giacomo attended the festival with the film’s co-producer Cristina Isoli. Since then, they have both gone on to become ambassadors for OnePlus smartphones – specifically their video shooting capabilities.

Now OnePlus are running a short film competition. The grand prize winner will get $10,000, two OnePlus devices, and a gimbal. Second and third prize winners will receive $4,000 and $2,000 respectively.

But before you start dusting off your short film script you’ve been meaning to shoot, the competition is being run a little differently. And strangely, the competition is already closed – it was only open for 1 week, between the 4th and 11th of March.

The idea was that before you started shooting you had to submit an idea for your short film, explaining why it needed making. “Explain how the story will begin, what will happen in the middle and finally, how it will end.” they suggest. “We will select the top ideas and these finalists will then progress to the next round.” Hm, ok…

How does it work?

Now, it seems the competition is tied in with Giacomo Mantovani’s instructional masterclasses, which will appear on the Oneplus YouTube channel, over the coming weeks.

“Each video will contain a movie-based task for you, our budding filmmakers, to complete. Once submitted we’ll select the top candidates. These candidates will go through to the next round…” OnePlus.

Here’s the introduction.

It seems a shame to me that although the masterclasses are just starting, the competition is already closed to new entries. Still, I’m sure there will be a ton of useful tips from Giacomo to follow.

Moment Invitational

Meanwhile, less giant but no less enthusiastic with their marketing: Moment are also running a competition. Or rather, an Invitational Film Festival.

Moment offer $100K in cash and gear for filmmakers and for the 15 finalists flown to NYC for the premiere. “To enter, pick one of our five categories, then grab a phone and start shooting.” Your film must be shot on a phone and be under three minutes.

Categories are: Narrative, Travel, Experimental, Documentary and How-To.

You have until March 17, 2019 at 11:59pm PST to submit, so time is not on your side, if you have yet to start shooting.

Moment don’t say you have to shoot using their lenses, but I think many filmmakers feel it’s not going to hurt their chances of selection to use one (and make it clear in the film’s submission description).

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