Camp Kuleshov, AICP’s annual trailer competition for assistants, has issued its 2019 call for entries. Named for the Russian film theorist Lev Kuleshov, Camp Kuleshov is open to assistants, junior creatives, admin and entry-level employees at AICP member postproduction and production companies as well as freelancer assistants and support staff sponsored by member companies. Students and interns who are sponsored by a member company may also enter Camp K. The competition is also open to assistants and junior-level employees at music companies that are members of the Association of Music Producers (AMP).
Camp Kuleshov features categories for Editing, Graphic Design and Sound Design. Entrants are given a list of films and genres to draw from and are presented with briefs tailored to each discipline. To view the film and genre lists, and for details on how to enter, visit here. Deadline for submitting entries is Labor Day, Monday, September 2, 2019.
For Editorial, entrants must choose a film and re-imagine it, via a 90-second trailer, as something from a different genre or directed by a filmmaker with a distinctive visual or narrative style – i.e. a political thriller is transformed into a comedy. They can also choose more than one film from the source list and, via mashup, create a trailer for a completely new film of a different genre.
The Editorial source films are an eclectic collection, designed to heighten the challenge and expose the assistants to a wide range of films and filmmakers while ensuring there are selections for a variety of tastes. It ranges from the 1933 Marx Brothers romp “Duck Soup” to the 1968 zombie classic “Night of the Living Dead” in the “Directed by George Romero” genre, to the mid-80s gem “Desperately Seeking Susan.”
In the Graphic Design category, entrants are required to create an original opening title sequence for a film that does not have an opening sequence, and that conveys their impression or interpretation of the film. Source films this year range from the 1902 silent groundbreaker “A Trip to the Moon” to Francis Coppola’s iconic “The Godfather” to the Coen Brothers’ “No Country for Old Men.”
In the Sound Design category, the task is to create a new sound design for a 90-second excerpt from one of the source films that changes the film’s context and/or intent and does not mimic the original film. The interpretation of the scene through sound design must be noticeably different from the original and be original in and of itself. Source films include the German-language WWII submarine thriller “Das Boot”; the 1982 film that introduced the Rambo character, “First Blood”; and the Angelina Jolie action film “Salt.”
The Camp Kuleshov committee–comprised of Big Sky editor and owner Chris Franklin, Optimus executive producer Jon Desir, The Colonie editor and partner Brian Sepanik and Big Sky editor Val Lasser–is assembling a list of senior editors, artists and mixers to serve as “Camp K Coaches.” They’ll be available in August to help guide entrants through their creative processes, offering advice and mentoring, but not solutions.
Any questions entrants may have regarding rules, eligibility or anything else can be directed to campk@aicp.com, and a “Camp Counselor” will reply promptly. Assistants are also urged to follow the Camp Kuleshov Facebook page here for more on the competition.
Entries will be grouped together by city. These city-based competitions will fall under the supervision of their respective AICP chapters. Any entries coming from cities that have less than five in total will be folded into the nearest qualifying city to compete.
Camp Kuleshov has also introduced a new pricing structure this year. Single entries are now priced at $65, but discounts are available for companies or individuals submitting three or more entries, in which case the per entry fee drops to $55. For companies or individuals submitting five or more entries, the price per entry is $45.
The 2019 Camp Kuleshov winners will be announced this fall during a week-long series of awards presentations in participating cities. First place winners receive a trophy and move on to “The Lev” competition, which is the grand prize, presented at the AICP Post Awards in May 2020 in New York.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More