7 Question Interview with Jeremy Boxer, Director of the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards
Dec. 13, 2011 — Vimeo, the amiable filmmaker and artist friendly video-hosting service, opened submissions today for the second Vimeo Festival + Awards, “which celebrates the most creative and original videos online and the individuals that make them.”
Beginning today through February 20, 2012, filmmakers can submit their works for consideration in one of 13 different judged categories.
Last year, the judge panel was impressive — David Lynch judged the “experimental” category — and this year the judges will be equally impressive; however, the judges are to be announced sometime in early January.
Submit your work to the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards ———> click here. Vimeo will award Grants of $5,000 to all of the 13 category winners, as well as awarding a Grant of $25,000 for the Grand Prize winner.
Jeremy Boxer, the Director of the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards, spoke with us yesterday. Mr. Boxer explains now, more than ever, is a propitious time to be an artist producing work that’s disseminated on the internet.
(1) Why should a filmmaker submit to the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards?
The main difference from traditional film festivals is we only accept work that has premiered online — anywhere — not just Vimeo. The majority of film festivals do not accept work that has premiered online. Our hope is that in the future every festival will accept work that has premiered online.
(2) What categories/genres are in competition in the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards?
There are 13 categories. Experimental, which is of course of interest to your readers. Lyrical is a new category this year. The Lyrical category encompasses poetic videos based on a personal world-view. These are personal representations of the way the creator looks at the world. For example, travelogues or time-lapses of a local neighborhood. Captured is a category not based on filmmaking technique but more on what is being captured by the video, for example, a performance based work or projection art.
The other new categories include Advertising, Action Sports, and Fashion and returning categories from our inaugural Vimeo Festival + Awards are: Narrative, Animation, Original Series, Motion Graphics, Music Video, Documentary, and Remix.
(3) Will David Lynch return to judge the experimental category?
We are announcing a few of the judges now. The remainder of the judges will be announced January. The judges will be equally as impressive as in 2010.
(4) Filmmakers can submit their work using Vimeo via the Internet; are there post-internet distribution/exhibition opportunities in place for the winners? Will there be a time to P-A-R-T-Y?
We will have an Awards ceremony, talks, workshops and a bunch of screenings as part of the festival. As we are 6 months out, we’re currently in the planning process and are open to ideas. As we get closer to making that announcement, we’ll reach out to you with all of those specifics.
(5) Last year, Chris Beckman won the Experimental category award for his film OOPS.
Shortly thereafter, Beckman’s film was named an official selection of the corporate-industry-driven 2011 Sundance Film Festival and Beckman directed a commercial for Motorola, for whom he made a branded short film directly inspired by OOPS.
What potential professional opportunities are available to a filmmaker submitting to the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards?
Our intention is to provide filmmakers with opportunities they would never have had before. We want to provide the gold standard for what you can find online and in so doing provide filmmakers the potential to be seen by a much wider audience which could lead to their big break. Because of Vimeo’s reach, we can put a filmmaker’s work in front of an audience of hundreds of thousands.
After its discovery at the Vimeo Festival + Awards, Chris Beckman’s Oops was chosen as an Official Selection at Sundance Film Festival 2011. Chris then went on to direct for such brands as Motorola. Sundance reached out to me directly to ask for Chris Beckman’s information for him to be entered into the festival. This was great, as it was the first time I heard Sundance was accepting films that had premiered online.
Another inaugural award winner was Onur Senturk, he had just graduated university when he entered the Vimeo Festival + Awards. After winning for his film Triangle, due to the Festival’s exposure, Paramount asked him to create the motion design title sequence for Transformers: The Dark Side of the Moon.
The Overall + Documentary winner, Eliot Rausch, has been showered with media attention that landed him a spot on the Carson Daily Show and more commercial work than he ever expected to see in his lifetime. He’s in post- production on his latest documentary — a film he was able to produce with the grant money he received from winning the 2010 Vimeo Festival + Awards. He has gone on to be offered more work than he knows what to do with.
To give you a sense of what Vimeo can do for filmmakers, here is another very recent example. A few weeks ago, James Curran, a 28 year old from UK, put up his own homage credit sequence for “Tin Tin.” The beautiful animated piece came to the attention of Steven Spielberg who hired him for his next film.
You never know who might be watching.
(6) If you could send a submitting filmmaker one special message, what would it be?
The goal of Vimeo Festival + Awards is to expose your film to a much wider audience. We welcome you to submit and we wish you all good luck!
(7) Anything else you want to add?
We’re just hoping that more filmmakers will submit so that more of them have a chance at all of these incredible opportunities in existing and new categories added for 2012.
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