Monochrome Stories
16mm Short Film Competition
Welcome to a brand new short film competition brought to you by On8mil
A 16mm Short Film Competition from On8mil
Monochrome Stories is a short film competition - shot exclusively in black and white on 16mm film. You are invited to create a short film between two to eight minutes in length which can either be a creative narrative or documentary. There are just two provisos; that it tells a story and is shot exclusively on Black & White (monochrome) film (which we’ll provide when you enter the competition).
Your film can be live motion or animated, or somewhere in between. It could be an acted set-piece, set to music, or documentary / reportage. It can incorporate abstract elements to enhance the narrative but cannot be purely abstract (i.e. using exclusively forms, shapes and textures with no attempt to represent an external reality). The final edited piece must be a story, adhering to the following definitions:
Story (noun): a description of events and people that the writer or speaker has invented in order to entertain people
Story (noun): an account of past events or of how something has developed
Your Brief
Stories are everywhere.
Throughout the evolution of motion pictures stories have been the bedrock of what we use film for - be it capturing the lives of workers in the 1900’s, newsreels, huge budget features, low budget Indies or just family life. Film has been instrumental in telling stories and as such comprises one of the most significant records of how we function.
Analogue film tells stories with tremendous emotive power and, paradoxically, the explosion of digital cinema has allowed us to appreciate the power of the analogue film all the more.
Monochrome Stories invites you to tell a short story of your own, in a format directly linked to the very first silver halide records - black and white film. In planning your film we want you to think about the form and tonal qualities that monochrome film will bring and how working with the limitations of monochrome film can generate creative avenues and inspiration that you otherwise would not have considered.
Prizes!
The winner will receive a 35mm print of their short film plus a fully restored Kiev 16U camera with an ultra 16 widened gate, custom body paint and personalised inscribed name plate. You will also receive 200 foot of Black & White 16mm film and £500 worth of processing and 4K scans from On8mil’s new lab. The winning entry will also be shown in at our exclusive Monochrome Stories screening event, place and date to be confirmed.
Second and third place prize winners will each receive 200 foot of Black & White 16mm film with free processing and 4K scans, a 35mm print of their short, plus a showing at our exclusive Monochrome Stories screening event, place and date to be confirmed.
Seven additional runners-up will have their shorts shown at our our Monochrome Stories screening event, place and date to be confirmed.
How to Enter
The entry pack is available here. For £89 (excl VAT) + postage, you will receive 100ft of ORWO black and white film which includes processing and a 2.6K HD scan. You can choose whether you want 100 ASA (UN 54) film of 400 ASA (N 74 film). You can also add on additional reels when you purchase the entry pack. If you’re not sure how many films you’ll need - don’t worry you can always purchase more films from our specially discounted competition add-on as seen here.
Each can of film you purchase for your entry will have a unique Monochrome Stories sticker. It is important, if you require more film for your short, that you purchase it via the competition section from our online shop and not from the 16mm film section of the shop.
Please ensure when you send your films back for process and scanning, that they are in their original cans with the unique sticker stuck-on. We’ll need to see this in order to match the reel(s) to your competition entry.
OK - ready...?
A few things to consider before planning your film
Your entry fee includes your first 16mm film (100 foot on a daylight spool), processing and 2.6K scanning by On8mil. You can also add additional films to your competition entry by adding more films to the order when you purchase the entry pack or by purchasing additional films at a later date.
Additional reels will be made available at a discounted fee to competition entrants only through the our online shop. This is a password protected product - your password will be provided to you when your first enter the competition. We politely ask you to please not share this password with anyone not involved with your competition entry.
Submission of your films for processing and scanning will not be considered your final competition submission. We will transfer the digital HD scans to you from your reels, which you will then assemble into your final edit.
Once you’re happy your final edit, you can submit your final entry for judging. Your edit must be between two to eight minutes long. You can enter as many times as you like, but you are limited to just one final edit per entry.
Modern 16mm films have no sound stripe (in fact no modern 16mm stocks have sound). So unless you have a very rare 16mm camera that can print optical sound whilst filming, you’ll need to consider how you will record location dialogue and environmental sounds on an external device, if you wish for your film to have sound. Many smaller 16mm cameras such as the Bolex H16 or the Krasnogorsk 3 are pretty noisy - so consider dubbing dialogue in post. Perhaps even invest in a clapper board to synch your sound to visuals.
We’re looking for quality, not quantity. We’ll not be favouring longer (or shorter) films and we encourage you to really think about what you want achieve and plan your shoot as best you can. Consider your shooting ratio, film speeds, locations and how to get the best possible results without spending a fortune on film.
Please either submit your final edit at 4:3 ratio 2K resolution (2048 x 1536 px) or 2K 16:9 ratio (2048 x 1152 px). Please encode the final edit as an Apple Pro Res Proxy .mov or high bit rate MP4. Please ensure the file is no bigger than 10GB. Should your entry be on our shortlist we may ask for a higher quality final edit.
For a full breakdown of the competition rules, please see the following link.
