straight 8

+ 1. straight 8 2021 - news about cannes, our premieres this year and our sunniest deadlines ever….

we usually premiere the best 8 straight 8’s of the year at cannes film festival. 2020 would have been our 15th time but as we all know cannes didn’t happen. so we worked up a new way to make our 2020 cannes and london premieres as exciting as possible and the result was that they were more globally accessible, and received way more views.

cannes just recently announced plans to go ahead, later than normal, in july, this year.

this got us scratching our heads, again. we plan to keep up our relationship with cannes, holding our premieres live at the most famous global film festival, but on balance we think waiting one more year will be better …

the trouble is that, without being pessimistic (not our preferred style), no-one knows if cannes will really definitely actually happen and, if it does, how well attended it will be. plus, how many of our 8 selected filmmaking teams will be able to travel from their countries to join us, as they normally do.

also cannes usually being in may, has always dictated that our final deadlines are in march which means that loads of straight8ers in europe and north america are always forced to shoot in winter only. brrrr

so… we’ve decided to do the same again this year - presenting exciting global live streaming events for our premieres and doing so later in the year.

on feb 8th we will release our latest ever deadline places of may 8th - there will be 50 of them at £160 each (inc vat). for many of our entrants the days will be that bit longer and warmer and super 8 loves sun. also we hope the world will continue to be in a better place. we all need to stay creative, and keep each other safe too!

we also have a few spots left with an april 8th deadline at £130 - see flash sale below if you want to try to grab one

as we always say: if you have a straight 8 we want to see it.

literally everyone is welcome with straight 8.

all details are at straight8.net/2021

+ 2. feeling friday insta live goof offs + spotify playlist

most fridays, at 4:30pm london time, ed of straight 8 has been doing a ‘feeling friday’ instagram live goof off on instagram.com/straight_8_. inviting people to chat one to one or just listen in. it’s very chilled and the conversations veer around wildly. it’s a bit of armchair travel and a chance to connect with creative types all over from oklahoma to belfast to adelaide to hawaii.

and lately we’ve had guests like jury member mark jenkin - bafta winning writer director of BAIT. and katie from festival formula sharing wisdom about how to navigate the short film festival scene. we’ve had casey hennessy, a past straight8er, guest host and we don’t know where we’re going with it all but it’s fun so we’re going with it and you can come along too.

oh, and good tunes get played and suggested by guests so now we have an ever growing: feeling friday playlist

+ 3. shootout nature edition - open now and welcoming new partner Warner Chappell Production Music

WCPM join our longstanding partners Cinelab London, the apa, no8 london, panavision and machine shop - supporting our raw filmmaking competition for companies that usually polish everything up. our next straight 8 shootout ‘the nature edition’ is now open to brave companies anywhere in the world.

shootout is the chance for companies to compete at straight 8 rules, shooting on one roll of film with no post-production. but, in shootout every film gets screened no matter how (or whether) they come out.

get your company involved asap if you work at one! only 10 places remain.

warner chappell production music, the global music publishing company of warner music group, is home to a wide array of composers and a rich expanding catalogue of 250,000+ library tracks. WCPM has over 35 years of experience, working across all media industries. with our global offices, WCPM offers creative music services including personalised music consulting and bespoke composition to help you find and create the perfect narrative for your project

+ 4. mark jenkin

as you may have seen - we’re really pleased to add BAFTA winning director mark jenkin (‘bait’) to our straight 8 jury of 2021.

as well as being a brilliant director, mark really knows film: he shot bait on a hand-cranked bolex 16mm camera and hand-developed every roll in the film at his home in cornwall.

he’s joining asif kapadia (director: diego maradona, amy, senna), robbie ryan (director of photography: the favourite, marriage story, american honey), justine wright (editor: yardie, locke, last king of scotland), jo duncombe (british council film) and katie metcalfe (shorts commissioner & programmer: nowness, sundance film festival) who are all back again to select the best films of straight 8 2021.

we had a great chat with mark on our insta live last month - watch that here

+ 5. flash sale!!!

can you commit to making a straight 8 film by april 8th. leap before you look. commit now worry later.

at the time of writing we have just a few places left for our april 8th deadline. and they’re on sale NOW… quick.

we've reduced the price of these places to £130

they will disappear when they're all taken or on the evening of feb 7th, whichever comes first...

then, on feb 8th we will release our latest ever deadline places of may 8th - there will be 50 of them at £160 each (inc vat).

click here to get yours

+ 6. read: super 8: an illustrated history

not many people know more about super 8 than professor danny plotnick from west coast usa.

check out his beautiful encyclopedic book and order a copy from amazon or wherever fine books are sold.

for a more detailed list of sellers, check out: https://www.dannyplotnick.com/super8-illustrated-history

+ 7. techy tuesday..?

we’ve been doing ‘feeling friday’, is there any appetite for techy tuesday?

we always say that the vital aspect of any straight 8 is the idea. but - the technical side is important too and we know a lot of people have questions.

so please let us know if you have any appetite for a camera, film (and anything else technical) chat for an hour or so on one evening (uk time) on the week of feb 15th.

if enough people are keen then we may rope in a couple of more knowledgeable people than us to help plug the holes in our technical knowledge.

+ 8. we're watching....

succession - remember what breaking bad did for netflix? this feels the same. as UK types it’s great that there are lots of brits behind and in front of camera with for this lavish, deliciously international. don’t take our word for it - it won pretty much half the emmys

schitt’s creek - it pretty much won the other half the emmys. everyone says you HAVE to get thru the first couple of episodes. and we thought WHY??!! then heard you have to watch 5 or 6 !! WTF?! but finally having done that (only 20mins each), it’s brilliant! so if you tried the first couple episodes and it wasn’t for you..? or the first 3 or 4, keep going! it’s worth it.

call my agent - we said we love this before and now season 4 is out and it’s as good as ever.

my octopus teacher - an incredibly human octopussy documentary...

lupin - we’ve heard some people get shown the english dub automatically. change it to the french and watch with subtitles. don’t worry, it’s still not a high-brow arthouse series..!

small axe - from british artist and filmmaker steve mcqueen come these 5 feature-length portraits of life as a british west indian immigrant in the 60s to the 80s. each beautiful in their own way and worth tracking down