Rajneel Singh has been working nights for the last few months, so it wasn’t until he got up and had his afternoon coffee that he checked his email to find a message from Your Big Break.
“I was still half asleep, and had to re-read the email carefully, in case it was a rejection letter,” he [...]
Our five Your Big Break finalists are going to face many challenges when they touch down in New Zealand. This could well be their first experience at the helm of a film with a full crew; they’ll have logistical decisions to ponder, major creative calls to make and deadlines to meet.
But there’s one thing I [...]
Put down your pens. Close those laptops. Take off your thinking caps. Put your feet up and breathe a long sigh of relief.
Because you deserve it, each and every one of you. You’ve done yourselves – and Your Big Break – proud.
Submissions have closed, and voting for the Viewers’ Choice has ended. If your entry [...]
The five finalists have just been announced on the website …
… and you’re one of them.
Your phone’s ringing, but you can’t find it. You scramble through your stuff, searching … patting your pockets, frantic now … you answer just in time. Your hunch was right: the call is long-distance, from New Zealand. There isn’t much [...]
In the last Kiwi Classic entry, I checked out Jason Stutter’s overlooked classic, Tongan Ninja – made for a song but big on laughs and insane martial arts action, Pasifika-style.
Wellington-based Stutter got his break making a series of short films, all showcasing his unique sense of humour and flair for visual comedy and culminating in [...]
Last week I checked out a few notable entries from the United States. This week I’m looking to the United Kingdom. Could we eventually see a UK entry among the five finalists? In order to get through, these entrants will not only need to answer the brief, and entertain – they’ll need to be able [...]
Jonathan King’s Shorts
Jonathan King is the New Zealand director of the horror-comedy Black Sheep and the teen sci-fi adventure Under the Mountain. But before he moved into features, he directed over 100 music videos, often shooting and editing them single-handedly. He then made two short films, Still and Chogar. The first is a supernatural chiller [...]
CAN YOU DO IT IN TWO DAYS?
You guys are going great! The entries are flooding in and it’s only going to get crazier the closer we get to the January 15th deadline.
Last week I talked about the idea of three minutes, and the challenge of telling a story within this constraint. Many of you are [...]
One of the great drawcards of Queenstown as a shooting location is the unparalleled variety of scenery it offers, all within easy reach – staggering vistas that filmmakers have used to their advantage in many high-profile productions.
Queenstown is not only an adventure tourism capital and a spectacular tourist destination – it’s also a cinematic chameleon. [...]
