Brass Bell Blast

Monday 12 December 2011

About 180 people packed the Brass Bell last night to check out the winners of the GoPro Short Film Contest, and The Africa Project. Pull into the Bell until Tuesday night. Tickets R30 at the door.

The atmosphere was charged with energy as the first night at the Brass Bell opened with four short films in the contest, while stars of the Africa Project Roydon Bryson and Roosta Lange enjoyed their work, along with the director Jason Hearn, who took three years to finally see his film in its glory. Also hanging with the crew was Kai Linder, Kaptein Kai to the blogosphere, nursing a lame leg after a Llandudno wipe earlier in the day.

People thronged into the Bikini Bar from around 6pm, and after some giveaways, the evening kicked off with the Go Pro winners, including a special screening and mention of Freestyle Barefooting, which features Andre de Villiers doing incredible barefoot stunts. The video was really well but fell short in the Facebook Likes component of the judging.

Third was FMX X Fighters by Shawn van Zyl, while second was Extreme Time Warp by Chris Rogers. The winner was No Better Place by Simon Hitchcock. The three winners win GoPro cameras, Empire Cafe vouchers, Fox hampers and VIP passes to surf films at the Wavescape Film Festival.

great shot selection and clever slo mo techniques really showcase the capabilities of the GoPro

No Better Place was a great little film showcasing surfing breaks around CT. Has the angles, the extreme footage, some humour, and well edited. In Extreme Time Warp, by Chris Rogers, great shot selection and clever slo mo techniques really showcase the capabilities of the GoPro, while FMX X-Fighters Jam Durban is a slick alternating POV of on the bike during the trick, then from the ground to see what the trick looked like. A number of cameras were placed around the jumps. Slick work by Shawn van Zyl.

For the Freestyle barefoot it was "very slick and polished media with good use of the camera. It is very professional but lacked the raw edge of some of the other entries, and didn't manage many Facebook Likes."

Some individual shots were very special but were not enough to complete the videos. Special mention must be for the crazy BASE jump, the under the boom shot by the mullet downhillers, the insane single shot of the guy getting thrown off the bull during a rodeo, some great shots by the parachuting BASE jumpers at the bottom of Bloukrans, and also of the very cool soulful film Sarah in Madagasca, which was "nicely put together and good use of the camera. It lacks a bit of an extreme edge but is polished and charming".

See you at the movies.

FIRST: No Better Place Dim lights