Last year, we partnered with the Dallas Video Festival to launch the project Texture of Dallas, in which we tasked Dallas residents with taking the camera already in their pockets — from cellphones to flip cams — and pointing it at something that reflects how they see and understand our city.
This year, we’re doing something similar. We want you to take your cameras — any camera — and tell us your stories. It could be your story, it could be a friend’s story. This is from the Video Festival:
Francis Ford Coppola said 20 years ago, “one day some little fat girl in Ohio is gonna be the new Mozart and make a beautiful film with her father’s camera, and for once the so-called professionalism about movies will be destroyed forever and will become an art form.” Coppola must be some kind of prophet, because Filmmaking today is already dynamically different than it was in the 90’s, and leading the way is the use of digital handheld devices and sites like YouTube and Vimeo.
VideoFest not only champions the idea of filmmaking as a unique form of art, but we also embrace the idea of utilizing cutting edge technology to tell stories that are personal and moving, which is why we have teamed up with D Magazine to bring you Stories of Dallas, a competition where we ask anyone with any kind of device that records video to go out and share with us your Dallas Story. We also want to encourage anyone interested in animation to participate, either with their own animations or with movie-making animation sites like XtraNormal. The best submissions will be shown at this year’s VideoFest, which is from September 22nd through the 25th.
The deadline is September 15, so there’s not a lot of time. All submissions must be sent toFestival Coordinator John Post at [email protected]. We’ll preview some of the entries online before the festival. For now, here are a few early submissions to get you going. Roll!
“My First Car Accident”
My First Car Accident from Christian Vasquez on Vimeo.
“Snakebite”
Manuel Lopez III in Azle Texas tells the story of how a snakebite cured a tumor
