The Shoot Out 24 Hour Filmmaking Festival

BOULDER, CO — The 24-hour filmmaking competition known as The Shoot Out™ Boulder, has announced a call for team entries. The Shoot Out Boulder, which takes place Oct. 10-12, is the only annual competition of its kind in the United States. The Shoot Out Boulder challenges filmmakers of all experience levels to trust their courage, imagination and determination to make a seven-minute-long film in just 24 hours.

Filmmakers, musicians and actors of all ages are invited to take part in The Shoot Out Boulder. Interested teams should visit http://www.theshootoutboulder.com/. Information and entry forms can be downloaded from the site. Entry forms must be received by 6 PM October 10 with an entry fee of $105 per team, $25 per each additional team member.

“The Shoot Out Boulder makes it possible for amateurs and professionals to achieve their goals and experience a level of success quickly. It also creates a unique setting for the community to see the filmmakers’ work and to share in the excitement of filmmaking first hand, said executive director, Michael Conti.

Conti expects “The Shoot Out Boulder to draw more teens this year as this is the catagory in which we have seen the most growth over the last four years.  We have been actively promoting the event into schools through a series of free filmmaking workshops that are offered prior to the event.”

On Sunday, Oct. 12th, the top 10 films will be officially unveiled and premiered at the Boulder Theater. At the end of the evening, category prizes will be awarded to each winning team. Prizes vary, but the winning team will be awarded $1,000 towards their next filmmaking adventure. In a separate category, actors will be competing for “The Shooting Star” award, which entails starring in as many short films as they can in 24 hours.

In its 5th year now, teams have been made up of students, families and professionals. And last year, an incredible 30 teams turned in their videotapes by the deadline on Saturday night. Thirty volunteer judges watched the films to narrow the field to the top ten by Sunday afternoon with a gala screening event exhibited the top ten films (plus the best “under-18” category film) to a packed house at the historic Boulder Theater. Three entertainment industry professionals from Colorado watched the top ten films with the enthusiastic audience, and picked the top artists in their categories, including acting, writing, music and direction, and, of course, the best overall film.

The top films from previous years were shown at Boulder Adventure Film Festival, Toofy Film Festival, Boulder International Film Festival [BIFF], Moondance Film Festival, ManiaTV’s Too Short for Hollywood, CATV 55 Boulder, International Film Series at CU-Boulder, the Starz Film Center in Denver, Colorado College Film Union and at The Colorado Music Festival.

The Shoot Out – the first ever ’24 Hour’ filmmaking festival – was held in Newcastle, Australia in 1999. By luring filmmakers to Newcastle with a cash prize of $2000 for the best film, The Shoot Out kicked off with 105 entries in its first year. This was an extraordinary result for a totally original and untried event. Since then, The Shoot Out has continued to grow exponentially.

The Shoot Out now takes place in five cities: Newcastle, Geelong, Toowoomba (Australia), Hamilton (New Zealand) and Boulder (Colorado, USA).

The Shoot Out Boulder’s mission is to break through artistic inertia and audience indifference by providing an exceptional creative venue for artistic expression through film.