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Behind the scenes at the first ever International Mountainboard For those of you who couldn't attend the Film Festival, you missed something very special... Here, Mark ATB Junkie brings us the lodown on what went down! For the first time, the mountainboard scene got it's own film festival, with 'The ATBJunkies International Mountainboard Film Festival', sponsored by Quick Energy Drinks, Dirtstar Army and the ATBA-UK, with the equipment and big screen being supplied by Visual Pixels. For years the snow and skate boarding scene have had film festivals and we thought it was time to give our film makers the opportunity to produce their best films and come together and see the final results on the big silver screen. Bugs Boarding in Maisemore, Gloucester played host to the "End of Season Event & ATBA-UK AGM" and this year was to see the inclusion of the film festival. With a combination of laid back competitions during the day and films in the evening this year was going to be something special, but it didn't stop there, Momma Frost provided free hotdogs, popcorn and curry & rice during the films and porridge on Sunday morning to get you get really warm for the prize giving and the AGM. The ATBJunkies crew arrived Thursday, well in advance to set-up. The bottom of the hill at Bugs was cordoned of to create an arena for everyone and Friday was the perfect day - a lukewarm sun and clear skies all day, which allowed the setting up of the screen. As it went up, we all stood back and thought "it‟s big"! AJ & Bugs crafted some seating out of logs for everyone to sit on and provided half size oil barrels for fires at night to keep everyone warm. As the sun dropped to a warm glow in the afternoon, flags and banners popped up and the cables for the equipment were laid out and fed back to the ATBJunkies tent which was going to be the nerve centre for the night. As dusk came, Momma Frost turned up in her new VW wagon with a stash of hotdogs and curry. The final marquee went up just in time to see the perfect sunset. At that point we fired up the projector and with a quick adjustment to the focus, everyone stood there in total awe of the screen size and picture quality - it was perfect. Maybe too perfect as people couldn't take their eyes off the screen and we know a few, including me, were trying to find faults with the image quality - we failed! For those that turned up early they were treated to a night of films as we continued to run tests, making sure everything would go smoothly. That night we slept with big smiles on our faces.
Saturday morning and we were up at the crack of dawn to run a few errands, pick up supplies and some coal for the fire bins. During Saturday a steady stream of people arrived and stopped their car's at the screen, amazed by its size, and then continued into the campsite. The night before AJ confessed to almost crashing his car twice on the way down the hill whilst watching the screen. It was at this point I began to notice that people were taking photos of the screen during the day not just the odd photo, but they had became trigger happy, snapping every angle possible, as if some celebrity had just arrive on site – Odd, that's all I can say.
By late afternoon the nerves were creeping in. As dusk fell people began to gather round the screen and take their seats. So our little car, now fitted with 200watt power inverter, was fired up and all the equipment lit up like a Christmas tree, everything was working fine, I flicked the switch and project came on. At that point everyone turned their head and then silence – which must be first for mountainboarders! With the image focused, it was a quick dash behind the screen to start the generator for the speakers. As the film fest was scheduled for seven, we played a few ATBJunkies videos from previous years, which had eyes balls glued to the screen...Momma Frost and Gill were serving food to the starving crowd and Carolan was dishing out the Quick Energy drinks and stickers from Dirtstar Army, who were our sponsors. It was time to get the show on the road and as with most mountainboard events Steve Birkbeck took to the mic to introduce the 1st International Mountainboard Film Festival. Steve got a few words out and then all went quiet, the mic had stopped working, no – the mixing desk was dead, no lights on, no power. Grabbing the lantern it was a quick jog over to the generator- it had stopped. Thinking it had run out of fuel we topped it up and pulled the cord and it burst into life, we got 10 paces away from it and it died again. We pulled the cord, again and again. It just wouldn't start. Steve gave it a quick inspection with fag in hand (not recommended) and found the fuel line had broken leaking the contents of the fuel tank all over the engine and grass! Luckily Bugs had a spare and it wasn't long before Steve was back behind the mic entertaining the crowd.
The brief for the film festival was simple make a 3 – 5 minutes film, based on the sport of mountainboarding with the theme of "The Ride‟. All the films entered met the criteria and we had a couple of under 16's who handed in films all fully-designed and packaged in DVD cases, putting some of our pro film makers to shame, which proved to be a great example of how anyone could make a film, regardless of age or technical knowledge of film making.The film festival was underway, with people enjoying the food, films and free samples of Quick Energy, but for most people it was time to sit back and enjoy four and a half hours of mountainboard footage. We had films from Jack Johnson, Theo Acworth, Peter Hill, Niki Forcast, Tom Kirkman, Ben Searle, Emlyn & Freddie from the UK, Daria Sherlaimova from Russia, Dirtstar Army and One Five media from the USA. Big thanks go to Dirtstar Army & One Five Media who both allowed us to show their latest flicks from across the waters. Plus all the others who handed me discs to play on the night. With the main film competition underway, the Judges had their work cut out; it was clear from the start the standard was high and everyone had a competitive spirit. With the short films coming thick and fast, the crowd were cheering, with a few whooos and Arhhhs with some of the bails. Niki forcast was a late entry, so late Steve Tweedie had to hand it to me on a memory stick as it was downloaded from our webserver just hours before. With fingers crossed it played perfectly from the memory stick. We had a 10min break to collect the judge's scores. Carolan quickly crunched the numbers to get the final result and it was close, so close we had to double check the results. We had the results and a winner. Only 1 point separated the top three places, anyone could have won it... The RESULTS! The films were all great for different reasons and we'll let you decide which was your favourite from the Top 3.. Check out the links to view! 1st Place went to Jack Johnson's film "Style". (Collected by Rhys of the BFC) 2nd Place went to Theo Acworth's film "I am not a Duck" (Collected by Theo himself) 3rd Place went to Peter Hill's film "This is it" (Collected by Dave Of the BFC) Sadly, one film didn‟t make it in time due to a technical problem with uploading the film to our server. Tom Sharp had decided to enter one week before the film festival and was determined to get his film to us and was working hard editing his masterpiece all week, which was to feature the final round of the ATBA series at Haredown. I think Tom's film may have been in with a chance of knocking Peter Hills from 3rd spot, I‟ll let you decide: Here's Tom Sharp's film. With the competition part of the night over and with a large screen up and running, I had decided to do something different, something to get peoples attention, so I played a CGI animated cartoon, which was in the same style as a Pixar film. It was a gamble, people may have hated it, but no - it was a big hit. In fact some people wanted more cartoons! (Maybe next time). The animation was called Big Buck Bunny, an Open Project produced by 3D artists from around the world all working together. The film was released under the creative commons licence, which means providing I played all the credits from start to finish we could show it, and we did. Then it was straight back to mountainboard films for the rest of the night. Thoughout the night everyone was saying how fantastic the screen looked and some wished they had submitted films.. It is at this point we have to thank our sponsor Quick Energy and Dirtstar Army for donating samples, t-shirts, stickers. Momma Frost and Gill who kept everyone's bellies full with free hotdogs, popcorn, curry, rice and porridge during the event. AJ & Bugs did a cracking good job of preparing the site and creating seating, Martin from the So Soild crew supplied the speakers that sounded great, and a special thanks to the ATBA-UK (All Terrain Boarding Association) for all their support this year. So, what's next, well the next International Mountainboard Film Festival is now being scheduled for the end of September 2010 and we're going to make it bigger and better and more competitive. There is also going to be a film festival at the beginning of next season, so you all need to get filming over the winter season! keep an eye on the ATBJunkies website for more details. Thanks again to everyone who contributed and came along! And that's a wrap... If you would like to use the ATBJunkies big screen at your next event, then contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Words by Mark from ATBjunkies All Photos copyright Paul Crilley / Crillpix 2009 |
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