14th Korean UCC International Film Festival

It's no secret that I have been residing in Seoul for almost six months now and until recently I have done no filmmaking. I've seen plenty of films, been to heaps of festivals and met many filmmakers (directors, programmers, festival organisers etc).
Well the month of October saw me change gear in this area completely. For the future I visited the east Coast town of Gisamun Beach and interviewed some locals for a documentary idea. It was a whirl wind visit for a weekend but I had been there the previous month for a recce.
Very successful and hopefully more of that later.

I also started work on two videos to submit to the 14th Korean UCC International Film Festival.
Being held at my local campus of Korea University and having some pretty good prize money on offer was all the motivation I needed.

The first film and the easiest was a reboot of Next Stop Seoulywood. All ready existing I just had to subtitle it into the Korean language. Enlisting the help of my weekend Korean tutor 원석 (Brian), who also happens to be a qualified translator, we were able to knock it off in one night. The film's only 4min or so but it is pretty dialogue heavy. Putting the actual translations into subtitles took another solid night's work and it was done.

The second film had more difficult logistics as it was made from scratch. 여기가 어디예요? (Where are we now?) was a traveling film that contained my reflections on my life in Seoul. I already had some clips that I had shot over the months that I thought would be suitable but I needed to stitch these together with some moving shots and also shoot some 'narrative backbone ' so to speak. The movement shots came from my GoPro strapped to the bike whilst I rode around the neighbourhood. My trusty partner 설화 (Seol Hwa) also shot some footage of me riding plus coached me in the narration (it was all in Korean). The last piece was to shoot some footage in my class and of one of my teachers. This was done very quickly and simply one half hour after class.
Then of course came the editing, never a quick process but very enjoyable none the less.
The result was a little bit rough, slightly esoteric, mildly kooky and with a touch of philosophy. I was happy with it and then both films were submitted.

여기가 어디예요? - where are we now?

This was the one that was selected as a finalist, I thought Next Stop Seoulywood would have been picked but just goes to show you that you can never predict when it comes to Film Festivals.

Next Stop Seoulywood - Korean reboot

Happy to say that I picked up 'Best Director' award on the day for 여기가 어디예요?. Very honoured as the jury consisted of  same talented TV drama people, advertising execs, a comedian and a rep from the Uni.

All in all a very worthwhile venture and an honour to be recognised but most of all good to be back on the horse again and looking forward to making/creating more.

on stage post awards with the Jury and fellow filmmakers and cast members