The One Shot Film Festival/Unicorn Awards

"Times are tough, or so we’re constantly told. Marketing and Media budgets have dwindled. Big budget ads are a thing of the past – but that doesn’t mean film advertising is dead."

In other words it is time that alternative and cleaver ways to make commercials are discovered and pursued. Enter The One Shot Film Festival which aims to celebrate one of the ingenious solutions to this problem - single take commercials.

In keeping with the theme of recession beating creativity, the festival is taking place online - no expensive airfares, hotels and parties - and entries are free. The basic idea is that all submissions are commercials (real or speculative) with no edits in them (except a ‘cut to packshot’ if needed) There have been 37 entries so far - you can check them all out on the festivals Vimeo Group.

The prizes are know as Unicorns - and the judges - some of the world most creative brains, including Alister King from King James, Grant Parker from DDB London, Farrokh Madon from McCann Erickson and Nuno Jeronimo from Ativism Portugal. We managed to catch up with the festivals founders to find out a bit more about the festival and what they are aiming to achieve. Read on to see what the had to say and see a few of the submissions so far.

Clive Pickering (CP) - Creative Group Head at Albion London, formerly Head of Copy at TBWA London and Creative Director at BBH London

André Moreira (AM) - Creative Group Head at Albion London, and formerly Head of Art at BBDO in Lisbon.

Júlio Alves (JA) - Director at Arena Shots in Madrid and Barcelona, and formerly director at Tangerina Azul and Shots in Lisbon.

You state that  ‘there is no better time than now to launch a new advertising festival that celebrates simple, creative film solutions’ can you elaborate on this and explain a bit more about what the One Shot Film Festival is all about?

CP: We wanted to show that, by using creativity, you could get a strong message across in a TV or internet ad without spending huge amounts on production or post-production.

AM: Yeah, One-Shot is just a simple way, albeit a slightly arbitrary one, of restricting our entry to commercials that are really clever with their creativity. Of course, One Shot films can still be high budget on occasions, Honda ‘Cog’ for example [if that actually was a One Shot film]. But, on the whole, something shot in this simple format will be quick and easy to shoot, and so inexpensive.

The idea behind the festival is  that budgets are diminishing, markets are crashing, So you want to award those innovators who refuse to let the industry die. Do you think that tighter budgets are the only threat to film advertising?

JA: The point is that, in many ways, this should be a boom time for film advertising. Perhaps not for the big-budget stuff exposed on big broadcast channels – it remains to be seen whether the way the media are now being used reduces the effectiveness of this way of reaching people – but certainly for the internet, where there is more and more need for quick and effective little films.

AM: like One-Shot films for example.

Apart from lower budgets and dwindling television audiences the internet has dealt a blow to television advertising. Do you think that film advertising is dying or just morphing into a new beast?

AM: It’s definitely morphing, but it’s not yet clear exactly what into. The current downturn is probably masking what will eventually happen – it’s quite likely that when budgets start increasing again, TV advertising will also rise, but, at a guess, there will be a need for online film content that exists in parallel to the main channel stuff.

CP: Perhaps the ‘big TV’ ads will just be a way into a richer, online world of film and interactivity.

McDonald's "Plumber"
Directed by Jeff Stark, produced by Another Film Company

The concept of one shot films seem to be catching on. The Grand Prix Winner in the film category at Cannes was a one shot film, albeit a large budget one. Do you have any thoughts on why this might be?

JA: I’m not sure whether the Cannes Grand Prix winner actually is a One-Shot film [although it looks for all the world like one]. We claimed it as one on the website, but we were being a bit tongue-in-cheek - I’m not expecting them to enter it any time soon! I don’t think there’s necessarily a trend towards One Shot films, although, where budgets are tight, they are a very attractive option.

CP: Also, I don’t think you could say they are ‘catching on’. There have been great One Shot films around for decades [the Bachelor’s ‘Pea’ film we featured on the site, for example].

The One Shot Film Festival is judged by some of the world’s greatest creative brains. Can you tell us a bit more about the Judges and why you decided to have such a global panel?

AM: The choice of judges and the variety of nationalities is a reflection of the fact that the festival is an online advertising festival [the first, we think]. Being online, our entries can come from any country – we already have entries from several – so it makes sense for the judges to also be international.

JA: As for the choice of the specific judges, they are all very high up in the business in their respective countries and represent a very high calibre of creative thinker. The awards are all about ideas, so it was important to get people whose own ideas have been admired and awarded.

The One Show Film Festival is an online festival – no expensive airfares, hotels and parties and it’s free to enter. Was the decision to host the festival this way anther recession beating tactic? Do you think we will see more online festivals in the future?

AM: I wouldn’t say it was a recession beating tactic, although the recession certainly made this a good time to launch an online festival. By being online, by being free to enter, we can attract a wider entry than conventional awards, including stuff from students and test films. The awards are all about the ideas and creative-thinking rather than surface gloss and slickness, and that makes them ideal for a no-nonsense online approach.

CP: Will there be other online festivals? No doubt, it’s the way forward. But whether they’ll be free is another matter…

How do you feel the festival has been received so far?

CP: There’s been loads of interest and quite a few entries. The breadth of interest has been impressive, too – everyone from big-name established Directors to first year students has contacted us. The website has been a ‘beta’ version up until now, but the fully-finished designed version will be up there soon and we’ll be sending that around, so we expect another wave of interest. But so far, so good.

What criteria will you judge the entries with? What do you think makes an excellent ‘one-shot’ commercial?

AM: The idea is all! That will be our stipulation to the judges. Look at the idea, then look at the execution and whether it brings out the idea well enough. It’s as simple as that, really.

Nissan "Hedgehog"
Directed by Joan Gil, produced by Arena Films

Apart from budget cuts how is the recession changing creativity?

AM: I guess there are two ways to approach creativity in a recession. Avoid it like the plague as an unnecessary risk or expense – in other words, hide away in a corner and wait for the hard days to go by. Or use it to give yourself a presence out of all proportion to your budget. The people who do the latter are the ones who will come out of the recession in a position of strength.

Why a one shot film? Why not just put a limit on the film budget? 

JA: Admittedly ‘One Shot’ is a rather arbitrary restriction, but then so would, say, ‘under $50,000’ be. And, for an international festival, restrictions based on financial limits might not work very well. $50,000 might be a huge budget in one country, in another it might not get you anywhere.

AM: So you could say we chose an arbitrary creative restriction rather than an arbitrary financial one.

Do you think simple creativity like what is seen in One Shot Films will outperform the big budget mainstream commercials?

CP: In certain circumstances it can do. In certain circumstances it’s the only choice, anyway. It can have as much impact as big budget numbers – look at the number of times some youtube videos have been viewed around the world.

Do you seeing these One Shot commercials becoming more popular with clients and thus pushed by agencies?

AM: What is sure is that clients are looking for more value from their commercials, so I guess they’d be happy with a One Shot ad if it had the same impact as a bigger budget one. I think agencies are looking at new ways of doing TV and are much more likely to do something with a low budget and not such high production values these days. Online films, virals and the like have made those things more acceptable.

Do you think One Shot films will be more successful online or on television?

JA: They can be successful in both. Simple, surprising or intriguing ideas will always be noticed and so are more likely to be successful, I think.

Lamp
by Robert Cervera