Into it? Film it!
Taptu Seeks Entrants for UGC Short Film Contest to Support Taptu App
First Prize is Internship with Award-Winning Visual Effects House Prime Focus
CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND & DENVER— April 26, 2011 — Forget the X-Factor – This is the VFX-Factor
Today Taptu, the social media and mobile technology company, and Prime Focus, the award-winning Visual Entertainment Services company, is announcing the opening of its UGC short film contest to support the release of Taptu iPad, its social news reader, as well as its existing iPhone and Android editions, that aims to change the way you connect with your world.
From the biggest stories of the week to your individual passions, Taptu iPad allows you to keep everything organized in a clean and intuitive design.
And thanks to the company’s search engine heritage, Taptu iPad goes beyond just “RSS” feeding content. Instead, it actually recommends it, delivering related articles and allowing you to discover new ones. The app lets you easily navigate to any article you’re interested in, both from the stream timeline and by a sort of ‘Rubik’s Cube of news’ that gives a visual preview of what’s coming up next. You can also “DJ your news” by mixing your own streams and instantly become a content curator.
Taptu and Prime Focus have created an awesome film competition to support the free app where first prize is a four week internship working alongside some of the top VFX artists in the world in either Los Angeles, New York, London or Mumbai.
You could be hanging out with the visual wizards behind movies like Avatar and Tron: Legacy, some of the most stunning shows on TV and the hottest music videos and ads out there.
Taptu’s marketing agency Meanwhile have made a bunch of films to get the ball rolling and now it’s your turn to show Taptu what you’re into.
The films you make can be about anything. Whether you love it, hate it, need it, heard it, smelt it, lost it, found it, created it or destroyed it… You get the idea.
The kit you use is up to you. Shoot on your phone, your SLR or even in 70mm IMAX. It can be live action, CG or animation. As long as we can upload it to our YouTube channel, the format doesn’t matter.
Entries must be tagged “Taptu” AND “Win it? Taptu it!” and uploaded to YouTube by 11:59 PM EST on 22 June 2011 / 4:59 AM BST on 23 June 2011. Entrants must email the link to their film to YouTube movie to [email protected] to get into the second round. The 30 entries will be posted to Taptu’s Facebook page during the second round and visitors to our Facebook Page will be able to vote for their favorite video by clicking on the thumbs-up button to “like” it. At close of 2 August 2011 EDT, the five entries with the most votes, ie. “likes,” will be declared a finalist and move into the final round of judging.
Final Round: During the final judging, our panel of judges will review the final five entries and will choose a grand prize winner.
JUDGES
Michael Fink – Senior Creative Director, VFX and View-D, Prime Focus
Based in LA. He’s a film VFX industry veteran and 2008 Academy Award winner for his work on Golden Compass. His work has been credited on movies such as X-Men, Road to Perdition, Tropic Thunder, etc.
Tareq Kubaisi – Chief Creative Director, UK, Prime Focus
Based in London. Tareq was ranked number 2 in Televisuals top VFX artists poll 2010 and among the industry’s top 30 Directors by the influential David Reviews. He has collaborated on movies such as The Hitch Hikers guide to the Galaxy and Son of Rambow.
Merzin Tavaria – Co-founder and Chief Creative Director, India, Prime Focus
Based at their new state-of-the-art Global HQ in Mumbai, India, one of India’s most highly awarded VFX artists, and in charge of one of the largest VFX teams in the world.
Mitch Lazar – Chief Executive Officer of Taptu
Responsible for the company’s global operations. He appeared as a journalist on Miami Vice and was heard throughout South Korea on radio before co-launching CNN’s online division in 1994. He went on to pioneer CNN Mobile and came to Taptu after heading up Yahoo!’s Mobile Europe.
So don’t waste a second. Download the Taptu app (don’t worry it’s free) in the App Store. Get inspired by the stuff you’re into and make a film about it. Good luck!
About Taptu:
Founded in 2006, Taptu is an award-winning social media and mobile technology company based in Cambridge, England and Denver, Colorado. We build innovative platforms, tools and applications that enable highly personalized creation, curation, recommendation, search, discovery, management, consumption and sharing of content across all personal screen-based devices. Our other product, Wapedia, is also available for download at the Apple App Store and Android Market.
See www.taptu.com for more information.
To celebrate the launch of Taptu iPad, and to support our existing Taptu app for the iPhone and Android, we’re launching a short film / UGC video contest with one incredible prize for the grand winner: a 4-week long internship at Prime Focus, the visual effects (VFX) powerhouse behind such Hollywood hits as Avatar, Tron: Legacy, Twilight: Eclipse and New Moon, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Quantum of Solace just to name a few. The winner will be working in one of Prime Focus’s four global offices: Los Angeles, New York, London or Mumbai, hanging out with some of the most talented visual wizards in the business.