Think Twice Workshop

Anze Grabeljsek from Slovenia has posted all the pictures he had taken during the workshop on his website. Needless to say, they are all fantastic.

One of the requirements of the workshop was that participants from each country were required to bring along a piece of work highlighting an artist from said country. Olof Werngren has just posted the video made by him and Maja Atterstig, a portrait of Swedish artist Kristofer Ström.

These photos were mainly taken during the production of Madarka, madarka, but they include some sightseeing shots as well.

Another short film created during Think Twice by Katja Zerko, Albertina Sparrhult, James Ward & Pedro Maia, starring Zita Téby.

Members of Think Twice have made a guest appearance - along with Élizabeth Marre & Olivier Pont, as well as James Lees - on last night's Kultúrház, the cultural event programme of Hungarian TV. Watch from 33:50! (It's in Hungarian though.)

Here's the completed film of another group. Lightbulbs was screened first on Wednesday in Toldi Mozi. 

Actress:

Bea Lass

Movie by:
Mariana Pereira
Paul McGuigan
Olof Werngren

The workshop ended this Wednesday, but we are finally receiving the finished works for the blog. Here is the world premiere of Holy Squeezes, a short film created by Maja Atterstig, Ana Marques Dias, Sasa Spacal and Gary Boyd, starring Bálint Adorjáni.

Holy Squeezes was shot on a Canon XH A1s camera, provided by Canon Hungária.

Maja offered us another batch of pictures, displaying their work in the hostel, a bit of sightseeing and meeting with Hungarian director Virág Zomborácz.

Here are some photos made by Anze Grabeljsek during the thematic sightseeing and the actual creation of one of the projects, along with some candid snapshots of workshop participants.

One of the participants, Maja Atterstig, gave us some pictures tonight, encapsulating her first day, preparing props for their shoot and the filming itself in Kerepesi Cemetery.

Two volunteers, Kinga Hárskuti and Anna Gyimesi have organized a tour one night for the participants, based around the more well-known "ruin pubs" of Budapest. Here is a short album of that night. 

Day 4, Saturday - Reto Caffi, the Swiss director whose short film 'Along the Line' has been nominated for Oscar and screened in the 'This Is Europe' block, was conducting a miniworkshop on how to direct actors for the participants of Think Twice. James Lees, English director of two other screened films, 'The Apology Line' and 'The Archivist' was also attending and made an undivided hit. 

Reto Caffi on scripts and actors from Think Twice on Vimeo.

On 13th November, on the 3rd day of the workshop the Eushorts Festival started in Toldi. Little welcome speech by the creators before the screening of the opening block, 'This Is Europe', and chill out around midnight with Lamantin DJs' concert. Between the two visitors could be shivered by the horror block, 'A Slight Dose of Shock'.

First working day, 12th Nov 09: the first mixed international team of the participants had the Beyond Budapest tour in the 'Creative 8th District' ('Alkotó Nyócker'). Pictures taken by Olof Wengren, Swedish music video maker, participant of the workshop.

Here are some photos a volunteer, Szabó Karolina made yesterday, while walking around last night with participants of the workshop. We'll upload more photos as we receive them.

No, just because there isn't any update on the blog, it doesn't mean that nothing happened today during the Think Twice workshop. Participants screened their projects, showcasing a contemporary artist of choice from their country this morning in Toldi. Hopefully all of them will be presented on this blog. One group went for their thematic trip today, a very important part of one of their workshop tasks.

Unfortunately we ran into some compatibility errors with the pictures that were made last night in the hostel, but all of them will be solved by tomorrow. Keep refreshing on Friday, when this year's EUShorts Festival begins in Toldi!

Teams will visit another disctrict of Budapest. This time however, they must discover this part of the city on their own, with the helping guidance of a Hungarian speaking volunteer. The volunteers are art and film students from Budapest. Participants will get a theme according to which you need to come up with an artwork other than film (graphic novel, flash animation, etc) to represent the district. The specifics will be explained in detail by the volunteers in time, we'd like to keep the details a secret as long as possible. :)

This is a complex task, consisting of several phases.

First phase: a special thematic sightseeing tour in the 8th disctrict of Budapest, which has a infamous reputation among locals, but in fact is a great source of hidden treasures and interesting people. The tour is organised by our partners, Beyond Budapest, a small company dedicated to show tourists another side of the city.

Second phase: based on impressions encountered during the tour, participants must write a screenplay and draw a storyboard for a short film not longer than 10 minutes and shot on one location only. They will be working with a professional actor.

Third phase: Participants will have the opportunity to consult with a young and experienced director, who will help them prepare the shooting and final completion of their short film.

Fourth phase: Participants will be given time and equipment to shoot their film. They will meet with your actor or actress, and be given several hours shooting time, which should be ample time to finish the film

Fifth and final phase: Editing and completion. Participants can use your own equipment if they wish, but they will also be provided with two iMacs if needed. The completed works will be screened at the closing ceremony in Toldi cinema on November 18.

As mentioned in the post about the workshop tasks previously, participants will have to cooperate with a young director during the preproduction of the Exercise in Style bit. Here is a list of - extremely helpful - directors who agreed to participate in Think Twice.

Simon Szabó is a young Hungarian filmmaker who is also a charismatic actor and an a great connoisseur of Budapest's underground scene. His latest feature film is called Paper Planes (Papírrepülők).

(photo: Gábor Valuska, film.hu) 

Virág Zomborácz is a young director and screenwriter still studying at the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest. Several of her short films were selected for the Hungarian Film Week in the last years.

 

James Lees is an English filmmaker. We are fortunate to be able to show you two of his works at EUShorts, The Apology Line and The Archivist.

Andrea Lodovichetti is an Italian director, whose very succesful and touching short film, Under My Garden can be seen at the festival.

 

Reto Caffi is an Academy Award nominated Swiss director. His short film, On The Line has won a myriad of nods from all kinds of film festivals, and can be seen at EUShorts as well.

Elizabeth Marre and Olivier Pont are the French directors of Manon on the Asphalt. The excellent film was nominated for an Oscar, so they went from a backpackers hostel straight to the red carpet. They will be the special guests at the brunch at KINO art cinema. 

Here is one of the three tasks the participants of the workshop have to complete during the week.

Every team will receive an object on the first day. They will have to use this object at its fullest potential for a week to reate a concept around it with the audiovisual instruments at hand. The object could end up as a key element of your group, as a logo, part of its advertising or its main character.

The objects are all Hungarian inventions.

soda water: Ányos Jedlik (1800-1895), a Hungarian, invented consumable soda-water that continues to be a popular drink today. He also built the world's first carbonated water factory in Budapest. After this invention, a Hungarian drink made of wine and soda water called "fröccs" (wine spritzers) was spread throughout several countries in Europe.

the noiseless match: It was invented in 1836 by the Hungarian János Irinyi, who was a student of chemistry. An unsuccessful experiment by his professor, Meissner, gave Irinyi the idea to replace potassium chlorate with lead dioxide in the head of the phosphorus match.

light bulb: On December 13, 1904, Hungarian Sándor Just and Croatian Franjo Hanaman were granted a Hungarian patent (No. 34541) for a tungsten filament lamp in Budapest, which lasted longer and gave a brighter light than the carbon filament. Tungsten filament lamps were first marketed by the Hungarian company Tungsram in 1905, so this type is often called Tungsrambulbs in many European countries.

vitamin C: From 1928 to 1933, the Hungarian research team of Joseph L Svirbely and Albert Szent-Györgyi and, independently, the American Charles Glen King, first isolated the anti-scorbutic factor, calling it "ascorbic acid" for its vitamin activity. Ascorbic acid turned out not to be an amine, nor even to contain any nitrogen. For their accomplishment, Szent-Györgyi was awarded the 1937 Nobel Prize in Medicine "for his discoveries in connection with the biological combustion processes, with special reference to vitamin C and the catalysis of fumaric acid".

(the descriptions are edited versions of corresponding wikipedia articles)

The participants for the Think Twice workshop are arriving today. One of their first tasks will be to get to know each other. For those who would like to find out what they do online, here are some websites of the people involved.

Saša Spačal from Slovenia is a video artist, on her vimeo page there are two, very hypnotic video animations for concerts. Here is one, created to underscore the concert of Nina Prešiček.

Anna Maja Lovisa is a photographer. It's tough to select only one picture from her website, but I tried anyway.

Pedro Maia from Portugal mainly works with super 8 footage, one of his most interesting work is a combination of archive footage and the music of Panda Bear, a member of Animal Collective, but also a solo artist in his own right. Unfortunately we cannot embed anything from Pedro's site, so you have to explore it yourself.

Olof Wengren from Sweden has produced several music videos. The one for Gaby And The Guns was produced on a shoestring budget, but you can't really tell, can you? 

Albertina Sparrhult, also from Sweden, mainly works as a graphic designer, specializing in video game design. Again, you have to check out her website for yourself.

And last but not least, Anze Grabeljsek from Slovenia is also a photographer. You can find a ton more photos on his site.

Participants in the Think Twice Workshop will have the opportunity to work with young actresses and actors from Hungary. Here is a short description of them.



 

Bea Lass is a young Hungarian actress. After graduation, her university class decided to form their own ensemble and continue working together. They are called KoMa.

Zita Téby is also a freshly graduated actress. She studied at Kaposvár Drama School, and is a member of an experimental ensemble, called Szputnyik Hajózási Társulat (Sputnik Maritime Society).

Viktor Klem has graduated May 2009 from the Academy of Drama and Film as an actor. Right after finishing his studies, he started working with one of the most acclaimed ensembles of Budapest in the Radnóti Theatre.

Bálint Adorjáni is a more experienced actor, he began his studies already 2001 in Pécs. He is also a member of Radnóti Theater. He won first prize at the International Festival of Drama Schools in Warsaw.

The EuShorts Festival is planning an audiovisual workshop for 2009, with young people of five European countries participating. The aim is to have the debuting artists arriving in Budapest to test their creativity, their artistic ambitions and to acquire useful experience
with the help of Hungarian filmmakers. They will also have the opportunity to work with several European directors invited to the festival and get acquainted with the works of Hungarian artists and cultural institutions.

The one-week workshop will offer the conditions for cooperating in an environment encompassing several areas of audiovisual artistry (film, photography, graphic design, new media). The workshop aims to help participants create something new and fresh by harnessing the creative potential in this international and interdisciplinary environment through roundtable discussions and several unique workshop tasks.

The event will draw focus on the diversity of methods in urban audiovisual expression, the creative games with cinematical genres and the reconsideration of traditional aesthetic borders. The workshop aims to utilize imagination, spontaneity and professional
ingenuity. To track the influence participants have on their own professional and cultural development and to see how they are able to influence the image of Budapest of locals and foreigners through their work.

The workshop and its program is arranged and coordinated by the EuShorts team for simultaneously experiencing an intellectual challenge and creative entertainment.