The DV Challenge is exactly that, a challenge, but not just against your competitors, against yourself. One of the hardest things about making short films is actually getting up off your butt and doing it. This contest is designed to do just that.

Dylan knows guerrilla shooting

This contest is the pet project of Vancouver based director/filmmaker Dylan Couper, who is a veteran of 24 and 48 hour short film competitions. He found one of the most difficult things in making a short film is to just force yourself to do it. If there isn’t some kind of motivation or challenge, then it usually just doesn’t happen. Frustrated by some of the ridiculous themes and crazy hoops that other short film contests make you jump through, as well as the high price tags on entry fees, Dylan decided to keep this sweet and simple… and cheap.

It works like this:

1.  First, log on to our host forum http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/ It is free! You will need to do this so you can access the SIGN UP thread in our forum, found at: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=100.  This allows you quick access to help from the thousands of forum members on DVinfo.net, should you need it. It will also allow you to post a thread dedicated to your movie, so that viewers can give you direct feedback about it and you can share your filming experiences.  It is totally free to sign up! However, if you want to, we are more than happy to take donations via Paypal at the_klenzer@paypal.com or sell you a T-Shirt.
2.  Once you post in the sign up thread your intention on competing, you should do a little pre-production, gather a few actors, a choice of locations, and some help.
3. From there all you need to do is wait for the contest theme to be announced on the starting day (usually a Thursday morning PST). Once the theme is posted, you will have until the following Sunday night to write and shoot a story revolving around it.  Generally, you should write your script on the Thursday, and shoot over the weekend. From there you can take the following week to do any re-shoots, and all your editing. That is if you like doing things the easy way!
4. Render it down to a Quicktime (see this thread for help:  http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=47545.
5.  Upload your compressed (Quicktime) movie to your *own* web space.
6. Once you are done, email the link to your movie to thedvchallenge@hotmail.com before the Sunday at midnight deadline.  The sooner you get it in the better.  Do not post your link anywhere else.