Lecturers and students from the Swinburne School of Film and Television have celebratedSwinburne-morningstar3
several wins and accolades at the international WorldFest Houston film festival putting
their work among global competition.


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Dr Jeff Bird, Lecturer in Cinematography at Swinburne said, “We decided to target American Film Festivals because there are more opportunities for our students to enter their work. What’s more, due to the sheer size of the festival, they are able to compare their work with similar projects - a piece of student work is compared with other student work.”

Now in its 44th year, WorldFest is the oldest independent Film and Video Festival in the world.
This year, over 4,500 entries were submitted to the festival from around the world, with 700 awards presented, 10 of which were ‘Grand Remis’ awards. WorldFest Houston film festival is recognised for discovering Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ridley Scott, The Coen Brothers, Oliver Stone, Peter Weir, Spike Lee and David Lynch.

 
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Five submissions by Swinburne students received awards at WorldFest Houston 2011. These were ‘Settle Down’, a music clip created for artist Kimbra by director and writer Guy Franklin, DP Edward Goldner and Producer Mary Minas which received a Grand Remi in the Music Video category. ‘Good Morning’ is a claymation created by Lauchlan Pevie, Chen Guang Su and Eddie Jakai which received a Platinum Remi in the Children/Family category.

‘Break’ is a film created by Director Ray Pang and DP Shelley Farthing-Dawe, and received a Gold Remi in the Graduate Level Student Productions category.

Cinematographer Edward Goldner shot ‘Walk with Them’ which received a Platinum Remi in the Cinematography – Shorts category.

‘Morning Star’ by director and writer Jess Lawton, DP Edward Goldner (Director of Photography) and Producer Lani Kingston received a Silver Remi in the category Graduate Level Student Productions.

The management of WorldFest Houston also requested to publicly screen ‘Break’ and ‘Good Morning’, and honour few films are afforded. Jeff said, “The Grand Remi and the Special Jury Award are the two top awards in each of the festival’s 10 divisions so, for our students to win a Grand Remi is a genuine achievement, especially when they’re competing against professional industry teams. The fact that our students also won two out of the four possible student places for graduates or university students is an enormous success for the School.

He said Swinburne emphasises the importance of teaching the production processes that are actually used in the industry, and tries to enlist the support of people who work in the film industry in order to seek innovation and inspiration for students. Edward Goldner, who won a Grand Remi for a team project, music video ‘Settle Down’ and a Platinum Remi for his cinematography on ‘Walk with Them’ said, ““It’s good to get exposure for your work outside Australia. I do put a lot of my work online, so you get people seeing it that way but to be part of an international festival like WorldFest means that you’re putting your work in front of other film makers and you’re also potentially opening up opportunities to work overseas in the future.”www.swin.edu.au