Coming Off Tops: Odyssey Film Festival Winners

Choosing a winner for anything is hard, and that process isn’t made any easier when it comes to short films created by VCE students. What one film may luck in technique, it may more than make up for in the story line. Though regardless of how hard choosing a winner is, two were picked from this year’s films screened at the Odyssey Film Festival.
After three nights screening the 18 films to audiences in the Geelong region, the final two winners were announced on the last night at Village Cinemas in Geelong. The winner of audience favourite, as voted by the app created by Chris McDermott, was The Cone Wars by Sam Olorenshaw.
Essentially the short film is an animated film about two orange traffic cones, the idea sparked by a typo into a Google search bar while researching other films. “I searched for images of The Clone Wars animated TV show – as the computer generated style of that show I quite like,” says Sam.
“However I unintentionally typed The Cone Wars in Google instead, followed by Google asking me if I made a mistake. Just as I thought, ‘Yeah whoops’ I thought to myself for a moment, was it a mistake? I searched for some pictures of cartoony cones, with hardly any results, so I knew that this wasn’t an idea done before.”
In a similar fashion Henry Caldwell – winner for best film for Beethoven is For Midnight – scoured his personal knowledge and other sources for what he loved about his favourite films. His search ended in his decision to move away from traditional story telling in films and to do so via Fellini, Tarkovsky and his own interests. It’s an ambitious idea for a year 12 student, but it more than paid off.
“I wanted to try to do what my favourite filmmakers have done, which is to express something that only a film can express,” says Henry.
A few of the films that inspired Beethoven is For Midnight– and ones Henry loves in general – are Meshes of the Afternoon(1943), F is for Fake(1973) and Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors(1965).
With both holding such a passion for movies, Sam often enjoys watching Pixar films, it was only natural that they would enter the competition for its second year.
For many young and aspiring filmmakers one of the greatest moments is seeing your film up on the big screen, and while neither Sam or Henry are set on filmmaking as of yet as a career, Sam still got quite a buzz from having his film screened – or more accurately how the audience reacted.
“At first the entire cinema was quiet – with some whispers coming from people not knowing what to expect from it. Then one of the traffic cones started talking and people laughed a little,” says Sam.
“Then as time went on the laughter became louder and louder and the credits rolled and there was a really loud applause. For those six minutes and 47 seconds, what I made on my little laptop made an entire cinema go ‘Awww’ in the sad scenes, and laugh and laugh for the rest. So as nice as the award is and the other prizes I got are, the best part about my animation being on the “big screen” and being a part of the Odyssey Film Festival, was for those few minutes making so many people happy.”
An even greater thing gained from Odyssey is the experience itself: receiving recognition as a student for your work created during the tough years of VCE.
“A short film festival for young people is a rare thing in Australia, and Odyssey is quite brilliant – especially since it’s only in its second year,” says Henry.
“There ought to be many more things like it, but there should also be more ways for young people (and older people) to watch good films. The revival of independent cinemas (the Pivotonian on Pakington Street is a very recent example, and I think the only one of its kind in Geelong) is a slow-moving but hopeful phenomenon, but it will take a lot more to overcome a widespread fear and mistrust of foreign language films.”
If you’d like your school to be involved, get in contact with your media studies teacher or the Odyssey Film Festival directly.
By Amanda Sherring