London Short Film Showcase
#shorterfilms Packs a Punch
Posted October 31st, 2011
The London Short Film Showcase will screen some of the city’s best short films on Saturday, but a contest created to promote the event had screens all over the world lighting up.
On Friday, the Short Film Showcase posted an opportunity to win tickets on its Twitter account, @LSFSinc: “make a long film shorter & tag #shorterfilms to enter.”
Entries began with a few Londoners flexing their creative muscles to win tickets, with entries like “boat misses iceberg” (@twitch) and “archaeologist finds golden idol, gets crushed by giant boulder” (@chrismcinnis). As local tweeters participated, their friends hopped on board, and soon film enthusiasts all over the country were creating their own #shorterfilms. Many of them were unaware that the meme had begun as a contest.
At its peak, #shorterfilms was the second most talked about topic in Canada, according to Twitter’s list of trending topics. With 2299 tweets & 790 users participating it was not long before The Globe and Mail jumped on the viral trend as well, with an article that called the meme “hard to resist.”
“I didn’t expect a local contest to get so much attention,” says Mike Battista, a London Short Film Showcase board member who headed up the contest. “But it’s been really cool to see how a trending topic starts and how it evolves over time.”
Some more great #shorterfilms entries:
- · Off duty renegade cop in airport on Christmas eve picks up wife without incident. (@late2game)
- · Girl goes to new school. Turns out everyone is nice and gets along. (@chadder87)
- · “I won’t be back.” (@RebeccaCrook1)
- “Hello.” “You have me.” (@HellaciousDee)
- Full list
