I spotted this unusual drama short via Facebook. It was an entry into the ‘Cannes a La Flip‘ contest which challenged Short Film Directors to shoot a Flip movie while attending the 2010 festival.

Brit Jon Bunning got involved with the project and I’ve posted his film above. He takes up the story:

“I’m Jon Bunning a UK graduate of Norwich School of Art and Design from the Visual Studies Ba(Hons) degree

I was in Cannes with a program called called Creative Minds which offers different elements of access to the film festival from movie making to network building.

Though sharing a hotel with other people working on the film making option I heard about the Cannes à la Flip contest and decided to pitch an idea.

It was very last minute and I came up with the premise on the spot. For some reason I remembered back to my friend getting a job by answering a question while being interviewed, in quite a cheeky manner. He was asked if he was a dog person or a cat person, to which he replied “How many times have you heard of a cat dragging someone from a burning building”. His dry wit in that one-liner stuck in the minds of the interview panel and he got the position. I decided to visualise his glib remark and set about filming it in between my work duties.

My initial concept was a cat overhearing two friends chatting about which animal was better and becoming inspired to save someone from a fire to prove a point.

In Cannes the streets are littered with pampered pups so I decided to start shooting on the at every opportunity, collecting snippets of hounds trotting about town. It was so easy with the Flip as you’re up an filming in seconds. This was my first time using the camera so it was great not to have to learn about tricky functions or be burdened with bulky equipment. I kept the Flip in my pocket and was able to get most of the shots I needed in between running errands for my host company.

The cat footage was slightly more difficult to capture, but luckily there was a street performer on the Croisette who fitted the bill perfectly with a performing puss. My accommodation also had a black cat which proved to be lucky.

The hard part came when I had to recreate the daring cat rescue scene. I love making things so improvised some prosthetic cat paws made from some face cloths and spokes from a broken umbrella. My very understanding room mate helped me with his acting and editing skills.

Completing the short film was the best souvenir I could have taken away from my trip.

I’m currently one of just over a hundred people vying for the People’s Choice Award. People can show support for me by becoming a fan on this link:

http://mubi.com/garage/projects/11/films/1148#

Which animal do I think is the greatest? I think I’ll have to remain impartial and say I like Sea Monkeys the best.

My next short is going to be about Ducks.”

John filmed on a Flip Ultra HD and edited on a Mac running Final Cut 6.

If you’ve made a Flip movie you’d like to share please add a comment and a link below.

I discovered this video via my Twitter feed. It’s part of the Doritos Viralocity viral video challenge. Richard Lalonde shot his video entirely on the Flip Camera and he was good enough to answer a few questions from My Flip.

1. Why did you choose to shoot your video on the Flip Camera?

I was introduced to the Flip when I saw the short films made at the Cannes 2008 film festival. I saw the type of potential this camera has for producing a great video. I chose to use the Flip because it is very small in size and you don’t need to lug around film gear. It makes it much easier to get access to locations such as the restaurant I used, once they see that you don’t have a lot of gear and won’t overly disrupt their business.

2. Which model of Flip Video did you use?

I used the Flip Ultra HD.

3. Which software did you edit on?

I used imovie for Mac.

4. How did you handle the audio?

The audio is as is. If you listen you can hear the wind russling in the background during the first scene, then when we are in the restaurant the background noise is very quiet. The onboard mic, does pick up the audio quite nicely, however its not the best when outdoors because it picks up lots of extraneous noises.

5. Although it’s a great camera for the price,  how did you work around the limitations of the Flip Camera?

When using the Flip Camera, you really have to play around with it a lot to get the shot and look you are going for. Making a little video like this with the Flip is perfect because you don’t have to worry about the limitations. The only negative is getting that perfect depth of field that your looking for, cause you don’t have all the lenses you would with a Pro-camera.

We say: At the end of the day the Flip isn’t going to replace a high end DV camera for shooting a fully fledged movie but for experimentation and actually getting on and doing something rather than keeping it in your head – it’s a winner!

You can buy the Flip Ultra HD Video Camera here at Amazon UK or Amazon US Canadian passports THIS WAY TO: Amazon CA