Straight8Shootout: Mr+Positive enters the competition made to test its name

The creators of Straight8Shootout admit that competing is a “terrifying process”. However, they add that it’s “good for companies who really want creative freedom and are fearlessly competitive”. Mr+Positive is clearly fearlessly competitive and creative freedom excites it. The Tokyo production company’s founder, Peter Grasse, simply stated, “Challenge accepted.”

“We’re here to create,” he added. “This is our most basic principle as filmmakers (and beyond). 2020 halted us in our tracks, a pause button across the world. However, it wasn’t long until our core creative spirit, the maker of ideas and stories, perked up to find the potential, as well as the needs, of this new situation. We explored ‘new’ spaces to create, to communicate and support each other; to contribute and help solve the mountainous challenges this year has brought.”

Straight8Shootout is its own mountainous challenge. It has stringent rules. The short film entered must be less than 2.30 minutes. It must be created entirely in-camera on just one cartridge of Super 8mm film. There is no chance of editing or re-shooting. Every scene must be shot in story order. There’s no post-production; nor any sound recorded while filming. An original soundtrack must be made without prior access to the film and submitted separately, timed to match the first frame of the film. The exposed but undeveloped film cartridge is submitted to Straight8 directly. It will process and scan the films. The “one take” story on film will be publicly screened for the first time before an audience of thousands. This year, shooting may only be done only in strict isolation. Equipment, locations, actors and staff – every aspect of production – have to follow the predetermined isolation guidelines and social distancing. Voting is live at the premiere. The winning companies get to donate their prize money to the charities they choose. They do, however, get to take home their trophies.

For Mr+Positive the challenge is quite a thrill. “In Tokyo, our +Positive community of creators and makers have felt the slowdown in the commercial film industry as much as anywhere else. With international travel all but stopped, and the switch to remote production being a gradual one, we found ourselves in new frames of thinking & imagining,” Grasse noted.

“The creative spark took off.”

The production of Mr+Positive’s Straight8 film involved bike couriers and helium balloons, empty streets and busy phone lines. It culminates in the apartment of filmmaker, Andy Kai Nagashima, with his 8mm camera and actor-friends, Aya Apton and Sho Ikeda, telling the story of a noble fool in love.

On June 25, all films of the Straight8 Shootout competition will be premiering live and online – moved for one year from the usual real-world Cannes premiere to home screens across the globe.

“We are excited to see not only our own film but also the creativity and resilience shown by fellow filmmakers around the world,” Grasse stated. Collectively as an industry and individually, we are all here to create. And have fun doing it.”

Find out more about Straight8 Shootout here.