Short Cuts

The Itchy, Sneezy, Stuffy Head So You Can Make Your SXSW Deadline Dept.: Ah, yes, it's that time of year again, when standing in line at your neighborhood grocery store is as likely to expose you to 1,001 of your drippy-nosed, red-eyed, ill-tempered Austin neighbors. I know this from experience, having been waylaid by my annual winter cold three years in a row now, almost to the day -- my suggestion to you is to gobble the VC like it's going out of style and use your downtime (if your head isn't too floaty) to finally brush up on your HTML coding skills so you can enter SXSW's Web site competition. You didn't know they had one? Clearly, you're spending too much time blogging and not enough planning your modus operandi for SXSW 2001. To wit: Deadline for the SXSW Interactive Festival Web Competition is Friday, Dec. 15. This is open to "all sites launched or redesigned during the calendar year 2000" and breaks down into 25 specific categories, from "Developer's Resource" to "Gaming" to "Online Community." (But where do those ubiquitous dancing hamsters fit in? "Procrastination Tools" maybe?) Entry fees at $15 for individuals, nonprofit organizations, and educators, and $30 for businesses. Winners will be announced at the SXSW Web Awards, Saturday, March 10, during the SXSW Interactive Festival. More info can be had online at www.sxsw.com or by calling 467-7979... Also in SXSW news, a reminder that registration is still open for SXSW Film 2001, which runs March 9-17. A paltry $165 gets you admittance to all panels, meetings, films, and, most importantly, parties, where you can rub elbows with the likes of Split Screen honcho John Pierson, Film Threat founder Chris Gore, and producer's rep extraordinaire Jeff "The Dude" Dowd, all of whom are likely to tell you that your Fisher-Price Pixelvision version of Titus Andronicus is "interesting" before beating a hasty retreat. Or not -- you'll never know if you don't go. If you've got your film ready to submit, note that today, Friday, Dec. 8, is the final postmark submission date for entry. You can apply online (and find anything else you might need to know) at www.sxsw.com/2001/film/festival/submissionform/ ... Thursday, Dec. 14, 9-10pm, cable access channel 16, UT's RTF Small Format Video Production class will air a "best of" compilation of shorts culled from this year's classroom crop. There's also a simultaneous party for the event at the District Bar & Grill (301 W. Sixth) with the student filmmakers in attendance... Why go to the hassle of scrounging up the cash for countless poorly dubbed VHS copies of your first indie film when you can just as easily place a streaming copy of it on the Web? (Unless, of course, you're sending if off to SXSW, that is.) In what has become something of a trend of late, as more and more people chuck out their old 56K modems in favor of broadband services like DSL and cable Internet access, more and more filmmakers are bypassing the traditional means of distribution in favor of Web-based self distro. Austin filmmaker Michael Stoddard (who bills himself as "writer/director/janitor") is just one example of this trend. "Stag," his 10-minute short, which tells "the story of an elderly lady reflecting on her years as a golden-age porn star," is available at www.ironyinaction.com. Perhaps surprisingly, there's no nudity in this one folks, just a few moments of rough language, and yes, it's just as cool and bizarre as you might think.

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