Hewlett Packard is partnering with YouTube to sponsor a contest where one filmmaker will win a $5000 prize, a screening at an international film festival and a meeting with executives from Fox Searchlight Productions.
Project Direct is looking for films between two and severn minutes long, and will run from October 7th to November 9th. Twenty finalists will be chosen by a panel selected by YouTube and headed by director Jason Reitman, whose upcoming film “Juno” will be released by Fox Searchlight later this year. YouTube voters will then select the grand-prize winner.
Reitman has also set three quirky rules that aspiring directors must honour in their submissions. The films must feature a character facing a “situation above his or her maturity level”; one character must pass a photograph to another and someone must use the line “I demand an explanation for these shenanigans. What do you have to say?”
If you’re paying attention you’ll notice that this last rule mirrors the tagline for the new HP campaign, with “what do you have to say?”