Imagination Series

I might be late to the party, but I just stumbled upon a rather fantastic video series called The Imagination Series. I had been looking at the Webby 2014 winners and the series had won for Drama Series. The project, which was sponsored by Bombay Sapphire gin, asked filmmakers to take a very basic script (just dialogue really) and to create a film based on the script. The videos were judged and five were chosen as winners. The Webby website linked to Room 8, the third movie of the winners. I watched it and I was hooked.

I've seen each of the five winners now and I am floored by the creativity put into the films. Each film includes some sort of object that the characters debate about opening. The lines are the same. "Don't open that", "You might regret it", "I'll take that chance", and "Would you have believed me?" are some of the lines that get repeated through all of the videos. But that's where the similarities end. Two of the videos are magical realism, one is filmmatic, one is animated, and one is dark realism. And all of them are wonderful pieces of film. Very professional.

This was such a unique idea for me. Take one script, send it out, and see what comes back. I was impressed with the diversity and imagination behind each of the videos. And I guess that's the point. The winners are: Water Song, The Mrs., Room 8, Crab, Concrete  I've linked to each videos Vimeo page. I recommend watching all of them for comparison. Most are only 4 or 5 minutes. Room 8 was my favorite. A little bit dark and seriously cool. A wonderful idea and a great video series.