Spam was shot entirely on location in the wilds of Belfast, with some of the finest plastic acting talent this side of the North Sea.   World Premiere @ Rushes Soho Shorts Festival in the Curzon Mayfair, London - July 29th 2007

THE FACTS

The general term "spam" is commonly used to refer to any unwanted unsolicited electronic message.

31 billion email messages are sent every day. 

2.5 billion of those are pornographic email messages

Annual cost to internet users in time lost $255 million

Sources :: Google, Brightmail, Jupiter Research, eMarketer, Gartner, MailShell, Harris Interactive, and Ferris Research

THE PROJECT

A sideways, not-so-serious look at the results of a world where spam is prevalent.  Unfortunately it will be a few months before we have any footage to show you, but perhaps you'll be able to join us at the Straight 8 World Premiere of the film at  the 'Curzon Mayfair' screenings on July 29th and 30th as part of the Rushes Soho Shorts Festival.

THE COMPETITION

Ed Sayers and Ben Gregor make commercials in London, and do other stuff like go cycling and develop movies, and so on.  They organise a filmmaking event called straight 8. People enter from all over the world.

It's a simple idea:

You, the filmmaker, shoot a film on a single cartridge of super 8mm film, the serial number of which is noted by Straight 8 so that there's no cheating. Then you hand over your exposed but un-developed, un-edited film for processing. You also burn an original soundtrack onto CD.

The first time you see your work is with a packed cinema audience, also seeing it for the first time.

Sounds fun? It is. Sounds scary? It is.

As projects & competitions go, you always learn something new, because it’s a challenge, but with this competition it was a vertical learning curve, and no amount of preparation gets you ready. 

All those who were involved in'Spam', please wash your hands then pat yourselves on the back for a marvellous  job, well done.

THE MUSIC

Red Label Records artist 'Eric Needs To Know' scored the track for this film, complete with bleeps, squeaks & mushy sounds.  Click here to listen to the tune.

	THE FILM This is the finished version of the film as screened at the Curzon Cinema in Mayfair, London. [17.5Mb]

And for 2007 one of the Straight 8 regulars Nick Scott came up with a cracking idea on how to do split screen.  Check out his 'How To' video on YouTube [there are 2 of them 2 watch by the way].