Queensland’s music video industry is finally getting the recognition it deserves, with an awards night and showcase, Reel Music Video Festival, to be held at The Triffid.
Festival Director Tilly Towler first decided Brisbane needed an event to celebrate the content made by local talent after a friend had a music video picked up for a similar event in Sydney.“We were talking about how we didn’t have that in Brisbane or Queensland, but there’s so much awesome music video content coming out of Queensland and it would be really awesome to have something that celebrated that and brought people together,” Tilly says.
The event isn’t just about congratulating musicians and filmmakers, Tilly believes it’s important for people aspiring to break into the industry to expose themselves to the scene and meet potential collaborators.
“It’s just going to be the most casual way to meet new people. . . All the people that you need to know to get into the industry. The best way to meet new people who you want to collaborate with is to get in front of their faces and see their work and find out what you’re into and what you might want to work on together later on down the line.”
The festival has six categories for competition: Outstanding Student Music Video, Best Creative, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Direction, and Audience Choice, with unique prizes for the winners of each category.
Prizes range from free camera rental for the Best Cinematography category, to free editing suite hire for the Best Editor winners, which Tilly hopes will be more useful to the successful contestants than a cash prize.
Tilly Towler
“We could have a cash pool, but from our own experience, having to pool money to make music videos on a low budget, those things that get marked up like editing suites and crews to get the thing shot can really mark up your budget for the end product,” she explains.
The judging panel has been sourced from a wide range of industry professionals in order to get the most out of as many different viewpoints as possible.
“The Audience Choice will be a live, on-the-night vote with people voting on their phones for the winner from the presented finalists. The rest of them will be selected by a panel of judges of serious people from our local industry, we’ve got a guy from Sony, he’s the head of A&R Academy (Robert Rigby) and we’ve got someone from triple j and two business owners from local film production companies.
“We tried to get a really broad, diverse group of people together to judge them because it’s so subjective and some ideas are so out there but they’ll catch someone's eye for some reason.”
As well as being treated to a screening of a number of local music videos, attendants will be able to enjoy live performances by local legends FeelsClub, Pink Matter, and Good Boy, which makes The Triffid the ideal venue for the event.
“[The Triffid is] kind of perfect for what we’re doing because we really wanted to have an open space with a kind of relaxed, beer garden vibe for the screenings part of the night but then we’ve got three bands playing at the end of the night, we needed a live music venue as well that could accommodate that. Having the outdoor and indoor parts will work really well.”
