MAYDAY 24 Hour Film Contest!

Mayday is a 24-hour film contest, held once a year. That means that competitors, grouped into teams, have only 24 hours to create a film, from being handed a title to handing back a finished product. To keep everyone honest, we call upon a crack team of offbeat celebrities and generous souls to provide secret titles that are revealed only on the day of the contest. The gathered teams vote on the title and the moment it’s decided the clock starts ticking. After that, pretty much anything goes: we’ve seen most every genre and style put to use. Here’s how it works.

• Registration is open to everyone. We will accept teams up until shortly before the event; there is no limit on the number of teams that can register.
• Each team pays a $30 entry fee. This will be paid via PayPal prior to the event (see below). Teams MUST pre-register and pre-pay for Mayday this year.
• If your movie is longer than 8 minutes (including credits) or takes longer than the allotted time to get to us, it will be disqualified. If you have a legit excuse (we have to come down to the ER to take the master tape from your blood-soaked fingers) we might make an exception, but don’t count on it.
• Your movie must obviously fit the title provided.
• Your movie must be original material (although we do allow some use of stock footage), and we’re going to make you sign a document saying you’re responsible for the copyright of everything in your film.
• We’re format-agnostic. Shoot on Pixelvision or 4k, we don’t care, as long as in the end you give us a movie in NTSC as a Quicktime, WMV, or AVI file burned on DVD-R or CD-R. We don’t accept viewable MPEG-2 DVDs, sorry. But hey, that’s just saving you time!
• Due to limitations on screening space and time, we will only be screening the top 12 films. What does “top 12″ mean? Read on…
• Each team is required to send one (and only one) delegate to a pre-screening that will be held on an evening within a week or two of the event. On this night all of the movies will be screened and all of the delegates will collectively decide which movies represent the 12 finest movies human creatures have ever made. We’ll try to be accommodating in scheduling this pre-screening, but the basic rule is: if you don’t manage to get a delegate to the pre-screening, your team loses all right to complain… although we’re sure some will anyway. C’est la vie. (That’s French for “those people are assholes”.)
• There will be no refunds. If your movie doesn’t make it to the screening, we’ll still make it viewable on our website, DVDs as space allows, or whatever, but we’re not giving you back your $30. We need that money to pay our bookie.
• The official screening and awards ceremony will take place on Saturday, June 2nd. It will cost $5 per person, regardless of whether you are part of a registered team or not. There will be a donation bar at the screening. We will try our hardest to get more drink options for you to put into yourselves, as well as more bathrooms to get those drink options out of yourselves.
• To simplify and shorten the voting and vote tallying process, the delegates will also help determine 5 nominees for most of the categories. Awards will still be determined by audience vote at the screening.
• Everyone must have fun and pass out from exhaustion. If we catch you not doing either of these things, we’ll cry a little.

MAYDAY 5 Deadlines:

April 30 – The last day to register for Mayday 5. Register Now!
May 12 – Filming begins!
May 13 – Your movie is due and you can sleep again.
May xx? – Council of 12 screening to determine top 12 films
June 2 – Screening, Awards, and hot hot party