Lockdown - Escape Technology

The Judges

Victor Perez

Victor Perez is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and visual effects artist with more than 20 year of combined experience, and has worked on a number of Hollywood films, including ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’, plus many more.

Considered a visual effects compositing guru, awarded with the Italian Academy Award for his work as VFX Supervisor on 'The Invisible Boy: Second Generation' in 2019, Victor started his career in the film industry as a photographer and digital compositing artist. He then work on collaborations as 2D technical director and consultant where he developed a combination of both artistic and technical understanding of film postproduction and visual effects from a photorealistic point of view. Today he designs and oversees the process creation of feature film visual effects as VFX Supervisor.

In 2015, Victor delved into the world of film directing, and has written and directed two short films, receiving more than 27 awards and nominations for his debut 'Another Love' (2015). His latest short film 'Echo' (2017) uses pioneering, never-seen-before motion control technology and was shot in just five long takes. The film has won 20 awards worldwide including best film, best director and best visual effects, for which has been also nominated for Outstanding Virtual Cinematography at the Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards 2019. Victor’s passion for story telling combined with his award-winning directing and visual effects artistry has positioned him as an up-and-coming film director and a one-to-watch in the industry.

Read about how Escape Technology helped set up Victor's personal studio

Marta Svetek

Marta Svetek is an actor/director also serving as Red Giant’s Senior Community Manager. While she continues to produce and direct the filming of several VFX film shoots for Red Giant, you can also catch her on screen, hanging around with Hugh Laurie in HBO's Avenue 5.

Simon Walker

Simon is Director of Training at Maxon, Red Giant, and Redshift. Responsible for managing the global training team, providing workflow techniques, technical consultancy and training for editors, designers, animators, 3D artists, compositors and professional creatives working in post production in the media and entertainment industry.

How To Enter

When you've completed your film simply come back here and complete the form at the bottom of this page and add a link to where we can watch your masterpiece.

Make sure you complete submit your film to us for judging by 30th April.

Don’t forget to keep us up to date with what you’re working on. We love a good Instagram post of work in progress.

The Prizes

We’ve got one big pool of prizes to give to our winner, with a second prize for student entries. Each of our judges will also provide some critical feedback to their own favourite films.

THE GRAND PRIZE

Autodesk M&E Collection (three years)

Boris FX Bundle (one-year)

Boris FX Sapphire subscription (one year)

Boris FX Continuum subscription (one year)

Boris FX Mocha Pro subscription (one year)

Boris FX Silhouette subscription (one year)

Chaos Group V-Ray Annual Licence (winner's choice, one year)

FXhome Pro Suite

Red Giant Trapcode Suite

Triune Films Infinity VFX Assets Collection

Triune Scores Complete Library Vol.1

Wacom Cintiq Pro 24"

STUDENT PRIZE

FXhome HitFilm Pro

Red Giant Trapcode Suite

Wacom Cintiq 16"

The Rules

We’ll be looking at four main areas when we judge your films:

Creativity
Cinematography
VFX
Directing

There are no limits to team sizes, the software you use, or the story you write. But it must be an original, narrative fiction script. Nothing you’ve made before and not a documentary (mockumentaries are fine).

Your film must include at least one visual effects element integrated in any way you choose.

Any stock footage or music you use must be royalty free and you must have the rights to use it for short films distributed online.

Our prize pool is subject to change as more businesses come on board to support our little exercise in positivity. There are no cash alternatives and the judges’ decision is final.

Your film must be no less that one minute long and no more than three minutes long (excluding credits).

Credits do not count to your overall film length.

This competition is not open to employees of Escape Technology or our partners.

While the contest is open to entries from around the world, do bear in mind that most of the judges only speak English. So if you submit in another language please provide subtitles.

The Challenge