Thursday, April 28th, 2011 Posted by Jim Thacker

Create a short for Taptu and win a VFX internship

Create a short featuring newsfeed app developer Taptu’s marketing slogan and you could win a four-week internship at Prime Focus.

Entrants to Taptu’s video contest are asked to produce a piece closing with the phrase “[xxxx] it? Taptu it!” (the x’s representing a verb of your choice, rather than actual swearing) and upload it to YouTube. Both animated and live-action shorts are eligible.

The winning entry will land its creator a placement at any of Prime Focus’s VFX facilities worldwide: Los Angeles, New York, London or Mumbai.

You can find full entry details via the link at the foot of the story.

PRESS RELEASE (Excerpts)
Taptu (www.taptu.com), the social media and mobile technology company, and Prime Focus, (www.primefocusworld.com), the award-winning visual entertainment services company, have announced the opening of its UGC short film contest to support the release of Taptu iPad, its social news reader, and its existing iPhone and Android editions, which all aim to change the way you connect with your world.

Taptu and Prime Focus have collaborated to create the short film competition to support the launch of the free app and the first prize is a four-week internship to work alongside some of the top VFX artists in the world either in Los Angeles, New York, London or Mumbai. Prime Focus have worked on recent blockbusters films including Avatar, Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and Tron, and the winner will be exposed to the world of VFX with the opportunity to learn from the experts and gain invaluable skills.

From the biggest stories of the week to individual passions, Taptu iPad allows consumers to keep everything organised in a clean and intuitive design. Thanks to the company’s search engine heritage, Taptu iPad goes beyond just RSS feeding content and instead actually recommends it, delivering related articles and allowing the discovery of new ones. The app also allows for easy navigation to any article of interest, both from the stream timeline and by a ‘Rubik’s Cube of news’ that gives a visual preview of what’s coming up next. Consumers can also ‘DJ’ their news by mixing streams, allowing them to instantly become a content curator.

The remit for the films made is wide and varied and YouTube will be the platform used to receive entries. The deadline for submissions is 22 June 2011 and the competition will consist of three rounds; the first will be a public vote where the entries will be narrowed down to the 30 most ‘liked’; the second will see the 30 entries posted to Taptu’s Facebook page where visitors can vote by ‘liking’ via the thumbs up button; and on 2 August 2011, the final round will see the entries down to the final five where they’ll be reviewed by the award-winning panel of Prime Focus judges.

Read the full contest rules and enter the contest