Celebrating the Flavors of Filmmaking at Slamdance

Last month, Josh Gibson went to the Slamdance Film Festival with his short film Kudzu Vine… and came back with his very own Panasonic AG-AF100, a full HD camcorder that retails for $4,995.00.

Gotta say, not too shabby. For Gibson, an associate director and instructor of film at Duke University, the boon came courtesy of Panasonic’s Five Flavors of Filmmaking contest, held in cooperation with Slamdance. The contest called upon five teams to use the AF100, the official camera of the festival, to create a one-minute film based on a flavor. Gibson chose to interpret the flavor he was assigned—watermelon—with an experimental film that brought to life three haiku poems by the 17th century Japanese poet Basho.

To shoot his film, Gibson chose to outfit the AF100 with vintage Russian Lomo lenses, which allowed him to capture visually stunning close-ups of the food (a watermelon, a white fish and leek tips) that served as the centerpiece of his 60-second short. “While I hadn’t previously worked with the AF100, I was familiar with it,” says Gibson. “With its built-in ND filters and XLR inputs, I certainly consider it a big step-up from HDSLRs… I really love the ability to put different lenses on it and configure the camera in all kinds of ways.”

To find out more about Panasonic’s Five Flavors of Filmmaking Contest and the Slamdance Film Festival, visit www.slamdance.com.