Face to Face with... Jeremy Boxer

Next year will see the second annual Vimeo Film Festival + Awards, held in New York. Here, Jeremy Boxer, festival co-director explains the thinking behind the event and how it has eveolved from its inaugural show.

Why did you decide to launch the Vimeo Film Festival + Awards last year?

In the past few years we have watched online video explode into the primary medium for new talent discovery.  As more and more creators earn visibility, credibility and, ultimately, work by showcasing their videos online, we wanted to celebrate the best of the best of these videos and provide a place where new talent could get discovered.

So, our decision was largely based on a couple of factors. Firstly, we discovered that there was nowhere that officially celebrated the best of creative online video.  Secondly, most traditional film festivals will not accept your work if it has premiered online. So we created the Vimeo Festival + Awards to be the gold standard for the best in creative online video and we decided to only accept works that have premiered online.

Were you surprised at the amount and quality of the entries?

We were thrilled to have over 6,500 entries in our first year and a short list that included entries from 24 different countries around the world. We knew that online video could be beautiful and creative, but we were really blown away by the entries we received. We don’t judge films and videos on their subject, nor on the cost of the project, only on the basis that a good idea, well executed is the key to a high quality entry.

What will the Festival aspect of the event feature in 2012?

We'll have more information on the Festival programme itself next year.

You have introduced some new categories this year; how important is it to keep evolving and innovating the Festival?

We believe that the Vimeo Festival + Awards represents the best of online video.  We are always looking evolve the festival to reflect where and how people express their creativity online.  In the past 18 months, we have witnessed a proliferation of interesting and innovative content from a wider range of industries including fashion, action sports and advertising. We also want to ensure that beautiful, poetic works, such as time-lapse, tone poems, video haikus, etc. are acknowledged and given the credit they deserve (this is our Lyrical category).

Advertising is one of the new categories; do you think that brands have embraced the advantages of online branded content that consumers willfully seek out?

We're really excited to be including a category for advertising this year. There is a lot of brand-funded content out there - much of which is eligible for other categories (brand-funded documentaries or music videos for example) but in the last year or so particularly viral commercials have been getting increasingly interesting so we had to give them a space of their own.

The online platform provides an opportunity for brands to engage audiences in really exciting ways. As always, ideas are key but people - even outside the industry - seem to be especially interested in the process of making creative content and will not only spend time watching an advertising film/video if it's fun or interesting enough but will then also spend a further four or five minutes watching a behind the scenes 'making of' film, watching video responses from other punters or even just taking the time to leave their thoughts in the comments. And of course if someone likes a piece of content they'll share it on Facebook or Twitter to make sure all their friends have seen it too.

It's much more of a conversation now that the online platform has allowed everyone to break away from the traditional 30 or 60 second top down format so it's really worth doing something people will enjoy and talk about. Some brands have understood this way of thinking for a while now but for those who haven't it's getting harder and more dangerous to not get involved.

Can you shed any light on who some of the judges for the Awards will be next year?

We will release the complete jury in early February 2012.  We are really fortunate to have all of the 2010 category winners as judges in 2012. These guys know first hand how the impact of winning the awards can impact your career and they are perfectly placed to judge their peers.

As for our industry expert-judges, we’ve got an impressive line-up – so stay tuned for the announcement in February.  However, we want to offer you a taste of the experts that will judge our new categories; Stacy Peralta for Action Sports, David Droga for Advertising, Nick Knight for Fashion, and Phillip Bloom for Lyrical.

What do you hope that the Vimeo Film Festival + Awards will continue to achieve?

We're striving to create a platform where more creators’ careers can be launched. We hope we can continue inspire people to create and share their work and to look at online video as a way of getting discovered.

For more information on the festival click here.