Montblanc Short Film Contest Seeks To Capture 'The Beauty Of A Second' (VIDEO)

The first round of winners have been announced in the "Beauty Of A Second" short film contest sponsored by watchmaker Montblanc. The first round compilation video features 60 different one second long videos submitted by contest entrants strung together in succession.

"It's a movie of life itself," German photographer and film director Wim Wenders said on the contest website. "One second at at time."

The challenge asks participants to submit an ultra-short film documenting their best idea of what one second of beauty looks like. The one second submissions are then posted on the competition's website where users can view the videos as well as create their own compilation videos -- called "playlists" -- of between 20 and 60 individual videos.

Winners will be selected from both the one second submissions and from the user-generated playlists. Contest winners will receive a Montblanc Nicolas Rieussec Chronograph watch, a weekend trip for two to Berlin, and a chance to meet with Wim Wenders.

All the videos are available to view on the contest website, and users can vote on their favorites in the submissions gallery.

Complete information on the competition, including how to participate by submitting your own one second film, is also available on the Montblanc website.

In October, 2011 the full footage of the compilation film "Life In A Day" was made available to stream for free on YouTube. Despite being heralded as the "first social media movie ever made," film critic Anthony Benigno wrote that the crowd-sourced video montage felt more like "an extended, sometimes assaultive advertisement for YouTube than a proper documentary."

Comments

[bigshotprof]

02:56 PM on 12/01/2011

This one of those art things that is much harder to conceive and create than it looks--which is the real art. almost all of them were really good.

[Gronkie]

01:38 PM on 11/30/2011

Wow, what a great artistic concept. Maybe I'll submit a video of the beautiful blue eyes of my Siamese cat Maggie..

[bigshotprof]

02:57 PM on 12/01/2011

I'm uploading my wedding night. It's perfect for this!

[Smarty5]

12:45 AM on 11/30/2011

Beautiful! they also make great pens.

[spaghettidinner]

03:20 PM on 11/29/2011

"I have this new Sony Red HD video camera...now the world can see what a genius I am...now the world can finally see the wonder with which I perceive every moment of life...what to film...what to film....I know...a cat."

[Michael Allen Powers]

07:54 PM on 11/29/2011

Y'know, there's a difference between being witty, and being glib. Way to suck the beauty out of the simple things.

[Gronkie]

01:38 PM on 11/30/2011

Few things are more beautiful than a cat.

[carnivaluv]

02:09 PM on 11/29/2011

Very nice.

[BuckyJamesDio]

11:17 AM on 11/29/2011

These make Five Second Films feel like The English Patient.

[John Paul From Austin Tx]

10:17 AM on 11/29/2011

it's just a picture. nothing new here.

[LiveMind]

09:19 AM on 11/30/2011

way to entirely miss the point.

[bigshotprof]

03:00 PM on 12/01/2011

I feel as though this is one of those "my kid's finger painting at the Met" kind of moments. It looks like something anyone could do, but it you look again, you will see that there are stories packed into those specific seconds. If you try to actually do what seems so easy you find out how much of an eye it takes.
(When I say "you" I mean the generic you, not you personally. You might be really good at this)

[Mrsbean54]

08:42 AM on 11/29/2011

Don't waste your seconds! There won't be enough of them.

[debberae]

02:13 PM on 11/30/2011

Good advice....like sands through the hourglass, so are the seconds of our lives....