{"id":6184,"date":"2015-04-12T08:24:34","date_gmt":"2015-04-12T14:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=6184"},"modified":"2015-04-14T05:06:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-14T11:06:00","slug":"prairie-lights-dazzling-variety-of-films-celebrate-montana-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2015\/04\/prairie-lights-dazzling-variety-of-films-celebrate-montana-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Dazzling variety of films celebrate Montana"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ruggiero\"<\/a>

Here’s a still from Colin Ruggiero’s “Montana,” my favorite entry in the “Real Montana” one-minute film competition.<\/p><\/div>\n

If you\u2019re reading this and it\u2019s warm and sunny outside, you might want to stop right here and continue later.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because I want to tell you about a collection of one-minute films that attempt to capture various aspects of Montana, and you\u2019re liable to think, as I did, \u201cWhat\u2019s the harm in watching a few one-minute films?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ed<\/a>

Ed Kemmick<\/p><\/div>\n

Next thing you know, you\u2019ll have blown a good portion of a beautiful afternoon staring at your computer screen. On the other hand, there are so many good short films here, and such a variety of Montana scenes, that you might not even mind.<\/p>\n

The shorts are part of a \u201cReal Montana<\/a>\u201d competition sponsored by the state Office of Tourism. By my count, the competition attracted 137 films in five categories, \u201cFood and Beverage,\u201d \u201cArtists, Culture and Events,\u201d \u201cMontana Places,\u201d \u201cOutdoor Adventures\u201d and \u201cWildlife and Scenery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anybody can watch the videos and vote for their favorites once a day for the duration of the contest. Voting in the first round started last Tuesday and goes through April 21. The top two videos in each category will then go to the final round of voting, which will run April 22-29.<\/p>\n

Prizes totaling $40,000 will be awarded during the competition and some films will be featured on the state travel website, VisitMT.com<\/a> and in other tourism advertising.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t watch every entry, but I\u2019m pretty sure my favorite is the simply titled \u201cMontana<\/a>,\u201d by Colin Ruggiero, a time-lapse tour of the state. You\u2019ll be amazed at how many stunning vistas, from the peaks of Glacier National Park to the badlands of Eastern Montana, Ruggiero manages to pack into one minute.<\/p>\n

The funniest of the lot has to be \u201cMontana in a Minute<\/a>\u201d by Andrew Porterfield. It intentionally tells you absolutely nothing about the state, with terrible animation and worse audio. What\u2019s not to like?\u00a0Another funny one is \u201cHow to wave \u2018Hello\u2019 in Montana<\/a>,\u201d referring to rural-road protocol of lifting an index finger off the steering wheel, contrasted with the very unMontana-like practice of waggling all the fingers on one hand.<\/p>\n

An unintentionally humorous video is \u201cRarely Seen Wildife<\/a>,\u201d parts of which appear to have been filmed in the 1960s. The video even ends with a clip that will be familiar to anyone who used to watch television in Montana back in the dark ages.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>In that distant age\u2014and this is true, young people\u2014there were only a few channels available, and they all signed off sometime at night, resuming early the next morning. One of the stations closed each broadcast day with a playing of the National Anthem, accompanied by footage that included a bald eagle swooping down and plucking a fish out of a river. That vignette is featured in this inexplicable entry.<\/p>\n

Western Montana, as you might expect, is heavily represented here, but two good films from the southeastern corner of the state were produced by Eric White, one on Ekalaka<\/a> and the other on Carter County<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fort Peck Lake is captured in a beautiful video<\/a> that will make you want to head up there pronto, and you might get a dose of travel fever from watching \u201cBeartooth Highway: Opening day \u2026 worth the wait<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also from this area of the state are good videos on the Red Ants Pants Music Festival<\/a> and the Red Lodge Ales<\/a> brewery, and an exceptionally well done paean to downtown Billings<\/a>, about which I have written before<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one more Billings video, which might also have the longest title in the competition: \u201cNorth to the Tasting Room for a Made in Montana Bloody Mary Bar<\/a>.\u201d It is a joint production of Trailhead Spirits on Montana Avenue\u2014which provides the vodka and all the fixin\u2019s\u2014and the makers of Parker\u2019s Hangover Tonic, which the folks at the Trailhead swear is the best Bloody Mary concentrate drink mix available.<\/p>\n

Another interesting aspect of this competition is that it is hosted by Audience Awards, which, according to the Flathead Beacon<\/a>, \u201cis a Missoula-based business that provides a social media platform for videos, short films and other film-related projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know whether the Montana Legislature will continue to support the state\u2019s film industry<\/a>, but the advent of Audience Awards, and the quality of so many of these shorts, should be enough to raise anyone\u2019s hopes for the future of made-in-Montana movies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re reading this and it\u2019s warm and sunny outside, you might want to stop right here and continue later. That\u2019s because I want to tell you about a collection of one-minute films that attempt to capture various aspects of Montana, and you\u2019re liable to think, as I did, \u201cWhat\u2019s the harm in watching a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2340,2341,2348,745,2345,2347,2344,2343,2009],"class_list":["post-6184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prairie-lights","tag-real-montana","tag-audience-awards","tag-carter-county","tag-downtown-billings","tag-ekalaka","tag-montana-office-of-tourism","tag-parkers-hangover-tonic","tag-red-lodge-ales","tag-trailhead-spirits","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}