The Shanghai Short Film Competition 6.2 had some very impressive entries and some real stinkers! Anyhow, the range of talent was obvious.

Here are the Winners:

First Place: “The Corp.” directed by Jean-Michelle Tori
Second Place: “Talking Heads” directed by Michael Beets
Third Place: “Tradition” directed by Severin Bonichon

Best Actor: Richard Trombly in “Claustro”
Best Actress: Christy Shapiro in “The Love Story of Alfred J. Pintuck”

Special People’s choice award: “Tradition” directed by Severin Bonichon

The gay love story of “Tradition” was a memorable experience with excellent cinematography, music and a touching storyline. Thought the winners, I think won more for their visual flair than for the substance of the movie itself. “Talking Heads” was a very interesting seemingly roto-scoped experimental piece that had some amazing animation style visuals and cross scene effects. It was not at all in the style of Michael Beets, but he still makes it memorable piece, as are his other films. “The Corp.” can be best summed up as: “Bad guys in helicopter shoot at another guy, guy runs away, bad guys come inside, shoot some more and finally capture the guy”. The movie had amazing special effects with a helicopter moving around the office building and shooting through the windows, as well as bad guys with gun blazing in the building. The movie, as flashy as it was, was just that, all flash and no substance. Perhaps this film deserved an award for best visuals, but I would not choose it as the winner by far.

The people’s choice award was audience voted piece on which movie they thought was the best. Their choice was “Tradition”, a movie with no special effects and all substance which I thought was a better reflection on truly innovative filmmaking.

As always though, native NY actress Christy Shapiro gave an outstanding performance in “The Love Story of Alfred J. Pintuck”. She is truly one of the outstanding talents we have the privilege of having here in Shanghai.

One last congratulations and praise to all the filmmakers and actors out there! Keep up your passion, and let’s see if you can outpace yourselves at the next competition!

For those of you who missed the Improv game-show at the Acting up! event yesterday you missed a doozy! The audience was laughing their ass of at the hilarious antics! They will be doing it the 3rd Monday of every month from now on.

Read more about it at the SAA website.

The new Tanghui bar is turning into an artists den. On most nights they have live bands rocking it up. Mondays now they host actors and other industry people in “Acting Up“. Actors can meet like minded thespians, and a lot of improv has been seen going on around.

Now Tanghui is calling all those aspiring musicians to come down and match wits in the Battle of the Bands! There will be several rounds all on upcoming Saturdays and Sundays, finally culminating in the final battle on September 23rd and 24th.

If that wasn’t enough, the East West Theater company is preparing to stage a murder mystery event at Tanghui sometime in September. A real whodunit type party, the guests will have to figure out who killed who. The EWTC performers have not disappointed yet, so I am looking forward to this one!

One way or another, I see Tanghui as becoming the haven for those performer and creative types in Shanghai. Rock on!

Update:
Tanghui will also be hosting a pemiere of a short movie this coming Sunday. It was shot entirley in Shanghai by locals anf foreigners living in Shanghai. For those apiring filmmakers, it will be a great opportunity to show what Shanghai based talent can do!

Most people in the bar/club business can agree on one thing. The lifespan of the typical club is not long in Shanghai. Only in a few rare cases do clubs last longer than the 3 year mark.

A lot of clubs are opened by local Chinese with too much money on their hands. They go into a club, and think, “hey this is cool, I’ll open a club too! I can make money and have fun!”. Unfortunately this spells ultimate doom for these clubs that are supposed to somehow magically just work. It takes more than money and hope to run a successful business guys!

For those few that have made it, like Guandii and Babyface, they have hit a goldmine. Though, even established places like Park 97 are feeling the strain these days.

Anyhow, the newer clubs in Shanghai are getting more and more ambitious. With the new Pier 1 complex, Wynn Wins or whatever it’s called and the like, these clubs are getting outrageously large and expensive. Can Shanghai sustain these clubs? I doubt it, but time will tell.

Keep an eye out for Arena club-house and Juli-Anna Bar/Club/Music Place, two new clubs which, like all the others claim to have “something different” that will attract hordes of customers.