The Saxxy Awards , the annual competition for short films produced inside Source Film Maker , are back for a third year. Now that the SFM community has had full access to Valve's animation software for over a year, expect the number and quality of entries to increase dramatically.
Valve is also adding a new category focusing on videos less than a minute long, Best Short. The standard-length five-minute categories remain in place, but Valve hopes that a special place for shorter entries will encourage busier filmmakers to take part. “One minute may not seem like much time, but when you have to animate all 1800 frames of it yourself, it starts to feel like plenty,” the announcement post says. “Remember that the first six Meet the Team videos up through Meet The Sniper were only one and a half minutes each, and the Aperture Investment Opportunity shorts were anywhere from 45 seconds to just over a minute. We're looking forward to seeing the quality you can achieve when you're focused on a shorter experience.”
Submissions will be open from November 11 to November 18. Aspiring filmmakers should check out the submission guidelines and get to work.
