A young filmmaker I had the pleasure of working with at the Santa Clarita Valley Film Festival is now a finalist at the Cannes Short Film Corner student competition. His animated film, Sebastian’s Voodoo, is an amazing short. To view the film, please go to this link and vote. You must have a YouTube account to vote, but you can sign up on the page. Vote by clicking on the number of stars (hopefully 5) that you give the project.

The filmmaker’s name is Joaquin Baldwin and he is from Paraguay. Currently, he is in the graduate program at UCLA Film School. After watching the film several times, I had to ask him what his budget was and how long did it take him to complete the project. Here is his response:

It took me 10 months since the idea until the finished render, it was my second year project at UCLA.

I did it all at home with my own computer… if you want to count the computer as part of the budget, I have a $3,000 machine, but I use it for more than just that of course, I didn’t buy it just for this project.

Asides from that, I spent $2,000 for music, and not a single cent anywhere else. That’s the only place where I put actual money down, to hire the composer, engineer and musicians. Now that is great filmmaking on a shoestring budget!

In case you are wondering who he used to compose the music, he told me his friend Nick Fevola is a composer and did this work for him. He has his own studio now.

I think both are on the cusp of very successful careers and you should check out their work. Please help Joaquin with his win by voting for him before May 20, 2009.