Fan Film Competition Winners

Did you enter? Did you win? Find out inside!

24 June, 2005

Well, a great-big planet-sized thank-you goes out to everyone who submitted a film to our competition. From the hilarious to the clever to the frankly incomprehensible, the entries for a coveted place on the DVDs ran the gamut. We thank you from the very bottom of our rehydration units.

Two entries in particular, though, stood out from the crowd - if only by virtue of not being based around a few mates from college filming in some woods - and have been declared winners by Doug Naylor and the production team. They are:

Attack of the Giant Hand Monster - James Hickey
The Movie: Yeah, No, Yeah, No - Ian Symes/Observation Dome

Congratulations guys!

James' short is a beautifully designed and shot 'puppet' film influenced by Series IV. It also features some extremely inventive sound design, wherein the characters do speak, but only in repeated single words (Holly says "dudes", Rimmer says "officer", Lister jabbers "curry, curry, curry" in a Scouse accent) leaving their full meaning to be shown in subtitles. If it sounds a bit mad, well, it might be, but it works.

Ian Symes, meanwhile, presents us with a spoof documentary set in the offices of Grant Naylor Productions, following Doug Naylor's attempts to find funding for the Red Dwarf movie. Based in large part on Doug's message to fans from last year's convention, it's a cleverly scripted piece with a high gag-rate and a ridiculous eye for detail (Doug reading a Rob Grant novel, Andrew using the Red Dwarf Corgi toy as a pencil). Though we have questioned whether anyone outside the office will find it as funny as we did...

The winners will both be included on the Series VII DVD, alongside an introduction by Doug Naylor and a montage of clips from the more interesting runners-up.

And speaking of runners-up, we have a 'top five' of those who were short-listed which rate a mention. They are:

James Bull: Red Dwarf Collector - Liam Fretwell
Locker 000169 - David VG Davies
Planetoid of the Cats - David Martin
White Hole Project - Daniel Stephenson
Series I Opening Titles - Keir Shiels

Collector is a slickly-edited documentary about the man who owns more Dwarf items than the production itself. Locker 000169 uses some cunning production design to show what happens to Lister's locker contents during three million years in stasis. Planetoid, an animated film, catches up with the Cat's lost people. White Hole Project replays the episode's 'What is it?' scene in CGI Lego. And the Series I Titles (created by Series VI fan commentator Keir) craftily recreates a possible sequence for Series I, in the style of Series III-VIII.

No word yet on what, if anything, happens with the fan films website-wise, but it's hoped that all top-five runners-up will be able to be shown at this year's Dimension Jump Convention.

There's also an honourable mention for Red Dwarf - The Other Movie by Julian Smith. A fan film of long standing, and previously shown at DJ, this was the project that inspired the competition. Thanks guys. This distinction has awarded the film special clip status - you'll be able to see extracts alongside the montage and introduction mentioned above.

As for the winners - well, to see them you'll just have to wait until the DVD release in November!