Wellington filmmakers Jeremy Mansford and Preston McNeil won the Best Use of Visual Effects Award at the BelowGround 4 Music Video Fest Awards in Sydney with their animated clip Mana's Bounce by Recloose.

The production had a Cecil B. DeMille-sized cast (for a music clip) of 55 characters who were composited from footage of people attending a party at the home of beatmaker Recloose.

Mansford and McNeil, who co-directed and produced the clip, made the pilgrimage to Sydney to see it screened and as the program of 30 clips of Australian and NZ directors unfolded, they knew they faced stiff competition from other productions offering visual feasts of computer graphics and animation. But at the end of the night they were called to the stage to be presented with a lens-shaped crystal trophy plus a box of goodies from award sponsor Avid -- the latest Xpress Pro software and manuals worth A$2800.

Mana's Bounce was among half a dozen NZ entries that made the BelowGround screening this year. Three other Wellington filmmakers, Paul Herschell, Sally Tran and David White, also made the final program. And from Auckland, Fish 'n' Clips directors James Barr, Mark Tretheway, Luke Savage and producer James Moore had work screened at the July 20 festival.

Director Anto Skene and producer Anne Gertos, of Melbournes Tim Spicer Film and Television, won Best Funded Clip -- A$5000 equipment supply from Panavision  with their TZU clip, In Front of Me. Another filmmaking team from Melbourne, director Kasimir Burgess and producer Adrian Moses, won Best Independent Clip (A$2500 legal advice from film experts TressCox Lawyers) with Broken Bones by Blackchords.

And the Kodak Best New Filmmaker Award went to Sydney director-producer Matt Chuang, who made the Night With Chopper clip starring  you guessed it  the tattooed and mutilated-eared one himself, Chopper Read (with more than a bit of help from hip-hoppers Hyjak and Torcha). Matthew scored five rolls of 16mm Kodak motion picture film worth A$1000 for his next music clip.

[ http://www.belowground.com.au ]