This morning Slamdance had their annual press conference at the Treasure Mountain Inn on Main Street, only this year Kathleen McInnis is the new festival director.

They introduced the filmmakers, the sponsors, the BRAND NEW gamming competition and their brand new On-The-Fly Filmmaking Challenge. The focus of the challenge is to spotlight the creative talents of filmmakers. A hat (not Dan Mirvish's) was held high in the air, inside the hat was pieces, each with a word written on the paper. The filmmakers reached in to draw a piece of paper, and the word on the paper would determine the subject of the film they will be making over the course of the next five days.

The On-The-Fly filmmakers will have to conceive, shoot, edit and screen a five-minute documentary based on a word drawn out of a hat.

The three filmmakers who were chosen and who actually agreed to do participate are Amy Elliott, Karin Hayes and Paul Willis. The chosen words were snow, vein, and art...if I remember correctly.

The Slamdance sponsor BAWLS, an energy drink with 3x the caffeine as coffee will definitely come in handy this week for these folks.

You can catch these 5 min docs at 6:30pm on Thurs. Jan 27th.