Grindhouse Grind-Out Competition

In 2011 the Knoxville Horror Film Fest introduced its own sick twist on the timed filmmaking competition, tasking teams of local creatives with producing a fake grindhouse-style movie trailer from a ridiculous genre chosen draft-style at the competition's opening ceremony.

This year we're thrilled to be celebrating TEN YEARS of the Grind-Out, screening this year's entries on Friday, October 22 at Maryville's Parkway Drive-In as part of the 2021 Knoxville Horror Film Fest... and we want YOU to be a part of it!

Due to the continued challenges posed by COVID, we're once again expanding the production period to help ensure a smooth, safe filmmaking process for our teams. The competition will kick off at 6pm on Wednesday, September 22 and wrap up two weeks later on October 6.

Registration costs $40 and includes (1) single-car admission to Friday night's Drive-In program, featuring Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter and a second feature to be announced soon.

FULL RULES & DETAILS

KICKOFF EVENT INFO

The 2021 KHFF Grindhouse Grind-Out will kick off at 6pm on Wednesday, September 22 at Central Cinema. Doors will open at 5:45pm; at 6:00pm we’ll unveil the list of this year’s genres; at 6:30pm we will draw team names from a hat to determine the draft order, then begin the selection. • The first team drawn will have their pick of everything on the list, and the options will dwindle from there. (We do offer more genres than there are participating teams, ensuring even the last to pick has choices.) • Previous years’ genres range from standards like “Spaghetti Western” and “Found Footage” to more specific stuff like “Clownsploitation” and “Cautionary Filmstrip”. • At least one person from your team must be present to participate in the genre selection; if no one from your team can make it please let us know in advance and you will be allowed to select from the remaining genres once all the attending teams have chosen.

COMPETITION INFO

Teams have two weeks to produce a "grindhouse-style" fake movie trailer rooted in their chosen genre. • Our hope is that teams will use this extended timeframe to plan and execute their production in the safest, most conscientious manner possible. • Finished trailers may run no longer than three minutes.

TURN-IN INFO

Finished trailers must be turned in by 7pm on Wednesday, October 6. • Trailers can be delivered by dropping a USB thumb drive in Central Cinema’s mailbox or sharing a downloadable Dropbox/Google Drive link with knoxhorrorfest@gmail.com. • Entries turned in within a 24-hour grace period following the deadline will still be screened as part of the 2021 Grindhouse Grind-out, but will not be eligible for awards.

TECHNICAL SPECS

Trailers should ideally be delivered in 1080p h.264 stereo MP4 format, verified by the filmmakers as being a final cut free of errors or technical problems. (Pro tip: if you’ve exported/converted correctly you should end up with a quality HD video file no more than 300 megabytes in size, and potentially much smaller.) • We do understand that things often go wrong during this step in the process, however, and are happy to give teams extra time on an exhibition-ready export as long as some sort of reference copy is delivered by the deadline.

SCREENING & AWARDS INFO

The 2021 Grindhouse Grind-out will be presented as part of the thirteenth annual Knoxville Horror Film Fest, running October 21-24. This year’s competing trailers will screen in a single block toward the beginning of October 22’s Friday night program at the Parkway Drive-In in Maryville. • Every Grindhouse Grind-Out team completing a entry for competition will receive (1) single-vehicle pass to Saturday night’s drive-in program, available at Will Call under the team’s name. • We hope to announce our 2021 award winners on Sunday, October 24; full details on a prizes & public awards ceremony are TBD.

RULES & REGULATIONS

Please note that the Grindhouse Grind-out doesn’t include the sort of arbitrary, creatively compromising “required elements” common to timed filmmaking competitions, and return that favor by not beginning any work on your film before the Kickoff Event. • The Grindhouse Grind-out has a well-earned reputation for envelope-pushing adult content, and teams are encouraged to operate on the outskirts of good taste if it makes for a better trailer. KHFF does, however, reserve the right to request edits if we decide a finished entry’s content might run afoul of decency laws, etc. (Legacy teams are also reminded that KHFF has officially retired the overly-sought-after Dictittie Prize For Gratuitous Nudity.) • Entry must not include footage from copyrighted works. • Entries may NOT endorse speech or attitudes of a racist, misogynist, homophobic and/or transphobic nature. (If we feel a team has broken this rule in otherwise good faith, we will request a re-edit to remove the inappropriate content.) • Teams retain all rights to their work, but KHFF asks that the full entry not be posted online until after the GG screening on October 22.