According to The Hollywood Reporter, Google/YouTube are launching a short film contest called Project Direct. Entries, which will be accepted from October 7-November 9, must be between two and seven minutes in length and must feature a character dealing with a “situation above his or her maturity level.” Twenty finalists will be chosen by Juno director Jason Reitman, from which YouTube users will pick a winner. In addition to placement on YouTube’s homepage, the lucky first-place filmmaker will win a “$5,000 debit card” and nine-day trip to a “top international film festival” (based on the contest end date, I’m guessing it’s Sundance), where they’ll take a meeting with Fox Searchlight execs.

It’s interesting that they––and really, I’m not sure if “they” is Google/YouTube, Fox Searchlight, contest sponsor Hewlett-Packard, or some combination of the three––assume that what someone posting their work on YouTube really wants is to hang out at a traditional film festival and schmooze with Fox Searchlight executives. It seems bold, or really foolhardy, to assume that web filmmakers are doing what they do as a stepping stone to old-school Indiewood success, and not for success within the online video community, that just being at a film festival like Sundance is preferable to showing one’s work at an event produced by and for web filmmakers, like Pixelodeon. I’m sure a lot of people showing work on YouTube are in it for that kind of crossover success, but I personally can think of a handful of video producers who’d probably rather take those nine days and that “$5,000 debit card” and make another ten films.

I’d be interested to hear what online video producers think about this: does this seem like the dream package, or is it misguided to assume that creators posting video on YouTube necessarily long for the traditional, film festival experience?