Shooting 9/25 – 10/1 • Screening 10/19 at KHFF 2019

Now entering its ninth year as Knoxville’s wildest filmmaking competition, the KHFF Grindhouse Grind-out gives teams of local filmmakers six days and sixty-six minutes to produce an exploitation-style short film or trailer from a list of genres both real or imaginary!

2019 Team Registration

Up to 20 teams will meet at Central Cinema (1205 N Central) at 6pm on Wednesday, September 25 to draft from a list of exploitation and horror subgenres both real and imagined. Teams then have six days and sixty-six minutes to produce a narrative film or grindhouse-style fake movie trailer in their chosen genre.

The films & trailers of the 2018 Grindhouse Grind-out will premiere at Regal Cinemas Downtown West 8 on October 20 as part of the tenth annual Knoxville Horror Film Fest, with a variety of awards and prizes presented at our Awards Party on Sunday night at Central Cinema.

Registration is $40 per team, payable via PayPal.

Team Name
Contact Email

Past Winners

About the Grind-out

KICKOFF EVENT INFO
The 2019 KHFF Grindhouse Grind-Out will kick off Wednesday, September 25 at Central Cinema, 1205 N Central St. 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. (The first drawn will have their pick of everything on the list, and the options will dwindle from there; previous years’ genres range from standards like “Spaghetti Western” and “Found Footage” to more specific stuff like “Clownsploitation” and “Cautionary Filmstrip”.) • At least one representative 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 remotely select from the remaining genres once all the attending teams have chosen.

COMPETITION INFO
Starting at 6:30pm with the genre selection, teams have six days and sixty-six minutes to produce either a fake grindhouse-style trailer or a narrative short film within the confines of the genre they’ve chosen. • Trailers should be no longer than four minutes, and narrative films no longer than seven minutes; you do not need to commit to this choice ahead of time.

TURN-IN INFO
Finished films/trailers must be turned in by 7:36pm on Tuesday, October 1. (Films/trailers turned in within a 24-hour grace period following the deadline will still be screened as part of the 2019 Grindhouse Grind-out, but will not be eligible for awards.) Staff will be available at Central Cinema beginning at 6pm to accept submissions, or you can drop your USB drive in the CC mailbox.

TECHNICAL SPECS
Films/trailers should ideally be delivered on a USB thumb drive as a digital file 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. • If you are unable to hand-deliver your film please email us to arrange digital delivery.

SCREENING & AWARDS INFO
The 2019 Grindhouse Grind-out will be presented as part of the eleventh annual Knoxville Horror Film Fest, running October 17-20. This year’s films and trailers will once again screen as part of KHFF’s Saturday night block of programming at Regal Cinemas Downtown West 8, with an afterparty to follow at Central Cinema. • Awards will be announced and presented Sunday evening during the KHFF Awards Ceremony. • Every Grindhouse Grind-out team completing a film/trailer for competition will receive (2) passes to Saturday night’s screening, available at Will Call under the team’s name. • (Further information on the KHFF schedule, including times and prices, will be made available as it is confirmed.)

JUDGING INFO
Lists of previous years’ Grindhouse Grind-out awards (and the according categories) can be found through the old Grind-out page. • Our GG Awards Jury will be announced prior to the festival, but we do not anticipate announcing the final list of categories in advance of the Awards Party. (We will definitely have at least one Audience Award to hand out, though, so make sure all your friends are at Saturday’s screening!)

RULES & GUIDELINES
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 makes for a better film. KHFF does, however, reserve the right to request edits if we decide a finished film/trailer’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.) • Films/trailers 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 19.