Map my summer

YouTube Map My Summer logo
Screen Australia Map My Summer logo

Screen Australia and YouTube collaborated in YouTube Map My Summer, which was designed to engage the nation in sharing the collective Australian summer experience.

UPDATE Monday 20 June 2011: The final Map My Summer film We Were Here can next be seen at the upcoming Melbourne International Film Festival.

WE WERE HERE is the first of its kind in Australia, a film depicting a portrait of the 2011 Australian Summer using only user generated content uploaded to YouTube Map My Summer. The resulting film is a moving, poetic and raw collective expression of cultural identity.

It would not have been possible without the contributions of the Australian YouTube community who uploaded hundreds of videos to Map My Summer and whose work has been re-interpreted by director Amy Gebhardt as part of this film. To everyone who took part, thankyou, we hope you like the film!

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You’re invited to pick up your camera and upload a video to the YouTube Map My Summer portal. This could be anything from a snippet of mobile phone footage to a short film. The only requirement is that it must have been shot after 1 December 2010 and is an expression of summer.

To kick things off, we asked three upcoming local filmmakers, Ariel Kleiman, Luke Doolan and Amy Gebhardt, to create their own short film testaments to the Australian summer experience, with the help of producer Louise Smith.

Legendary filmmaker Dr George Miller (Mad Max, Babe, Happy Feet) then selected Amy Gebhardt to create a final short film using the uploaded footage from YouTube Map My Summer. He will act as mentor to her in making the film, which will have its premiere at a gala event at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2011.

Find out about the films and filmmakers here. Read what Dr George Miller had to say about Amy's film.

As inspiration for your own contributions, hear what Dr George Miller and Sydney Film Festival Director Clare Stewart have to say about the project.

You should also read the Terms and Conditions of participation, available on the Legals page, along with templates for release forms to help you with the process of getting permissions where necessary from third parties.

Update 29 March 2011: The deadline for submissions to the Map My Summer project has been extended until midnight on Friday 8 April 2011 and the 3-minute time limit has been increased to 5 minutes. Please see Latest News and Terms and Conditions for more information.

For more information about YouTube Map My Summer, read the media release.