Big Vision Empty Wallet (BVEW) is a membership-supported organization in New York City dedicated to giving filmmakers and other creative types concrete support for their work. That’s not just ideas, advice, and recommendations, but networking events, negotiated discounts on goods and services, and screenings of members’ films. Now BVEW is working with Canon and Redrock Micro to get technology in a creative filmmakers’s hands — the winner of BVEW’s National Film Pitch Competition will receive a package headlined by a 30-day rental package from Canon with HDSLR cameras and L-Series lenses, plus the blessing of a week’s worth of reshoot time.

To have a shot at the prize — which also includes gear from Redrock Micro and services from companies including music library Konsonant and graphic-design firm Ataboy — participants have to submit a less-than-seven-minute promo video, trailer or scene that encapsulates the feature film they envision making, a treatment, and biographies of the creative team by January 30. The contest will be judged by a panel including cinematographer Russell Carpenter, ASC, and producer Maureen Ryan. The entry fee is $45 or $50, depending on when you submit, and entries include a free one-year membership in BVEW — that’s normally a $97 proposition, making the contest entry a veritable bargain. (Existing BVEW members can submit for free.)

The contest is another way the company’s co-founders, filmmaker Alex Cirillo and writer-actress Dani Faith Leonard, hope to expand the BVEW network and gain more leverage for members. BVEW has compiled a members-only online resource guide that includes more than 100 production forms, vendor directories, and other listings, and negotiates deals with vendors like Moo.com, which offers members 50 free business cards. The group holds free seminars, like the one coming up next week, when a crowdfunding seminar will be presented in New York by RocketHub founder Brian Meece. And members can screen films or exhibit other types of work at regular BVEW events. There are chapters in L.A., Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, too. When I visited the BVEW offices in midtown Manhattan, Leonard told me she had just spoken to someone in Athens about a potential Greek chapter of BVEW.

The future of the organization includes a stronger focus on the nuts and bolts of business and production with the addition of a BVEW Pro membership level that will allow Cirillo and Leonard to pursue more ambitious member benefits while offering new services like a publicity wire, an events calendar, and special in-person and online workshops.

The project that eventually grows out of the National Film Pitch contest will be a great talking point for BVEW, but Cirillo and Leonard hope it will be something more — a full-on feature film that can make the festival rounds. So the judges will be looking for someone with a great idea, but who also knows what goes into a successful shoot. “The most important thing is that any level of artist or filmmaker can benefit from this,” Cirillo said. “You don’t have to be a writer or a director. You have to have a pitch film and the gumption to make it.”

For more information, visit Big Vision Empty Wallet online: www.bigvisionemptywallet.com