Canon U.S.A., Ron Howard and Bryce Dallas Howard Discover Five Consumer Directors to Premiere Their Short Films at the Project Imaginat10n Film Festival

MELVILLE, N.Y. - Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, two-time Academy Award® winner Ron Howard, and Bryce Dallas Howard, one of Hollywood’s most versatile actresses and director of the 2011 short film “when you find me,” have announced the five winning consumer directors of the “Project Imaginat10n” film contest, which gave filmmakers of all skill levels an opportunity to showcase their creativity and storytelling abilities. Five celebrity directors also took part in the same creative exercise: Eva Longoria (film and TV actress), Jamie Foxx (Academy Award® winner), Biz Stone (co-founder of Twitter), Georgina Chapman (designer and co-founder of Marchesa) and James Murphy (founder of LCD SOUNDSYSTEM).

The challenge was to create a short film inspired by ten crowdsourced photos in ten storytelling themes: Character, Mood, Goal, Backstory, Setting, Obstacle, Relationship, The Unknown, Time and Discovery. The Discovery photo, “Discovering limits,” was selected by Ron Howard and served as the thematic tie in each film. From hundreds of film submissions, twenty finalists were selected by a panel of judges. From there, Ron Howard and Bryce Dallas Howard selected five winners to be part of “A Ron Howard Presentation.”

Each film was judged based on imaginativeness, originality, technical quality, overall impression and the extent to which the film was inspired by ten of the winning Project Imaginat10n photos. The five Grand Prize winners include:

- Arrius Sorbonne, 24 years old of Salt Lake City, UT with his submission, “Dominus”
- Jared Nelson, 26 years old of Rancho Cucamonga, CA with his submission, “Chucked”
- Julian Higgins, 27 years old of Los Angeles, CA with his submission, “Here and Now”
- Kalman Apple, 53 years old of Los Angeles, CA with his submission, “A Day in the Country”
- Ronnie Allman, 26 years old of San Francisco, CA with his submission, “Filter”

Bryce Dallas Howard, the first “graduating” director of the Project Imagin8ion experiment, utilized her experience from directing the short film, “when you find me,” to mentor aspiring filmmakers across the country through the contest– speaking at select film schools and revealing her tips in an online webisode series, “Bryce’s Project Imaginat10n Film Contest Tutorial.”

“The caliber of films that we reviewed was beyond anything we were expecting,” said Bryce Dallas Howard, “This exercise continues to prove that creativity and collaboration generate endless possibilities that mark the state of our time.”

“We were blown away and humbled by the quality of the films,” said Ron Howard. “The five films selected took an incredible approach to the experiment and were completely imaginative and fascinating.”

The winning consumer-directed films can be viewed at imagination.usa.canon.com.

About Canon U.S.A., Inc.

Canon U.S.A., Inc., is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions. With approximately $40 billion in global revenue, its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ), ranks third overall in U.S. patents registered in 2012† and is one of Fortune Magazine’s World’s Most Admired Companies in 2013. In 2012, Canon U.S.A. has received the PCMag.com Readers’ Choice Award for Service and Reliability in the digital camera and printer categories for the ninth consecutive year, and for camcorders for the past two years. Canon U.S.A. is committed to the highest level of customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing 100 percent U.S.-based consumer service and support for all of the products it distributes. Canon U.S.A. is dedicated to its Kyosei philosophy of social and environmental responsibility. To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company’s RSS news feed by visiting www.usa.canon.com/rss and follow us on Twitter @CanonUSA.

For media inquiries, please contact pr@cusa.canon.com.

ABOUT RON HOWARD

Ronald William “Ron” Howard is an American actor, director and producer. He came to prominence as a child actor, playing Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later as the teenaged Richie Cunningham in the sitcom “Happy Days” for six years. He made film appearances in “American Graffiti” in 1973 and, while starring in “Happy Days,” he also made “The Shootist” in 1976, as well as making his directorial debut with the 1977 comedy film “Grand Theft Auto.” He left “Happy Days” in 1980 to focus on directing, and has since gone on to direct several films, including the Oscar®-winning “Cocoon,” “Apollo 13,” “Frost/Nixon,” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” Ron won the Academy Award® for “A Beautiful Mind” as the director and also producer of the film. In 2003, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

ABOUT BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD

Bryce Dallas Howard has quickly become one of Hollywood’s most versatile and dynamic young talents both on screen and behind the camera. The actress most recently starred as the villainous “Hilly” in Tate Taylor’s big screen adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s bestselling novel “The Help”. Other recent films include “50/50,” Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter,” “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” “Spider-Man 3,” and “Terminator: Salvation.” Her breakout role was starring in M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village” and she earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Kenneth Branagh’s “As You Like It.” Expanding her creative reach beyond acting, Howard produced Gus Van Sant’s “Restless.” She is the founder and owner of the production company Nine Muses Entertainment under which she currently has several projects in development. Howard made her 2006 directorial debut with the short film “Orchids.” In 2011, she directed the experimental collaborative short film “when you find me” presented by Canon. Most recently, Howard directed one of five short films included in The Lifetime Original Movie event “Call Me Crazy: A Five Film.” The anthology, from a team of executive producers including Jennifer Aniston, features five interwoven stories about mental illness.
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† Based on weekly patent counts issued by United States Patent and Trademark Office.

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