Movie attendance is down 10% this year. Bad word of mouth when it comes to this year's mainstream releases perhaps? Moviemaking competitions are a great way to put our money where our mouths are, and here are some worth shooting for:

-- In surely the first competition of its kind (outside of some obscure William Gibson story maybe), this January filmmakers will converge in Second Life for the 48 Hour Film Project. It's an abstract brain-twister: each filmmaking team will be given a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue to be worked into their film; the movies will be entirely written, cast, shot, edited, and viewed all within the virtual world in 48 hours. Ultimately the winning entry will be screened in the real world at in March at Cinequest. If you already know what machinima is, this'll be right up your alley.

-- The Chicago Short Comedy Video and Film Festival and the Chicago Comedy TV Pilot Competition are now accepting submissions. All projects must be created by Chicago area residents or Chicago area-based production companies (sorry IN and WI readers). The payoffs are sweet, including screenings and (for the winner of the pilot award) a $5,000 cash prize. Both contests have March deadlines; full info here.