Goliathan wrote:Alright judging has begun. Entries will be judged on the following categories.
Animation
Cinematography
Story
Lighting
Effects
Sound
Overall
And by popular request:
Interpretation of the theme.
The fact that you have to throw in "Interpretation of the theme" as a "popular request" is a bit distressing. If it wasn't even going to factor into the judging in the first place, then what's the point of even having a theme to start with?
I think much of this criteria is overly-specific and complicated, and honestly, I think focuses too much on the wrong aspects of making a film for this contest. What if someone were to make a well-written and performed film that unfortunately suffers from low-resolution image quality and was shot at 10 fps? Their film has to suffer for it, perhaps losing out to a film that, while technically more sound, is possibly a lesser film by comparison. Also, some of these categories make no sense; apart from the obvious problems with having a "Visual Effects" category, there is no reason to judge Lighting and Cinematography separately, as they both fall into roughly the same technical category to begin with.
See, I think something like this epitomizes a lot of what is wrong with brickfilming these days, at least as far as where emphasis is placed. Folks are too concerned with upping the technical ante and forgetting to put effort and creativity into the concept behind it so that we're left with these technically impressive shells of films instead of something truly memorable.
Why not simply make the criterion easier for judges and fairer to the competitors by simplifying it to Presentation, Theme, and Story?