THE MUSICAL WORLD CONTEST - A MUSIC BASED BRICKFILM CONTEST

CONTEST
This summer, Bricks in Motion challenges you to create a brickfilm centered around a piece of music of your choice.
The contest will run from JULY 6TH to SEPTEMBER 30TH. This year, the contest sponsors who are providing the prize pool are: Dragonframe, The Lego Ambassador Network, and Brickstuff.

THEME
In this year's contest, we want you to create a brickfilm that lets the music explain the visuals (or vice-versa). What does this mean? One example would be timing up your animation with highs and lows in the music, almost as if the sound is controlling what is happening on-screen. Or, this could be the characters in your film speaking the lyrics of a song as dialogue to give your visual interpretation of what you imagine the lyrics to be portraying. So, pop in your favorite CD or listen to your favorite playlist and think to yourself, "What does this look like?" And if you need some inspiration, we've got a handy-dandy playlist of a bunch of classic music-based brickfilms!

As in previous years, originality is always encouraged. While the temptation to recreate your favorite music video may be strong, you might instead consider making your own original music video for the song instead of recreating the official one shot-for-shot. And, as always, while use of trademarked IPs and their respective characters are allowed, we encourage you to develop your own characters (if you have characters, that is ).

SPONSORS
This year's generous prize sponsors are: Dragonframe, The Lego Ambassador Network, and Brickstuff!



PRIZES
Dragonframe 5 + Controller

Dragonframe is the premium stop motion animation software that captured Laika's ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls and Disney's Frankenweenie. This software is easy enough for a beginner to learn, but offers a wealth of advanced features sure to meet the needs of any stop motion animator. Software and controller included. For Mac OSX and Windows.
Lego IDEAS 21329 Fender Stratocaster

Lighting Prize from Brickstuff

In addition, this year there is a separate prize category: Promising Director. This will be awarded to a film that while not necessarily in the top ten, the judges feel displays the creator's passion for their work and their potential to become a great brickfilm director in the future.
Promising Director Prize: Lego 31156 Tropical Ukulele

JUDGES
Entries will be judged on their overall creativity, quality, and interpretation of the contest's theme and spirit by the 5 judges. Rather than scoring individual categories like animation or story, the judges will examine each film on how well it comes together, whatever kind of film it is, as a complete artistic work. Films will be discussed and ranked collectively by the judges until a consensus is reached. The top 3 films will be eligible for the prize pool.

obstinarian
is known for has made Avaritia Pt. 1 and many other projects, and is also the host of this contest.

Joshua David Mitchell
is known for writing and performing original music for many, many brickfilms.

James Cawood
has made many brickfilm music videos and was an admin of the Brickfilm Day community.

Jay Silver
is known for The Gauntlet and Rise of the Empire and has voice acted in an innumerable amount of brickfilms.

Feinstein
can play the kazoo real well. In addition, he made A Dane Cook Christmas. Need I say more?

RULES
•  Dialogue is forbidden.
•  Sound effects are allowed, but must be used in moderation and ideally need to enhance or coincide with the music.
    Entries should use LEGO or similar building toys as primary elements.
•    No mature/explicit content is allowed. This includes, but is not limited to: excessive swearing, excessive violence, overt sexual content, and blatant drug references.
•    There is a minimum requirement of 30 seconds of animation. There is no maximum runtime. Remember, it is better to focus on quality and attention to detail than to make a very long and ambitious film, but let the quality suffer. A highly-polished three-minute movie is better than a ten-minute movie that falls apart because the director ran out of time to do it the right way. The judging system won't favour a film for simply being longer, but low production values will hurt a longer film when competing against a shorter film that is better made.
•    Submitted films must be new films. Even if you do submit a film you began working on before this competition was announced, that is fine as long as you haven't released it anywhere before this contest, and it fits the theme of this contest.
•    Films may not be posted publicly until after the contest deadline has passed.
•      The entry you submit to the judges must be the entry made publicly available to everyone else. This means you can't submit a rough version for judging then post a polished version you spent more time on as though it were your entry to the contest publicly. You may post reworked versions of your film once contest judging is completed and results have been announced.
•    All music must be credited, even if you made it yourself.
•    Entries that use characters from trademarked properties as source material are allowed, but it is encouraged to create your own characters or even use old works that are now in the public domain.

DEADLINE
The deadline for submissions will be Sunday, September 22nd, at 11:59 PM EST
Films may be submitted as early as the beginning of July 7, 2024, though they cannot be made public until after the deadline has passed.

To submit your film, send a link to your entry to: [email protected]

Write the subject of your email in this format:
Musical World entry, [Your Bricks in Motion username], “[Title of your film]”
For example: Musical World entry, Dane Cook, "The Hills Are Dead Without The Sound of Music"

Our preferred method of submission is unlisted YouTube links. If you do not have a YouTube account, we also accept password-protected Vimeo uploads and Google Drive links (Be sure to change the privacy settings so that anyone with the link can access it.)

Q&A
Q: Are CG brickfilms allowed?
A: Yes; in this contest, CG brickfilms are allowed to be entered, and will be eligible for ranking.

Q: Are we allowed to use the contest logo in our entry? In the credits of our film, for example?
A: Yes, Although this is not required. The logo can be found here: https://brickshelf.com/gallery/SillyPen … ogo_v1.png

Q: Can we collaborate with others to create an entry?
A: Yes! Collaboration is encouraged. However, we won't be able to divide up the prizes evenly for you, so you'll have to determine who receives the prizes in the case of a win. Entries may be submitted on the basis of one entry per director, so you can help with someone else's entry and still enter a film you've directed.

Q: May we post trailers, images, or other work-in-progress elements of our film publicly on the forum?
A: This is encouraged! Feel free to post about the progress on your film on the Discord or in the forums. You can even make a thread devoted to your progress on a film if you like.

Q: Can we use some non-LEGO elements in building our sets and characters?
A: Yes! The intention of the rule is to put the focus of films made for the competition on LEGO filmmaking, but with this particular contest mixing and melding different elements is definitely encouraged! Think about what the contrast and use of different elements can help you accomplish narratively and visually.

Q:Are we allowed to release alternate versions of our films at the same time as the version submitted to the contest? (for instance, a version with profanity or other restricted content)
A: In order to maintain the integrity of the judging process, please only release the version you are submitting to the contest publicly at the time the deadline passes. Entrants who violate this rule may be disqualified. If you want to re-release a revised version of your film, you may do so after contest judging is completed and results have been announced.

Q: Are we required to include any "mod elements" like BiM's THAC contest?
A: No, there are no mod elements in the Musical World Contest. Those are used in THAC to ensure films are created in the 24-hour period. You have over two months this time. Even if you did submit a film you began working on before this competition was announced, that would be fine as long as you haven't released it anywhere before this contest, and it fits the theme of this contest.

Q: How fast and loose should I play with the content restriction rules?
A: Ultimately, we want winning entries that won't earn us angry emails from parents, or concern from contest sponsors (present and future) if they win and are celebrated throughout BricksInMotion.com and our social media postings. This community has members of a diverse variety of ages and backgrounds in it, so for a competition we want to be respectful of that. These rules are undoubtedly going to be limitations for some filmmakers, but we believe it's still possible to make compelling, even dramatic stories within these limitations. Potentially, one could approach them as creative limitations that empower the filmmaker to find more original, inventive ways of conveying ideas in a film.

Q: When can we share our films publicly?
A: As soon as the contest deadline passes, September 22nd at 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time.

Last edited by Obstinarian (July 15, 2024 (05:06pm))