The theme of the BiM 2010 contest is Avant-Garde.

After a successful BiM 2009 contest (STAR: Space, Time, and Reality) the time has come to announce the BiM 2010 contest.  Because the contest starts today, we hope that entrants will have as much time as they need to perfect their entries.

What does "Avant-Garde" mean for the purpose of this contest?  French for advance guard, or vanguard, the central idea is to create something that is innovative and pushes the boundaries of what has been done before.  We want you to reconsider the standard conventions of brickfilming as it is now and create a film that is unique and, on some level, does things that haven't been done in a brickfilm before.  Your film can be experimental and surreal, or simply use new techniques and kinds of storytelling that we probably have not seen before.  Be creative!  Wikipedia's "Avant-garde" article provides a good introduction to the movement from which this contest takes its name.  While this contest is about pushing the boundaries, we're not asking entrants to create films so abstract and nonsensical that they are not enjoyable to watch.  If you're looking for more suggestions, you may want to check this post by me as well as this one by Dr Neo Lao (aka An Old Ore).

As per the nature of this contest, think of some of the obvious concepts you expect other people to use, and avoid those.  A film about a minifig wandering around in a vast, white expanse finding himself may be experimental and surreal, but it has been done more than a few times in this medium and is not what we're hoping to see in entries for this year's contest.

We want this contest to be relatively open ended, so we want creative interpretations of the theme. How creatively entries interpret the theme will be taken into consideration during the judging process.

Each entry you submit must:

• Be primarily composed of stop-motion animation. 3D, Flash, or other animation techniques may be used to in addition to stop-motion as long as the finished product is at least roughly 50% stop-motion animation.

• Use LEGO or similar building toys as primary elements.

• Not contain adult language, excessive violence or sexual themes.

• Contain only images, sounds, music, and story material which you have the rights to distribute -- no copyrighted content to which you do not have the rights may be used.

• Be longer than 30 seconds, and contain more than 30 seconds of stop-motion animation.  There is no maximum time restriction.

Though there is no maximum running time restriction, remember that 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 3 minute movie is better than a 10 minute movie that falls apart as it goes because the director ran out of time to do it the right way.  The judging system won't favor 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.

The deadline for submissions will be Sunday, July 25th, 2010 at 8:00 a.m. UTC.

Films may be submitted as early as the beginning of July 2010, though they cannot be made public until after the deadline has passed.

No trademarked properties which might be confused with commercial enterprises may be used. This means you can not use storylines based on characters from Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, or other trademarked series. You cannot base your work on copyrighted material; however, old works that are now in the public domain are acceptable source material.

All material included in films submitted must be original, or content that you have expressed permission to use. If you use content that is not your own, you must be able to provide proof that you have received permission to include it in your film. All music must be credited, even if you made it yourself.

There are two ways to submit your film to this contest.  You only need to submit your film once, either way will be accepted.

1) Send a private message in the BiM forums to username “BiM 2010” including your name and a link to download the entry. We will accept .avi, .mov, and .wmv formats.

2) Post your video as a video response to this video.  This may be done as soon as July 20th, 2010.  The video can not be available online prior to July 20th.

All major aspects of filmmaking will be taken into account in the judging process.  For the purpose of determining rankings and winners, the panel (yet to be determined) will judge films on the basis of storytelling, presentation, and innovative interpretation of the contest theme.

3rd Place:

• Miniature LEGO trophy with the director's name, courtesy of CJB Graphics.

• $10 in store credit at CJB Graphics.

• $50 in credit to the Bricklink store Cincinnati Bricks.

2nd Place:

• Miniature LEGO trophy with the director's name, courtesy of CJB Graphics.

• $15 in store credit at CJB Graphics.

• $75 in credit to the Bricklink store Cincinnati Bricks.

1st Place:

• Miniature LEGO trophy with the director's name, courtesy of CJB Graphics.

• $20 in store credit at CJB Graphics.

• $125 in credit to the Bricklink store Cincinnati Bricks.

• A license for Dragon Stop Motion 2.0., for Windows or Mac.

• A Blue Snowball USB Microphone, courtesy of Bricks in Motion.

In addition to the contest prizes, Cincinnati Bricks is offering a promotion for all contest entrants:

• All entrants of the BiM 2010 contest are entitled to a 5% discount on purchases from Cincinnati Bricks.  To claim your discount, mention in the order comments on BrickLink seeing this notice, and provide your BiM forum username and the name of the contest film you are working on.  We will allow an unlimited number of purchases with this discount provided that the order purchased will be used for the buyer's contest entry.

• Cincinnati Bricks will give $10 Bricklink coupons for their store to anyone who includes the Cincinnati Bricks logo / site URL in his or her entry's credits.  (Note: this would be done after the contest deadline has passed.)

• Alternately, anyone who works the Cincinnati Bricks logo creatively into his or her film is eligible to receive a $15 coupon.  To redeem this coupon entrants will need to contact Cincinnati Bricks through the store's "contact us" link and provide the URL of the film and single image capture showing their logo in the film.  (Note: this would be done after the contest deadline has passed.)