IAC DISCUSSION FORUMS

Michael - thanks for the detailed notes on making perfect DVDs on a Mac system. Can anyone give similarly detailed notes for PC systems with program names and settings? It would be very much welcomed. Who suggested that copies of DVD's are degraded? Not so, they are identical and I use Titanium Toas...

Every competition manager I have spoken to in the last year has a tale of DVD problems. Some point-blank refuse to play in some machines, others stutter, while many play perfectly. For the next year or so at least I recommend sending Mini-DV tapes to any competition that can accept them. Very occasi...

None of my club went to sleep when I showed it to them (quite unusual - someone usually dozes off) Maybe that is one thing an outside judge really can help with ... telling you when the movie is too long or too slow ... even occasionally when a movie is too fast for people to follow. In my own atte...

Hi Ian First make sure the buzz really is on the tapes. I once spent ages mucking about with a soundtrack hum only to find that a fault in my computer kit was adding the buzz at that stage and the original tapes were fine! There are lots of sound editing programs which can help. My own favourite is ...

One German film maker who has a large output on DVD swears by Ulead and he has used most systems on the market! Prompted by Ned's mention of his sound editing programs I want to mention the shareware program Goldwave which I use more often than Adobe's Audition because I am more familiar with it. BU...

I too am an Adobe Premiere Pro user - in my case v1.5. It certainly has enormous power for all normal editing purposes. I have, but have not explored, Adobe After Effects, with the vague thought that I might someday need to use its power for special effects. I do a fair bit of subtitling and like th...

I'll echo Ian's reassurance there. Take your camera as hand luggage so that you can protect it from the rough handling which other baggage often receives. The x-rays and other devices used on hand baggage are fairly low powered and if the officials are worried about something they can immediately as...

Welcome aboard, Stephen. Give my regards to Billy Ellwood, Tony Cox and the crew at Newcastle. Nothing's perfect, not even IAC, but all in all it's pretty good. There are lots of people helping and encouraging each other. Is your nicname an indication of an interest in animation, a hint that you are...

There's a lot of good sense in those remarks, Ian. A) judges are only human, not godlike B) I like the idea they are "more experienced public" C) film makers should accept / reject comments as they think fit D) judges are only one more opinion So far as national comps go I'd add to those: ...

Entries have closed for the IAC International competition and judging will take place in the next few weeks. I know that some of the people on this forum will be judging! For now let's forget the usual litany of complaints and focus on how judges can be helpful ... if they can. Has anyone a real exa...

I think that in the USA and UK there is little opportunity for non-commercial films to be seen on television because there is so much material professionally available. In countries with a smaller language base that may not be so. For example I suspect that in such countries television likes to pres...

Hi Willy Los Ultimos Dinosors is one of the many joke names used by Spanish architect, Jan Baca when he makes movies. He tries not to use his own name so that juries are not influenced by it. He has made nearly 60 such superb films over the years, starting on 16mm and now on video. This one was made...

I often join the final panel for the Cotswold Festival judging. They famously use a judging sheet where you have to assign marks for various categories. If there is a category on such a sheet for "dialogue" what does the judge do if there is none? In practice judges try to agree that they...

Is it more annoying when you think a judge has marked a film higher than it deserves because she or he likes the subject? I've heard complaints that judge X is a sucker for sentimental topics or that the film happens to be about someone judge Y admires. Ideally judges should try to recognise and di...

When IAC's web presence began we started round-robin style email groups: one for general subjects and one for NLE issues since that was the new technology at the time. The IAC Council decided to restrict those groups only to IAC members and required everyone to quote their membership number on ever...