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Club Competition

Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 5:58 pm
by TimStannard
Not sure whether this belongs here or under competitions.
Prompted by Willy's "knitting a film" idea for a friendly project I thought I'd post details of a competition we hold for club members. I'm sure most of you have siomething similar, but I'm surprised how often I mention this to clubs and they have not heard of it.

We call the competition the "10 to 4"

This competition appeals to those who like to edit (and perhaps don't take any footage themselves) and/or like cryptic puzzles.

Each entrant is supplied with the same 10 minutes of random footage (this footage is usually gathered from several members throughout the year) and has to make a cohesive film lasting no more than four minutes. Entrants may add titles and any sound (as well as use sound supplied on the footage) but may only use visuals from the footage. Quite a bit of imagination is required to come up with a cohesive story. This can be quite a challenge but it is quite fascinating to see how different people's minds work. As you can imagine, the resultant films are usually humorous, but I have seen a very good serious documentary about water come out.

Obviously this is unlikely to produce first class films, and the results are generally only ever seen once, on a club night, so I make no excuses for taking the opportunity of linking to a couple of mine from past years.

http://youtu.be/5qOmde6Y0po

http://youtu.be/k1Yroikgt9U

Re: Club Competition

Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2012 12:09 pm
by Peter Copestake
It seems a shame no one has responded to this post although there have been a lot of views.
It would seem to be a good idea for a club to get an idea who was most imaginative in the editing.
Probably needs fertile mind to take the shots in the first place. I'll put it to the club.
Peter.
PS this will probably be the death of this post as my name seems to be cropping up in the column "last post" rather a lot!

Re: Club Competition

Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2012 1:06 pm
by Dave Watterson
this will probably be the death of this post as my name seems to be cropping up in the column "last post" rather a lot!
:-) love it ... and hope sincerely it will not come true! We like your thoughtful contributions, Peter.

Dave

Re: Club Competition

Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2012 6:45 pm
by Pqtrick
This idea is done at my Midlands club. I am somewhat cool towards it. It is part of the each years annual programme, together with another evening devoted to 'Movie to Music' i.e. matching a soundtrack to a members own video images. Perhaps a hangover from the days of cine, when it really was a challenge. It sort of suits the armchair video hobbyist rather than getting folks out from in front of their fireside and shooting their own original material!

Sorry I can't be more supportive, but in my experience the end result is generally on a par with the one line gag film with a rather corny commentary rather than creative thinking!

Re: Club Competition

Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:31 am
by TimStannard
Pqtrick wrote: Sorry I can't be more supportive, but in my experience the end result is generally on a par with the one line gag film with a rather corny commentary rather than creative thinking!
No need to apologise - I wasn't looking for any support of the idea - I was just throwing it into the melting pot for anyone looking for ideas. Your views represent the mixed feelings towards it I get from our own members.

It is more satisfying for most of us to plan, shoot and edit a film from beginning to end, but, as has been said here many times, this involves a very large number of skills. Competitions such as this enable people who perhaps do not have the time or complete skill sets to practice just one area. And, as I said, it appeals to those who like cryptic puzzles (which fits perfectly with your armchair/fireside image!)

I also dislike the "Movies to Music" type of competition but nothing to do with your suggestion that it's not really a challenge in the digital editing suite - surely the challenge is not meant to be a technical one, but an artistic one. No, my dislike stems from the fact that, at least within clubs, there is a propensity to make a very literal representation of the lyrics rather than something more imaginitive - I'm always reminded of John Peel's description of Pan's People's literal interpretation of songs.