Dave Watterson wrote:The three main UK festivals which welcome amateur entries (BIAFF, Cotswold and Guernsey) have now all released their results.
So what do you all think? Were the judges pretty much right or not?
Dave
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The Yellow Jersey
I only took part in BIAFF and the Lily, not in the Cotswolds festival. Reason ? Because my films are longer than 16 minutes. Punished again ! (joking) And knowing that my next films will even be longer.
The judges were pretty right apart from "In the National Interest" as you told us, Dave. Phil Martin's film even won a gold medal at Unica ! Congratulations, Phil. Maybe you deserve "The Yellow Jersey" !
I am happy that Paul Bagshaw has very good results. I was the only judge at the Mersey Ten this year. I found his film "Head in the Sand" the best one. His results at the international festivals show that he is really a very good film maker.
Dave Watterson wrote:Welcome back, Willy. I guess that your computer is now fully back in action.
Dave
Yes, Dave, my son-in-law said that my old computer worked for only a few minutes and he could save my addresses. I've got them back in my new computer. Outlook Express, however is still gone.
In my new computer, however, I have problems with the Vista programme. A mystery : I am typing a text in English. In the middle of a sentence I type the word "enough". Immediately it changes into "Eenoog". "Eenoog" is a Dutch word. It means "a man with only one eye". It happened to some other English words as well. In my computer the Dutch language is attacking the English language. Strange, isn't it ?
Sorry, but maybe this message belongs to a different thread.
I`m a bit bad at spelling, I may be a bit dislesic! I find the word `enough` is a hard one to spell. I then spell check my words and I think that the spell checker isn`t much better!
Dave Watterson wrote:The three main UK festivals which welcome amateur entries (BIAFF, Cotswold and Guernsey) have now all released their results.
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Three different judging systems
I think it was Dave's intention to talk about the results of the British filmfestivals. I think it's good to compare the results of festivals with slightly different judging systems. I have a preference, but after all the results are similar. There is not much difference.
Three competions same film
I wonder if it would not be good to give a special award to the filmmaker who scored best in the three British festivals together. Maybe it would encourage friends to take part in the three competitions with the same film.
Different films better ?
On the other hand it is good that in Guernsey for instance also totally different films are shown than in BIAFF. It's a bit like that this year. The two top award winning films in Guernsey were not shown in Harrogate. They're new films. I'm looking forward to seeing the film that won the first prize.
Filmmakers absent
It's also good that filmmakers who attend the Guernsey festival are sure that at least one of their films will be shown. It gives the opportunity to talk to the audience about it (them) during the intervals.
At BIAFF it often happens that the filmmakers whose films are shown are absent. That's a pity.
Thanks, Dave; as I hadn't looked at the Cotswold results I was a bit amazed at the rating for 'Dalle de Verre'. The Guernsey result was also our best ever. These WERE slightly different from the BIAFF entry in the matter of the cutting of an interview which you may remember was the subject of my post after BIAFF. I altered the dissolves slightly as these were the subject of the fiercest criticism from BIAFF judges but I have since changed them from dissolves to graduated wipes and I think they are better (or less worse) still.
I also used zoom a bit more.
I had intended to make a note here about this because someone had suggested barndoor wipes as being better than dissolves and I had a look at these as a result.
To those (particularly Dave and Ian) who gave advice before I ought to have explained the problem in more detail.
I let the monk talk ad lib and so had to cut like this:-
"The architect (cut) suggested etched windows like they've got at Coventry (cut) and I thought that'd be awfully dull" and so on. So without going to Coventry (!) I didn't think cutaways would help.
Incidentally, has anyone tried to get permission to film Anglican Cathedral windows? I wanted to use about 6 seconds of a window at Salisbury and I eventually got them down to £40!!!
Yet the Abbots of Buckfast and Prinknash had given me the run of their churches for nothing, though of course I put a donation in the box, and Buckfast sent me A4 coloured stills from their archives as well. They have, of course got copies of the finished film. As usual with us there is a longer version as well for anyone interested on the same DVD.