Promo films and music-videos

[Dave Watterson]

At the 2008 Festival of Nations we saw a film about an Austrian school. Like similar movies in Britain it was clearly aimed at parents and teenagers - encouraging students to enroll there.

It happened to be very well made and quite entertaining - which is not always the case with such films.

The jury were dismissive but I tried to suggest that promo films are simply another specialised genre and should be assessed in a serious way.

Going further it strikes me that we do not have many clear ideas about what to look for and how to assess movies that are promos or those that are music-videos.

How can we start to consider them seriously in competitions? What should we look for?

Dave

[Mike Shaw]

Bit like commercials really. If it works - i.e sells the product - its good. If it doesn't work, its bad, poor, useless, paradoxically even if people remember it and laugh. Whilst advertising/commercials/promotional films can be entertaining, their purpose is to 'sell', and that should be a criterion for judgement.

Always amused me (when in the biz) when they held 'advertising awards' (like 'DADA'). The main criterion was 'creativity'. The judges never, as far as I'm aware, looked at how the ads worked. Mind you, I can't complain ... picked up my share of gongs along the way. The best prize though was getting good feedback from the clients about the results.

You set an interesting poser.

[billyfromConsett]

It may be difficult for judges to hook into what the aims and objectives are for a promo or music video they're judging, whilst keeping their own competition's marking guidelines in mind.

How many judges have time to look into the movies own objectives when marking?

In Biaff the amount of judging time is but a few minutes, so deep analysis is off limits.

Then again, if a promo movie got a very good mark for hitting the buttons that it was designed to hit, and was sent up and down the country, would our club members understand why it did so well in competition?

I don't know what the answer is.

[ned c]

I entered a promo film in BIAFF 2008. Obviously judges are unused to seeing promos as their following comments suggest;

"Well shot with good lighting. A fast moving film with lots of variation showing us the activity going on within the theatre group.

As a promotional film this worked very well and although the general style was a bit repetitive it gets the message over.
As a piece of film art we would have liked to have heard more from the personalities involved and a rare criticism some shots could have been held longer. A recruiting film which succeeds in this respect and well done for that."

You can see the problem the judges faced, this was not and never intended to be a piece of film art but they were viewing a large number of films an this was the only promo they saw.

The argument here is that festivals need to compare apples with apples so entries should be divided by genre and judged by people who have some understanding of that genre.

Here's a scenario to think about, a music video made by an 18 year old of a heavy metal band being judged by a group of middle aged amateur film makers!!

ned c

[Dave Watterson]

The argument here is that festivals need to compare apples with apples so entries should be divided by genre and judged by people who have some understanding of that genre.

I have no trouble agreeing with the second part of this statement but the first gives me the shivers. At one festival the judging team were faced with watching all the comedies starting at 9.30 in the morning ... then all the drama ... right on to the end of the day when all the travel and wildlife films came together. There were three films featuring tree frogs one after the other.
Aaaaargh!

None of the five judges on that occasion found the system acceptable. Any film which on its own might have stood out as a powerful piece of work about tree frogs tended to get lost in the yawns. (Figurative yawns ... we all stayed awake and did our best to maintain interest and enthusiasm.)

There are specialist festivals where, of course, you tend to get lots of films that are broadly similar. There the judges rejoice in the variety to be found within any genre.

There is a reason that variety theatre and television variety shows did so well: people need changes of pace.

Dave

[Graeme Webb]

Ned C Said:

Here's a scenario to think about, a music video made by an 18 year old of a heavy metal band being judged by a group of middle aged amateur film makers!!

Oh yes Ned I remember it well the only difference was that I was 58 when I did this and I took (and still take) a load of stick from my peers. So I just went and out and made another 3

G

[FILM THURSO]

The long and short of it is that we should be looking for creative originality even if it breaks conventional thinking.
Promos have to attract and so need to be people friendly and entertaining whilst delivering the point sensibly.
Music videos are much the same as music applied to movies. A music video must like all films have the music and visuals working with each other even if they are total opposites. Miss-match them and it doesn't work unless miss-match was the objective to create thought. The fundamental judging should be with the same regard as any other film weighing up the technical attributes as well as any particular achievements in balance with the entertainment value