Judging UWOL 23

[Lorinda Norton]

To those of you who submitted a film, it's time to start judging! This is from the official rules:

"Judging – All players who submit a video automatically become judges in that round, with the exception of the DVC/UWOL Charity Challenge, where donors to the charity pool also vote. Videos will be available for viewing and feedback after the deadline. At any time after that, judges may send their votes for the top three videos by email to uwol@dvinfo.net. In your email, include the player’s name and title of video along with the placement (#1 #2 #3). One vote per judge/team, and no voting for your own video. Videos should be judged 50% on best use of theme and 50% on overall production value."

And if you haven't seen the discussion regarding judging, you may check out this thread if you want more ideas: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/uwol-cha...nge-films.html

Let's shoot for posting the winner by Friday, July 13!

[Chris Barcellos]

So a question about rules. A couple of films ran over 3 minute limit. Are they automatically eliminated or do we as individual judges just have to consider that and not vote for them ?

[Lorinda Norton]

Oh noooooooo. I haven't had time to watch them so didn't even notice. Rule 4 couldn't be more clear on this, and when I announced the theme I reminded everyone to read them:

4. Production – Submissions should be 2-3 minutes in length. Entries exceeding the 3-minute limit can be posted on the site but will be disqualified from judging. Credits are excluded from the 3-minute limit.

Wow...I see that three of them are well over the 3-minute mark. What happened, fellas???

[Lorinda Norton]

Okay, I just watched past the 3-minute mark on the three videos. On two of them the extra time does qualify as credits; unfortunately, one did exceed the limit. Doggone it...

Rule #4 is changing for UWOL 24: 5-minute limit--no extra for credits, no confusion.

[Bill Thesken]

I'm an offender. I stretched the intro/credit beginning too long to set up the premise and the actual film footage started at 0.26 and ran to 3.29, and then I stretched the ending/credits to 4.26, nearly a minutes worth to get more slow motion shots in there. I admit I like to see waves in slow motion since they move so fast in real time you can't really see what is going on. I was like a kid in a candy store. Per rule # 4 my film is disqualified from judging . I must admit I had a blast making it (although making the music with Sony Acid was really tough), learned from the comments, and wouldn't have made the film without this contest. When I first started these comps I couldn't figure out to get enough shots to fill 3 minutes worth, now I can't seem to tone it down to the time limit. For UWOL 24 I'll keep it within the time line and try to make a film that will amaze.

[Gordon Hoffman]

Lorinda it does say excluding credits so one of the three is under the mark another is only over a few seconds before the credits start. So I'm not to concerned with it but lets see what others think. I know you said read the rules but the rules have been pushed some this round anyway. Next time maybe people could be reminded of the time limit.

Gordon

[Lorinda Norton]

I'm sure sorry, Bill. Thank you for your post! You summed it up well. Just watched the entire video. I'm very proud of your entry this round, regardless, and I'm so glad you are part of the UWOL Challenge. Looking forward to your amazing work in UWOL 24.

[Lorinda Norton]

Gordon, rule #4 is going to be changed to 5-minutes maximum--no ambiguity.

[Chris Barcellos]

I am guessing that some were running on Charity Challenge time, or other extended times allowed in the past. Damn the lawyer in me for bringing up the matter....

[Gordon Hoffman]

Man am I a slow typer.

[Lorinda Norton]

Ha ha...I think you will get applause for getting a permanent time limit extension, Chris. :)

But I'll be adding a warning...anyone who fills up the time just to fill it runs the great risk of their entry being docked in the judging! Oftentimes, a story can best be told when slashed in the editing. It will be part of the learning experience for filmmakers--know when to leave your treasured footage on the cutting room floor.

@ Gordon: LOL!!! :)

[Mike Sims]

The pending rule change should eliminate any potential confusion. In my own video, for example, I had envisioned the video as being precisely three minutes and the credits thirty seconds. Since the video begins by fading up from black and ends by fading down to black, the background for the credits is black and the title credit fades up a few seconds into the credits, I can see that (even with the change in audio after 3:00) it might easily be interpreted that the video ended at the title credit- that is to say, a few seconds long. I could change the credits background to anything other than black in future, however, the new rule will make that unnecessary. Good move, Lorinda.

[Chris Barcellos]

Yeah, I think you pushed pass the limit a bit too far, Bill.... yours was one of the ones I was wondering about because it has such great shots. I do remember feeling as I was watching your film that as each shot came up, it was a little better than the one before it in terms of giving a unique view, and I could actually feel your editing decisions being made on each shot. You probably would have had to bump two of the front ones to stay in time....

Per's and Mike's had beginning and ending or overlay credits that probably fit technically-- at least thats the way I see it.

[Simon Wood]

Interesting. I found that the 3 minute limit really stretched your imagination in the edit; its difficult to get a full story cut down to that size and still have a real beginning, middle and end. It was certainly good editing practice for me. When I was first taught how to edit (on Sony PV tape to tape machines in a newsroom) my grumpy editor told me I had to learn how to 'kill my babies', that is learn to cut out shots that you love, and move on, because timing was more important than a long beautifully framed shot.

I killed lots of metaphorical babies in this competition. I had about 40 minutes of very extreme kayaking in different rapids, and originally I wanted to use lots of these shots, but I decided it was more important to set the scene for the story. So in the end I just used 1 small shot of the kayaker in the rapids at the very end (1 from the T3i, and 1 from the GoPro, on the same small run). Originally I had planned to use much more shots from the rapids, but the timing meant it was one or the other, not both. In some ways the lead up to running the rapid (him looking at it from the shore and talking about it) is more entertaining than actually watching him run them. I wonder if my film would have been worse if I had decided to add in a minute or more of kayaking on the rapids at the end. Probably it would have been more boring?

Anyway, so are we saying that from UWOL 24 onwards the time limit is 2 - 5 minutes? I might try to set myself a task and force myself to keep them under the 3 minute mark in any case....

[Per Johan Naesje]

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

Per's and Mike's had beginning and ending or overlay credits that probably fit technically-- at least thats the way I see it.

I have to admit that I was so eager to do this challenge that I "forgot" to check the length of my entry! So it is ok if it´s disqualified no hard feelings, I had a good time doing this challenge, following rule #11 :)