A Monthly Competition. Interested??

[Cecilio]

hey TGPO that was my idea im gonna sue you unless i get credit too lol na j/k unless youll think about it. i had a topic about this several months ago. i even made rules. i made a kbs limit of 1600. but you know this can be changed and arranged to a better idea that you might have.

[Cecilio]

well this is a bummer for me being that i do have the fast internet connection to upload fast and i have quite good video working skills. but the thing i dont have is a video camera

[Conquest10]

Finally! An excuse to wear make-up.

[SquirrelXss]

Count me in.

[Craig Tucker]

Finally! An excuse to wear make-up.

[tgpo]

Finally! An excuse to wear make-up.

I don't need an excuse. :P .........

[racer-x]

It looks like you're leaning torwards divix. Why not include .wmv? Many people have XP and it comes with Movie Maker. I never play around with divix and it's easy make a short clip in Movie Maker.

[tgpo]

It would require me to dl and install a Microsoft product. Which I just can't bring myself to do.

[g_shocker182]

Windows movie maker also comes with ME in addition to XP. I believe the max movie size is 320x240 though that would be an alright size.

[vitualis]

WMV locks you into a Windows platform (mostly anyway) -- DivX AVI can be played on PCs, Macs and Linux machines.

Furthermore, it is easier to do further editing / re-encoding if the submission is in DivX.

I could have chosen any AVI codec but DivX is pretty well known, works well, and you can get it for free...

And at the specs we are currently discussing (40MB max, 5 min limit), you cna get pretty good quality clips at 640x480 which is awesome.

Regards.

[troyvcd1]

Sounds good. I hope we can mail them in. Also I hope the judges let us see the good ones.

[tgpo]

Also I hope the judges let us see the good ones.

What's what we're hoping for.

[vitualis]

Sounds good. I hope we can mail them in.

At the moment, that's the preferred method...

Regards.

[phatslug]

Anyone else excited about this only cause you get to show off?
Sure hope people like my stuff, otherwise I'll thereafter hate this silly little movie deal.. :P

Some thoughts--

I like music playing in the background of my movies... usually copyrighted music. Now someone mentioned this being an issue, but I hope that we can all just ignore this. I mean for our purposes here it really doesnt matter. And really its far less illegal than many other things this site is used for

Now your're thinking about having a theme for each contest, which is a good idea, however its hard to make a movie alone, and approaching my friends for help, "hey guys wanna help me make a movie about some theme only I think is funny for this obscure web forum you've never heard of ".... you know?
So perhaps every once in a while, maybe the first contest, it can be a "whatever the hell you want it to be about" kind of theme.

Also... why the 5 minute max length? Thats might seem long enough, but you're at the 5 minute mark before you even know it when you're editing. As long as we can get the movie to you guys, I think the length should be a little more reasonable.

So in conclusion, great idea, really looking forward to it, hope it goes through..... good job guys.

[Will Hay]

I'm sorry if this has already been covered but I haven't read the entire thread, sorry
Maybe we could have different categories.
I don't think tgpo, considering his blood, death, slash, kill, murder, gouge movies, would appreciate the idea's I have.
Mine might be considered rather obscure, the best way I could describe it is probably along the lines of 'French, B&W, no hope, desperate, close to suicide, psycologically upsetting, grey, dull'.
I've never done one before (a movie I mean), but for reasons I can't explain for my first effort I'd like to make something totally off-the-wall, unorthodox.
No script, nothing.
As it comes to me - straight down onto film.
No point, no plot I can see it in my head
Will

[Will Hay]

I really should read the entire thread, I'm sorry, I will.
Being a relative novice to editing (I'm currently outputting at 720 x 576 8000kb/sec 25fps) perhaps an idea of maximum settings would help.
I don't want to inadvertantly create something of unneccessary high quality and find no-one can veiw it.
What would be a good size, other than 720 x 576?
Will

[vitualis]

I like music playing in the background of my movies... usually copyrighted music. Now someone mentioned this being an issue, but I hope that we can all just ignore this. I mean for our purposes here it really doesnt matter. And really its far less illegal than many other things this site is used for

I don't really think this is something you can ignore if you are submitting to a public competition. You will either have to cough up and pay the license, compose some music yourself, or use the plentiful public domain music there is around...

Now your're thinking about having a theme for each contest, which is a good idea, however its hard to make a movie alone, and approaching my friends for help, "hey guys wanna help me make a movie about some theme only I think is funny for this obscure web forum you've never heard of ".... you know?

The theme we are thinking of for the first comp is "Baldrick". That is, you have to somehow incorporate "Baldrick" into your film. How you do it is up to you. Otherwise, it's free reign (comedy, docos, satire, drama, animation, etc).

Also... why the 5 minute max length? Thats might seem long enough, but you're at the 5 minute mark before you even know it when you're editing. As long as we can get the movie to you guys, I think the length should be a little more reasonable.

Because it is a short film contest (and we live in a world of bandwidth restrictions). A 5-min limit for short films is quite reasonable.

...great idea, really looking forward to it, hope it goes through..... good job guys.

When we start the comp, I expect to see your entry!

Best regards.

[vitualis]

I really should read the entire thread, I'm sorry, I will.
Being a relative novice to editing (I'm currently outputting at 720 x 576 8000kb/sec 25fps) perhaps an idea of maximum settings would help.
I don't want to inadvertantly create something of unneccessary high quality and find no-one can veiw it.
What would be a good size, other than 720 x 576?
Will

The "terms and conditions" (currently still a work in progress) is up on my "info" site (and it contains the video specs). Don't take it as gospel as we are still hammering out details. What we will probably end up accepting is 640x480 DivX5 AVI + MP3 audio -- max size 40MB and max length of 5 min. A guide will be up shortly on that site once I finish writing it.

http://users.tpg.com.au/mtam

Regards.

[vitualis]

Okay, design for the DVDRHelp.com Short Film Competition is well on the way and this is an early announcement!

The first competition will have a closing date of August 20, 2003.

The inaugural competition will have the topic/theme of "Baldrick"...

Yes, it's our beloved admin. How you incorporate the concept of "Baldrick" into your short film is up to you. It can be as minor or as significant as you wish! Otherwise, unleash your imagination! Your short film can be a drama, comedy, documentary, animation, anything!

Some quick info:
- maximum film length: 5 minutes
- maximum filesize: 40 MB

- recommended format: 640x480 DivX 5 AVI with MP3 audio (128kbit/s CBR)

Get your entry pack and read information on how to enter, details about video settings, etc. at http://users.tpg.com.au/mtam

Included on the website links and downloads of the software / programs you will need.

For those of you who can only afford Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker 2 as a video editing program (i.e., free), there is an included guide on the site on how to export to the necessary format.

Once the official website is ready to be launched, there will be a formal announcement -- look out for it! In the meantime, pull out your miniDV camcorder and start filming!

Regards.

[poopyhead]

can a movie studio enter a video into the competition too? :P

maybe need to have a budget limit of couple million dollars :P

[pacmania_2001]

I would like to see a movie that cost a couple of million yet only went for less than 5 minutes. I think it would have to be pretty cool.

[tgpo]

I would like to see a movie that cost a couple of million yet only went for less than 5 minutes. I think it would have to be pretty cool.

Look here

And don't forget about the BMW films.

[tgpo]

This one cost nothing, but was fun to watch! :P

[Will Hay]

What happened with this, are there any results or did it fall on its arse?
Will

[pacmania_2001]

Kind of stalled in the arse. The website is fully done for it and we have some great prizes lined up but it was mainly issues with the hosting of video files that snagged us up.

Hopefully the moderators and Baldrick will get back around to doing it.

[g_shocker182]

I was ready to ask this too...can we take a peak at the website?

[pacmania_2001]

www.dvdrhelp.com/competition

Has a bit of tweaking still needing to be done because the award system is also not 100% finalized so changes may still happen.