VF48Hours Lockdown Forum

Nutbar are back.
Not doing Ultra at this stage. Several key players are MIA in 2019.
I love the whole vibe of the weekend.

Changes?
I like the different angles of the elements in the last couple of years and enjoy seeing them being a touch unpredictable.

I'd like to see some really old school/classic genres- western, silent, Shakespearean, melodrama, mixed in with some weird and wonderful ones- surrealist, kung-fu.

I love this thread - hit us with your ideas!

A character who speaks gibberish, a cardboard box larger than a metre square

Here's a fun idea I had for the competion weekend.

you know how they were texting out spot prizes throughout the weekend last year?

well this kinda plays off that a bit.

Imagine if at random times throughout the weekend they text out a unique hashtag, and then teams have 5 minutes to upload a photo of whatever is happening to them at that point in the weekend with that unique hashtag. then spot prizes or something for the teams with the most interesting stuff going on.

or just combine the two, instead of 'first team to text back with their name and address wins prize x' give the prizes out to the teams who tweet out the best stuff.

or put it another way, what I want to see more of this year is social media engagement.

more than anything I want to see more behind the scenes photos of teams from around the country.

☝️☝️☝️

* Competition

this year, Id also like to be able to edit forum posts for spelling mistakes.

Just letting you know we're putting $1000 down on the table for Best Ultra this year. If that's an incentive for anyone to brave it up. Looking forward to your emails experienced teams.

in reply to ruth:

Will there be an award (i.e. certificate or any kind of recognition) at a regional level?

Also, will it be judged on the best use of Ultra or the best film which happens to be Ultra?

Are you back this year? - Probably
Are you doing anything different this year? - Slightly less inflammatory team intro would be advisable. Otherwise, no, as I hate the thought of making a City final so I'll probably just keep doing the same film-making crimes.
Are you doing Ultra? - Nope; no way. If I like the ULTRA element I'll just include it anyway.
Do you have any ideas for a new compulsory element? Something in shot that definitely shouldn't be there, but it's not immediately obvious. Hidden in plain sight. Becomes a challenge to the viewer to find as many as you can.
What changes would you love to see in the comp? More localised, fun awards at the City finals (still); something to encourage more reviewers.
What if changed all the requirements this year? Don't understand the question.

**MASSIVE POST INCOMING**

Are you doing Ultra? - Nope; no way. If I like the ULTRA element I'll just include it anyway.

I'm with you there, at the moment, I can't imagine regretting not doing Ultra. If it’s a great idea, I can maybe use it as a jumping off point for a story, without risking disqualification. I don't mind Ultra as an idea, but I think the comp's treatment of it has been horrendous so far and it's left a bad taste in my mouth.

The first year of it, not even having nominations for the grand prize of it made it feel like such an afterthought and I feel spat in the face of everyone who gave it a go (except the one team who won).
As for the Ultra element that year, I've spoken at length about my feelings regarding it, but I would say that Ultra in 2018 was a fun extra challenge which there was a few different ways to interpret, but Ultra in 2017 made the weekend significantly less fun. I didn't find it some huge extra challenge, which scared me off this year, it just took away one of my favourite parts of the competition, which is creating something new every year. With the decrease in Ultra sign ups from year 1 to year 2, it seems I'm probably not alone in this.

Then the second year, while the actual Ultra was a massive improvement from the previous year I thought again, the comp's treatment of it could do with a lot of improving. My biggest pieces of feedback:

There needs to be (an option for) some award at a regional level
Maybe if there's at least 5 ultras in a region, they can be de facto nominees and the best Ultra gets a certificate. The organisers don't seem to realise I think that a simple piece of paper would actually encourage a lot more people to sign up. The Grand Final nominees don't have to be made up of just the winners of each region (I'd argue this for every award).

Ultra should be judged on how well you use the extra element
Not sure if element is the right term, but you know what I mean. It seems that the Grand Prize is awarded to the best film which happens to be Ultra. Every other element award is based on how well you used it, whether you made it integral to your story or interpreted it in a clever way. I feel that the current model makes Ultra seem like it's only for Grand Final level teams. Now I know, I know technically any team could make the Grand Finals and Ultra is supposed to be for veteran teams, but if some small Gisborne team who's film maybe isn't technically perfect & has a super clever interpretation of the elements that no one else came up with, it's a bummer that the nominations will likely be made up of a handful of Auckland & Wellington teams, with maybe a Christchurch one thrown in.

Change the requirement from 5 years in the comp to 1
Presently I think Ultra feels a bit like an obligation for older teams, last year, seeing teams like Chillybox not take on the challenge, I'll admit I did judge them a little bit for not doing it, but I think it would change the feelings around Ultra if we got rid of the 5 year rule. I understand in its first year that 5 years was important as you needed to ensure teams would have a few films under their belt to do a sequel to one. If this was changed to 1 year, so a new team at least has one weekend done so that they know somewhat to expect, then I think not only would there be more teams signing up, but also it would change the attitude towards it from an obligation for older teams to the fun extra challenge that I think it is intended to be. If a professional production company with a massive budget is only in their second year and think they're capable of taking on an extra challenge, I think they should be able to. Also if a veteran team loses half their team one year, they shouldn't feel judged for not doing it.

Diversify which part of production Ultra affects
I'd love to see Ultra change each year as to whether it affects say the production, the shoot, the writing or the edit. Maybe Ultra could even be an either/or, have two Ultra challenges one year, for example, one affects the way you write your film, the other affects the way you shoot it. Even just a technical one and a creative one. This could help with Ultra's appeal, as at the moment, teams which are more split in terms of roles, may not want to sign up before the weekend, not knowing which part of production it will place more stress on. If teams go in knowing they can sort of steer Ultra towards the strongest part of their team, it would probably encourage people to give it a go.

Ultra has to be completely clear by 7pm on Friday
This has happened the last couple of years, where a rule or element has required clarification via an official statement on Facebook well into the weekend. As far as I’m concerned, if the city managers have to clarify what they meant even 1 minute into the weekend, that’s too late. Obviously the city managers will have to answer the odd question here & there on Friday night as usual. By & large, the rules & elements should stand for themselves at launch, or should be explained on the website ready to go at 7pm if there is some caveat. If one of the elements or the Ultra challenge isn’t 100% clear then you have to say that everyone’s interpretation of it is correct.

Make it optional on the weekend?
This one kind of completely changes the idea of Ultra, so I can understand completely ignoring this point, but it’s an idea. What if teams made the call on Friday night whether they wanted to do it or not after seeing it, would opt in by just checking a box on the wrap-up form. Could be a fun extra thing at launch like “and heeeeeeres an extra challenge if you want a shot at $1000 cash!”. Again, this is more just spitballing, changes the idea of Ultra quite a bit but could be a fun way of doing it.

Ultra should never be something that was a previous genre
No indication that it’s going to head in this direction, other than some suggestions on the forum, but I’d be bitterly disappointed if the likes of one-shot or no dialogue were Ultra elements as they’ve already been in the comp & weren’t an “extra challenge” back then.

Anyway, apologies for the wall of text. Ruth & Ness, I sincerely hope you’re reading this. I know I’ve been one of the biggest critics of the competition both here on the forum and in my films, but it does genuinely come from a place of loving the competition and wanting it to be the best it can be.
As I’ve said, Ultra isn’t inherently a bad idea, but at the moment we’ve only had a sample size of two years, one of which was almost a weekend-ruiningly bad idea, so I think at this stage I’ll sit it out for a couple of years until it’s clear that it’s consistently well-handled, and an important part of the competition, not just an afterthought exclusive to the elite teams.

Would love to hear people’s thoughts on some of my suggestions & Ultra as a concept.

in reply to Bloydd:

Good Thoughts

There needs to be (an option for) some award at a regional level

Yes. 100% yes. Duh?!

Ultra should be judged on how well you use the extra element

Yes. 1,000% yes. Duh x1,000,000

Change the requirement from 5 years in the comp to 1

Disagree. I like the idea that ultra is something for new coming teams to look up to, something to aspire to. A set of stripes that need to be earned.

To that end though. Ultra just needs to be more a special badge to add to your team intro. A unique T Shirt at the launch, ‘literal badges’ or collectables that you earn by doing ultra and that you can collect over the years. There should be a special section in the site screening room. (There isn’t even a badge for it in the screening room is there?) these are all pretty small and stupid but in I think a little would go a long way here.

And I’ve said it before but here goes: ultra should grant a team extra powers. (Extra maximum runtime feels like the obvious choice to me, but I understand the arguments against this*) or what if Ultra teams got to trade the ultra requirement for one of the other requirements? Or if signing up for ultra ment you were guaranteed to be able to pick your own genre from the selection, I don’t know but make it a bigger deal, not just extra challenge. Make it exciting! If the teams going to take on a potentially weekend crushing extra challenge (and it should be potentially weekend destroying) there should be some give and take.

Diversify which part of production Ultra affects

Agree, but also, we’re only two years in. The key thing I think ultra should do is blindside teams.

Ultra has to be completely clear by 7pm on Friday

Abso-freaking-lootley

Having never done ultra, I’ve never run into this problem, but I’m aware of it. Even if you think its obvious as to what ultra is, a blog post diving deeply into the technical requirements of the challenge should go live at 7pm. What does and does not count as completing the challenge.

Possibly also a a fair play rule could also apply. As in, ‘subvert the rules at your own risk, we want teams running at the challenge head on not trying to get around it.

Make it optional on the weekend?

Disagree for ultra. BUT, really like this as an extra extra thing? Would need to put those teams in the running for a special award. But i like the idea of something extra to opt into for fun. Like a second even weirder line of diologue? Or an added technical element, something that will broaden teams use of cinematic language and thats easy to judge and give a special award to (like the match cut one year - side note, best technical requirement there’s ever been)

I like Ultra in concept, I look forward to doing it one year, but so far I haven’t regretted not doing it

*arguments for and against giving ultra teams extra run time
It’s easier for the judges, comp and everyone involved if the films overall are shorter. shorter by and large makes for better films. Agree agree agree. BUT

Shorter makes for better films, disproportionately in the area of the newer in experienced teams. Ultra’s supposed to be for veteran teams that have already learnt that the shorter/tighter edits will make their films the better. So why not open the runtime back up to those veteran teams, most likely many of them wont even use the extra run time, but my hope is that some teams will use that extra time to tackle ideas and scenes that need some extra room to breath.

And I’ll just counter one possible counter argument, ‘its not fair to give some teams extra runtime, while all the other teams are stuck with mins, 48hours should be a level playing field’

Well, it’s not, and it never will be. By design, 48hours is ‘unfair’. If 48hours was as fair as possible, every team would be given the same genre, truth is some genres are way way harder than others. (That’s the nature of the beast, and thats OK)

Posting another idea of fun things. Again this is in the vein of community engagement/building.

Cryptic clues towards what one of the requirements are.

For example, take the line of dialogue or technical element. Once these are confirmed. Pick an obscure movie, and tweet out that the technical element is in this film. Or that this years line of dialogue is dropped somewhere in this film.

Now it should be really really obscure. And no team should actually know with any degree of certainty what the required element is before the weekend. But it would be fun if 48hours inspired a bunch of us to watch an obscure or classic film before the weekend in order to find a clue, then we could all take to the forums, discuss the film and try to guess what the requirement might be.

If anything I think Ultra would be better off with a tighter time limit. 2 or 3 minutes is more than enough to tell any story. 1 minute is enough.

The organisers don't seem to realise I think that a simple piece of paper would actually encourage a lot more people to sign up.

Agreed. Or dare I suggest it: an Apee. I don't want a few dollars or an editing computer or production time or any of those other things. I want an Apee.

What about if your film had to reference a famous film? Giant stone rolling after someone, hacking through a door, someone not giving a damn, etc

Are you back this year?
Yup
Are you doing anything different this year?
Not sure yet, though probably not too different than anything done before.
Are you doing Ultra?
Yes, Most likely
Do you have any ideas for a new compulsory element?
Not at the moment
What changes would you love to see in the comp?
It would be interesting to have a community style event during the heats or something to keep the vibe going between the different finals so that it doesn't feel as though it's gone dead for a month or however long it takes to get from the heats to the local final to the national.
What if changed all the requirements this year?
I guess it depends on the changes, it would either be a challenge or it wouldn't. I remember when they introduced Ultra I think a lot of the elements were simplified so a lot of it was just trying to remember what exactly we had to have in the film. Every once in a while you'd say "What's the line again? No this year's line. Oh, there is no line."

in reply to CraigWB:

Agree about elements, I love that we've had sound effect & action in the last couple of years, although I do like the simplicity of:
Character
Line
Prop
Tech Element

The year Ultra was introduced had theme as well and a previous year's list of elements, so by the end of the weekend it was hard to remember if you'd actually included everything!

Maybe it could be like:
Character
Prop
Tech Element
Wildcard Element (rotates between say line, sound effect, action or whatever else).

It seems that Line of Dialogue has been the element to fall by the wayside in the last couple of years. I don't mind this too much, even though I quite liked the line as an element, it just turned into a competition of who could punctuate or split it up the most cleverly.
Character is great as it can be a jumping off point for your story, or something you reference with one line of dialogue, and same with the prop I suppose. Plus tech element is always my favourite so I wouldn't wanna get rid of that one.

It's quite nice having 4 that you can easily tick off.

I really liked the thinking behind the required elements in 2018 and the move away from what we'd come to expect year after year, after year.

The only thing I want is to not know what to expect - so maybe there are three elements, maybe four - maybe one is a specific line of dialogue one year, maybe it's not an element at all the following year.

Keep us on our toes and pull from a variety of element categories that change in terms of quantity and content every year.

I like the 5 year rule for Ultra to make it for veteran teams only. However I'd be glad to see an exception made for Grand Finalists. Even if you've only entered once before, I think if you made the grand finals with your film then you're ready for an extra challenge.

We got a participation certificate last year for doing Ultra which was nice, but I agree it would be cool to have a t-shirt or something else. It would be nice for this extra reward to be known about before the competition too so it can be used as an incentive for more teams to enter. The $1,000 prize is great, but possibly feels too unlikely to win for many teams to worry about. Regional rewards would be really cool, and if there's not many ultra teams in some regions then it will hopefully encourage more for future years so they can win an easy reward. A really cheap trophy would be cool too. Trying to keep those certificates safe while also having a long night of celebrating after the finals has been my biggest challenge of the competition.

Jovial Entertainment will be competing in Ultra again. I hope the numbers will pick up again this year. It's a fun extra challenge and maybe it will ruin your film, but it will be an exciting weekend regardless. I don't think you can wait for it to be announced and then decide on Friday night to do Ultra and consider yourself capable of achieving the Ultra element. If you can't take the risk to do Ultra no matter what it is, then you've already failed at it.

Our team leader (me) is a big dumbass that included an & symbol in the team name. Off to a great start, can't wait to be in charge of the finer details of the shoot!

in reply to Jason:

It's a fun extra challenge and maybe it will ruin your film

I think that this is 100% what it should be. However, in the two ULTRAS we've seen the stakes haven't been high enough to genuinely threatened ruination. The sequel year had a lot of elements to tick off but making a sequel wasn't too much of a stretch, as with a little justification or common characters you had a sequel. Last year, the kids or animals as a character thing ended up having too many holes in it for teams to step through. I'm pretty sure I said this last year but if the only criteria had been that you had to have a child as a main character then that may have forced teams into ruin. That's an ULTRA challenge that would have had a very real threat of no film submitted.

While it's true they haven't been so difficult to stop veteran teams from submitting a completed film, I think they have caused some bad films to be made by usually great teams and stopped them from reaching the finals. I feel that's a good enough challenge. I don't want the difficulty so high that teams end up quitting and not submitting a film due to not being able to fulfill the ultra requirement. It still needs to be fun, and not scare teams away from doing it. But that $1K reward better go to a team that fully embraces the ultra requirements and doesn't use loop holes to do it an easy way.