48 Hours Forum

Grand Final livestream - great job!

in reply to Jason:

Even when watching Compress?

Okay, I'll admit the audience reaction did kind of ruin that one a little bit.

It's almost like, hearing audience reaction during comedies = GOOD, but audience reaction during more serious films generally = BAD

Grand Final livestream - great job!

Just want to do a shout out to everyone involved in organising the livestream for the Grand Final at the weekend. In previous years this has sometimes felt like a bit of an afterthought, but it has been steadily improving year on year I reckon.

And sure, the improving technology (including consumer-ready livestreaming functionality with FB, YouTube etc.) presumably has a fair bit to do with this, but even so, I really appreciated the thought that was given to camera placement, live camera selection, the fact that the screened finalist films were a direct feed, and the way that the in-the-room audience reaction to the films was in the audio mix without overwhelming it, so we could sense the live response while also enjoying the films.

Ultra 2019 (and why you should do it)

in reply to Clayton Hiku:

Although I'm still interested in how our talking Pheotus from inside a pregnant teenager at high school story would have turned out! hahahahaha.

As much as I enjoyed your film, I am now really disappointed that I didn't get to witness this masterwork.

Ultra 2019 (and why you should do it)

in reply to Andrew Todd:

And fwiw, I still think "sequel" was a strong offer that didn't get taken up creatively by many teams. We got mostly pretty basic interpretations of what sequels can be - not many films that stood on their own, and wayyy too many flashback sequences.

I wonder if part of the problem was that Sequel was chosen as the very first Ultra challenge, and at that time people were still getting their head around what Ultra even meant. I suspect that had Sequel been the Ultra challenge for this year, i.e. with a year for the comp and its competitors to digest the initial experience of Ultra, you would have seen a whole lot more creative offerings.

(Also, Animals/Children is a much more straightforward offer to add into the 48HOURS framework, and probably would have functioned better as an initial Ultra challenge to ease people into the idea.)

#hindsight2c

Christchurch - fantastic year

in reply to Clayton Hiku:

I think some of the ways to increase the camaraderie in the city community is also to organise pre/post finals hangouts. If Vet teams are open to hanging out and discussing their film and other peoples films in person its soooooo much better than only communicating through the review site or forums.

I think that while this is absolutely true, and you can't beat a bit of face-to-face connection from time to time, it's worth noting that CHCH peeps also seem to be over-represented on these forums too. I dunno, do we maybe just have more spare time than everyone else? :)

Christchurch - fantastic year

in reply to Clayton Hiku:

Part of that is having a few Vet teams that keep showing up year after year and are still having tonnes of fun and making high quality films like TBALC.

It's probably worth noting also that TBALC was once one of those newbie teams too, looking up to the established local teams of the time, most notably The Outwits I suppose, but also Spooce Media, Frond Films, Gorilla Team Gorilla, etc. I guess the key part of all that is continuity, about having enough recognisable faces and teams that keep coming back again and again that you feel you're a part of a community.

Christchurch - fantastic year

in reply to Andrew Todd:

Haha, no way, that was the Outwits' Bechamel...RIP the Outwits

All together now! "Semi on, semi on, semi semi semi semi on..."

Christchurch - fantastic year

in reply to Mista Teas:

My only question mark over this year's final is Ultra. It seems to have not been a consideration in the judges' decision making process. I'm not blaming the film-makers here as the comp dug itself a bit of a hole by creating ambiguity over the "children or animals as main characters rule" but I do think that if Ultra is a thing and teams are signing up for an extra layer of scrutiny, then that scrutiny must actually happen. Otherwise, what's the point?

At this point, it seems that the Ultra thing is primarily in place as a creative challenge for the teams who take it on. My assumption is that if a team entered with Ultra, then didn't adequately satisfy the Ultra requirement in their film, presumably that wouldn't disqualify them from judging consideration in the way that failure to include the usual elements does (but it would at least effectively disqualify them from consideration for the Ultra award).

Christchurch - fantastic year

in reply to Mista Teas:

Hmmm, I actually think, tonally, it was a pretty standard CHCH finals mix. If you look back, you'll not see a grouping that is too different. And I also think that when you have a fairly consistent judging team you get a fairly consistent bunch of films year-to-year.

Okay, maybe you're right. But something seemed different about the line-up. Is it perhaps that we've always had films at the more dramatic/serious end of the spectrum represented in the city finals, but in recent years those films have been creeping steadily higher up in the rankings?

Maybe the number of child actors in prominent roles across the selection was another unusual feature of last night. (I would say that Ultra had something to do with that, although as it happens most of those films actually weren't Ultras.)

Anyway, even if I'm totally wrong and the selection was tonally run-of-the-mill for the city, it was still a very fine selection.

Christchurch - fantastic year

in reply to Searlo:

Has there ever been a year where 2 non-comedies came 1st and 2nd in Christchurch? Can't think of any off the top of my head.

Well I mean, last year the runner-up was that gruelling scifi psychodrama Not Again - that counts, right?

Apart from that, it would depend whether you regard 2013's Is Love Enough? as comedic or not I suppose. Also, in 2010, what came runner-up to Death In The West? El Padre maybe?

Christchurch - fantastic year

Not much to add to what's already been said here, except perhaps to note that the stylistic and tonal range of the films on display felt broader than perhaps any previous CHCH final, and so it was bloody awesome that all these apples and oranges films were being held up side by side as examples of some of the best coming out of the city. Very something-for-everyone, in a way that hopefully helps to inspire a wide range of different filmmakers locally - I certainly got inspired watching them!

How did you find your Genre's and the elements for 2018

in reply to themorgan:

You joke, but there is something to that. And aside from that problem, they also won't understand many of the references, archetypes, or probably even just our idioms. This isn't a problem for all shorts, but it might be quite a big problem for some (or it might be no problem, but as we never get any deep insight into the judging who can say).

Once upon a time having a bunch of flash international judges seemed to really increase the credibility of the comp, but I'm not sure that it's still very necessary.

I've always seen the city-level and national-level competitions as largely unrelated, since the criteria for judging at least feels so different. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, just a curiosity of the way the whole comp is structured. In particular, it has often seemed that the city-level judging rewards good use of the elements and genre, whereas at the national level that stuff is kind of irrelevant, and they're seemingly just interested in the best films in terms of how they play external to the competition context.

How did you find your Genre's and the elements for 2018

in reply to themorgan:

That sucks. I have no idea if any/many judges made it to the Auckland heats, but it'd be a real shame if not.

The international judges are even worse at turning up to the heats. Honestly, I don't know why they even keep them on, the slackers...

How did you find your Genre's and the elements for 2018

Okay, so what if, when the national finalists are announced, those films are made available for viewing online for a short period... 48 hours perhaps? (Midnight to midnight two nights later would have a nice feel about it.) After that, they get taken down again, until after the National Finals has happened. A brief 48-hour availability period would be long enough for the insiders in the competition to see them and get excited, start talking and debating, but short enough that a lot of people (including the general public, by and large) still won't have seen them.

A slight variation on this would be doing short 48-hour releases for the films in three groups of five films, so six days in total. This way it might be a more manageable number of films for those following to watch in a 48-hour period.

How did you find your Genre's and the elements for 2018

in reply to Rastinha:

I wish we could get rid of the "you can't upload until the national finalists are announced" rule.

Yeah, I wonder if a few minor tweaks could be done to this. For one thing, maybe advise all teams to upload their film to YouTube/Vimeo immediately after the shoot weekend, but have it set as private. That way, when they get the all-clear, it's just a simple change of setting, rather than someone having to find the original file again weeks or even months later.

The other issue with no uploads rule is that is suppresses informed discussion of the relative merits of the films in contention. I mean, imagine if no one saw more than one or two of the Academy Award Best Picture nominees in advance of the ceremony? That would make for a pretty boring conversation. It would be great to see more passionate debate among the community about the contenders, really get people excited about the horserace of it, the way many do about sports. This issue is particularly bad for the Nationals, where the gap between seeing the finalists for the first time and hearing the results is so short that I've barely had any time to process what I've seen before it's all over.

Of course, if I understand correctly, at least part of the reason for the no uploads rule is to encourage people to buy tickets to the events (heats, city finals, national finals) themselves - is that right? Still I wonder, if this is the case, has any research like an attendee survey ever been done to figure out whether having seen all/some of the films beforehand would have affected their choice to come?