Will you the 5-6 minute mark effect your judging?

Will you the 5-6 minute mark effect your judging?

  • 6 Minutes or less is alright by me

    Votes: 15 34.1%

  • It had darn well be under 5 minutes

    Votes: 3 6.8%

  • Quality is what matters most, not the length

    Votes: 23 52.3%

  • There's a film festival going on?

    Votes: 3 6.8%
  • Total voters
    44
Norm Sanders

Norm Sanders

Script Wrangler
Perhaps this is inappropriate to ask, but I'm not asking about certain elements of our film ... I'm simply wondering if people will judge a film more poorly because it went over the initial 5 minute maximum limit that was set, but has now become soft per Jarred's post a week or two ago.

We're now allowed to go up to 6 minutes, with 5 minutes as the ideal. For our film, which is 20+ minutes, getting a 5 minute cut that didn't come off as a trailer is nearly impossible. To make sense, and of course have more impact, I'm JUST under the 6 minute mark. I want to leave it as is, but if people will be judging more favorably those films that stayed at 5 minutes or less, then I'll bite the bullet & pull some more guts out of ours.

So again, it may be inappropriate to ask, but I'm sure I'm not the only filmmaker with the same thoughts/questions.
 
I'm ok with it going to 6 minutes...especially since the rule maker (Jarred) said 6 minutes is fine.

BTW, aren't you supposed to be on an airplane Norm?
 
Yeah, my wife's not too pleased I'm still on the computer ... heading out VERY shortly, with still a couple of trips to make & get the files online for the composer!
 
Norm I reall think this one would be less of an issue if we didn't talk about so much as a potential issue.

Rulemaker said OK with plenty of time for people to take advantage of it.

Not the same thing as one film accidentally showing at 40 seconds over last contest at all.

My take is the minute is there.

Taking advantage of it when you don't need because you think your film is cool and cant bring yourself to cut anything = bad filmmaking.

Hurting your film by making it less clear or feeling rushed = bad filmmaking.

By wedging your film into 5 minutes you may not offend the very few (and I think it will be quite few) that say hey I didn't know about that no fair (even though its was posted in the rules thread) or that wasn't on the first page and I just decided to do this.

I'm past worrying about this. My film's edit has gone from 6:04 to 5:55 and I will conntinue to trim. BUt no way I'm twisting my film into a pretzel to get it in under 5 minutes. I'm trimming to make a better movie.

So you can go to strategies
1 Make the best movie you can to "try and win"
2 follow a rule that's no longer a rule in order to not piss people off to "try and win"

If you are lucky then stategy 1 and 2 are the same for you, but I would (and will) err towards #1 over #2, personally.

OF course now that you've put the 1000 pound gorilla in the middle of the room so we have to talk about it, you've announced in another thread that you have gotten your film just under the 5 minute mark
:kali::badputer:

cunning strategy :evil:
 
Make it as long as you want (under 6 min.) of course... and if it rocks, it rocks... no time thing is going to affect my vote.
 
I'm probably the first one finished with a Hero film. My edit was finished when Jarred announced that it could be beyond 5 minutes. I recut my film and now it's around 5:20 or something like that (it really needed it). If anyone should be bothered it's guys like me that followed the what seemed to be a strict rule of 5 mins. I'm not at all. I was happy. Most people, at the time of announcement weren't even close to a rough cut, let alone a final cut.

I don't see why anyone would be that petty to vote against a great film if it runs over 5 mins.

I voted for, "Quality is what matters most, not the length.". That's what my girlfriend says :grin:.

I'd rather watch a Macgregorish (awesome) 6 min film than a retarded and boring 5 min one. I'll be voting on artistic merit, not length.
 
Yeah ... the only issue may be people that aren't subscribed to the thread or are just making their films and go now to check the first page of the thread and only the first page.


I may go on a personal PM campaign and PM everyone Brandon has listed as participating :cheesy:
 
wow... a PM campaign... good idea... to alert them that the rules have been tweaked a bit... or maybe a nice BIG FONT announcement thread would do...
 
Aram Bauman said:
Just in case this was for me, I was joking. :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
Click to expand...

I wasn't directing anything toward you in any way at all. I didn't even read your earlier post until just now. It was just a random thought.
 
I agree with Jack. Quality is what matters. If you have a great film and its under 6 minutes, that's all I care about.
 
Norm, are you on again? I thought you were on vacation? I can just imagine your wife standing a few feet behind you, with her arms folded across her chest and her foot tapping loudly, as she periodically looks over at you madly typing away at the computer, and occasionally sighing, loudly! :grin:

Go relax...
 
david jerome said:
I'm glad I read this. I really needed the six minutes.
Click to expand...

I think I might actually think a little less of some movies that go way over 5:00. Why? Because we worked out butts off to make a decent movie that's under 5:00. I'm not upset that the rule changed...that's fine. Rules are rules, no matter what. But, from the day that this Fest was announced me and my writer were working with the constant trouble of trying to fit a decent story in 5:00. 6:00 would have made it a whole lot easier, but we succeeded in keeping it under 5:00, so I'm going to take pride in that.

So, if someone comes in with a movie that's 5:15 with credits, I won't think about docking them. But if people are going generously over 5:00, I will consider that they didn't properly plan and produce according to the rules that I was playing by. I don't know that I would dock them, necessarily, but I may consider it...I don't know. I've not judged in this Fest before.

2¢
 
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