Mixed emotions about Horrorfest

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The current voting system makes a lot of sense, providing "department to department" averaging that balances a final outcome.

I'm not certain that the way we score films will improve without introducing excessive complexity to the voting process - as in weighting one voting area against another (e.g., direction and cinemtography carries more percentage points than score or SFX).

In this particular festival, just as in the real world, marketing and perceived name value afforded some films a must-see status before they were uploaded. In the end though, it came down to what films scored well across all departments.

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Maybe I'm missing something here. The 'marks' are what they are. I disagreed with a lot of them, but that's the nature of the system and to be expected any time you have open voting.

VersuS, you know how much I appreciated your work and nothing on the spreadsheet changes my opinion. However, the marks were merely the CONTEST and the means to win prizes. That was all they were. IF you want to win prizes and make THAT your main goal, you bet you can learn a lot from those marks ... . I'm not recommending that, but that's a fact of life.

For instance, The Morning After seemed to have a huge split whereby older viewers loved and appreciated it, while younger ones didn't (according to the film maker's comments on his thread). That, by definition, is going to result in lower marks on the spreadsheet BUT I would expect that Luster is very pleased that they produced the film they did and wouldn't change it if given the chance, solely to appeal to a younger demographic.

IF I was merely motivated to win prizes I would study carefully this spreadsheet because it provides a wealth of information, in association with all the threads to figure out some rhyme and reason to how the scoring occurred. In the end, that's exactly what goes on at the studio level and why there is so much "crap" put into theaters and on DVDs. If you're gonna try to satisfy the widest denominator you're going to stay away from more risky or less accessible projects. Broken Circle was brilliant, in my opinion, but definitely less accessible and less impressive to people who didn't recognize the complex blocking and sheer marvel of the single steadi-cam move.

Bloody Mary and Rekindled were beautifully crafted, IMHO. They also were more accessible on a number of levels. To me, the puzzle is to figure out a compromise that allows you to give that access while building a beautifully crafted film. IF you don't give a rat's ass about compromise, then make YOUR film and forget about the spreadsheet because it's only the scorecard for the contest - not a referendum of qualified critics.
 
With respect to a panel. This is a community-based group of individuals with disparate tastes and levels of experience that run the gamut.

To bring a panel of professionals in judgement of filmmakers at different stages of development would only introduce another set of unique challenges.

Leave it alone - 100 posts to vote is a good qualifying benchmark and the greater peer-to-peer structure of the contest closely resembles the way Hollywood awards their own.

One thing never changes anytime there is competition - someone is always going to disagree with the outcome! Words to the creative types out there: get used to critique and be willing to learn from your peers.

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I don't follow. Aside from picking one movie every three months, what are the festivals trying to accomplish?

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I feel like it's being asked to be too many things at once.
All it's trying to be is a peer made, viewed, and voted on theme by theme film fest.

I also think that Pro's, novices, your aunt and uncle, and some guy from the longshoreman's union all have a valid viewpoint on whether or not your lighting sucks or is great, because theoretically you are not making movies just for people that went to film school.

If the pro-ams here rate your lighting as tops or not so hot, take it in that context and use the information.

This is kind of like throwing a rubber ball at a brick wall and then complaining that the wall should be made of different material because of the way the ball bounced back.

The wall is what it is. Use the bounceback accordingly to adjust your thow. Wooden wall = different bounceback, and you would take that phenomenon on its own merit and adjust your throw without saying that the wall should be made of metal.

OK that's stretching for a metaphor, but hopefully you get my point.
 
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Jack Daniel Stanley said:
I also think that Pro's, novices, your aunt and uncle, and some guy from the longshoreman's union all have a valid viewpoint on whether or not your lighting sucks or is great, because theoretically you are not making movies just for people that went to film school.
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I agree, and this is really the reason why I created this thread. The problem is though, that the individual markings are inaccurate because they're manipulated to obtain a final result number one is happy with.

Listen, I don't want anyone thinking I created this thread to rag on Horrorfest. Not at all. Larry R's post that Barry quoted is exactly right. But the others on this board that posted about the importance of accurate numbers are also right. It just pains me creatively (not egotistically) when I see my movie scored 4.5s across the board. That's not impossible, but that's not accurate either. What can I take from that? Even if I had a lower overall score, varying scores correctly describing the aspects we were given to critique would be much more beneficial.

I never had in my head that I'd win the camera. I just thought "ok well, if you didn't like the movie as a whole, did you like the sound? what about the cine? acting!? score?!!?!?" The results unfortunately don't tell me that, they just tell me that most of the viewers thought my movie was a 4.5.

Christ, now it sounds like I'm whining. :crybaby: :crybaby:
 
Well said J-Dan. I've always bridled at the suggestion that someone is not "qualified" to judge a work of art. Unless you specifically limit or restrict your work to a particular audience, you've got to accept that everyone has an opinion and they are entitled to them. Go look at the reviews on AtomFilms.com or even YouTube. There's a lot of haters who live to spit on almost anything that doesn't fit their idea of what's good. It's part of the game and one of the beauties of freedom.

Hmmmm. I think I'll go make an animated film satire about Mohammed. ... Well, maybe not.
 
Rubix³ said:
I agree, and this is really the reason why I created this thread. The problem is though, that the individual markings are inaccurate because they're manipulated to obtain a final result number one is happy with.

Listen, I don't want anyone thinking I created this thread to rag on Horrorfest. Not at all. Larry R's post that Barry quoted is exactly right. But the others on this board that posted about the importance of accurate numbers are also right. It just pains me creatively (not egotistically) when I see my movie scored 4.5s across the board. That's not impossible, but that's not accurate either. What can I take from that? Even if I had a lower overall score, varying scores correctly describing the aspects we were given to critique would be much more beneficial.

I never had in my head that I'd win the camera. I just thought "ok well, if you didn't like the movie as a whole, did you like the sound? what about the cine? acting!? score?!!?!?" The results unfortunately don't tell me that, they just tell me that most of the viewers thought my movie was a 4.5.

Christ, now it sounds like I'm whining. :crybaby: :crybaby:
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It's probably easier than it looks. You take those 4.5's back to your thread, find the critiques that concern each area and apply them to your next effort.

The score goes from 4.5 to 6.5, hopefully.

In truth, those numbers (regardless of how biased they might've been, according to some) are kind-of representitive of skill level.

Jack didn't score 10's across the board... so put him at a level 7 in certain areas? So I guess Spielberg is like a 9.8? It's kinda like a video game.
 
Rubix³ said:
... I never had in my head that I'd win the camera. I just thought "ok well, if you didn't like the movie as a whole, did you like the sound? what about the cine? acting!? score?!!?!?" The results unfortunately don't tell me that, they just tell me that most of the viewers thought my movie was a 4.5.

Christ, now it sounds like I'm whining. :crybaby: :crybaby:
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actually when I look at the ballot I see it saying that viewers thought that, while there was significant room for improvement in all areas, you were more successful in the areas of cinematogrpahy sound and score and less succesful in script and acting.

I score you about a point higher than the final ballot and in mine your most successful areas were sound and acting, with cinematography, editing, and sound being only slightly behind and script being the lowest. So the final ballot is not very different from my score on your film, which was not adjusted to average you out or palce you anywhere.

IMHO, there's tons of info on that ballot for you to take and learn from when making your next film.

I don't think you are whining, but there's an old Zen saying ...
"When the student is ready the teacher appears."
 
Maybe the sub-scores make it too mechanical?

I've seen films that sucked as far as sound, or photography, or direction goes, but I still "liked it" for unquantifiable reasons.

So...should it get a low overall score for the technical reasons, or low tech scores and a high final score?

Maybe we should do the 1-100 scale for ranking, but have the sub-categories there for the filmmakers' education & edification.
 
this is a discussion thread that is headed nowhere

people talked about how many users arranged their technical marks according to the overall score, like they said 'this movie is a 4 for me, so i ll put the appropriate numbers in cine,edit etc to make it a 4'

then the same people say that we should have a 0-100 rating system

ok these two statements are a paradox
because the 1st one suggests that people DO give a 0-100 mark after all, so the 2nd statement contradicts the 1st
 
In a fest that's "free" and where the voting is left to the peers, that's brings
a different dynamic altogether. I do wonder how the voting would have
gone however if no one had marketed their films and if each film was
submitted without credits at the end - anonymously.

Would people in the lower ranks be higher and vice versa? It's an interesting
thought. But alas, the fest is what it is. Who is to say what's the best system?

I certainly have no clue. All I know is that as a screenwriter I learned a lot, what
to do and what not to do, I also learned much as a producer. For me, I got
something that can't be won as a prize, though mind you, a prize is nice.

I thought Jack's film was strong in sfx and editing, I did however think the story
was weak. There were other stories more entertaining. How did I judge that?
But having non-filmmakers watch a few shorts, those who were not bias
to the craft of filmmaking, the results were quite different.

So maybe, if we really want to test how the audience feels about our shorts,
maybe our judges need to be nonfilmmakers.

Charli
 
judges in general are qualified people
a jury is not

so what did we have here, judges or jury? i m confused
 
My
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I saw that the voting system was flawed back during Sci-Fest.

Though there were many things that led me to this line of thinking (most of which I'd rather not discuss here)...
There are 3 major reasons I would like to cite:

#1) The number of users that voted was considerably less than actual entries in the fest

#2) Politics became involved (I can't speak on others' behalf...but apparently Team CallaghanFilms was perceived to have "pissed in someone else's pool", and a pack of mostly new users began spewing vile & unfounded venom about our film both in our thread and in other threads...one of these schmucks all but admitted to giving us 1's across the board)

even if one wanted to debate or attempt to debunk the two above; the following is pretty hard to argue against...

#3)
Jarred Land said:
from http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=47763
drum roll please..


...Recognition of Excellence in Screenplay - DVXTrek by Trekky...
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oh, and how could I forget...

#4 The HorrorFest results


I have seen mentioned (both in this thread and other HorrorFest post-results thread) two suggestions/compromises that I think could help drastically, and that I would get behind wholeheartedly...

-(Ideally) An outside jury panel making up 75% of the results...with the other 25% coming from the consensus dvxuser vote

-or-

-Assuming the voting remains 100% in house, the entries are submitted anonymously.



Again just my
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...take it or leave it

:beer:


↓
 
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I was reading through this thread and had to stop somewhere around the third page.

I guarantee that none of these discussions would be happening if they hadn't released the spreadsheet. I wouldn't be surprised if, by the next fest Jarred says "I'm not going to release the scores this time, because too many people complain afterwards." I appreciated seeing the scores. I agree w/ Jack that maybe next time there should be a more overall category but that didn't happen this time. Who frickin cares?

Look at what they've done:

Purchased a $6,000 camera (among other prizes.)
Motivated 65 people to make a film.
Took on a huge workload.
They're releasing a DVD and if you're on it you can IMDB your film.
etc.
etc.

It just seems like a bunch of whining to me. Not JUST this thread, but I'm so sick of hearing "I saw all the other films and I KNOW that my film was better than a 5.6 in such and such category." I'm sure everyone feels that way! The fact is that no matter what festival you enter, it's not always going to be your idea of fair.
 
I have enjoyed reading this thread though I am disappointed that Rubix feels so cheated. In fact, I am sorry for anyone who feels cheated.

As I have stated in the thread that I started, "Congratulations to the 65 winner," we are all winners here. I know it sound cliche' but seriously, we all set out to do something and accomplished it. And most importantly, I, for one, walk away from this festival with more than I brought into it; knoweledge, experience and a better understanding of filmmaking.

But I wanted to jump in becuase I am one of the people that stated that I was going to alter the individual catagory scores to affect the general outcome. However, I didn't do that. First of all, I was pleasantly surprised at how the standings came out and secondly, I just didn't feel right inflating someones score or vice-versa just to acheive my desired result.

I just wanted to mention this, because I am one that publicly suggested that I would and I want to publicly announce that I didn't.

And though this system did place the films in a close enough ranking for me, given the current system, I am still a advocate of making adjustments to the voting system. (Just so people don't think that I am contradicting myself here from other posts that I have written.)
 
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I said, way back when the spreadsheet reared it's controversial head, that they were going to make the mods feel bad about it.

Don't be surprised if the spreadsheet disappears next fest. Thanks for that one.
 
Geez, Theo I have no idea what you just said.

For clairification, the top three films voted were the top three I picked, just not
in that order. I do however think that the entire festival outcome would have
been different if the audience were "the audience" like in many film festivals.

I remember voting on the one here in Santa Cruz. I hope as we all make films
that we keep in mind our audience is not each other, our audience is ma and pa
out there in the real world.
 
Slimothy said:
It just seems like a bunch of whining to me. Not JUST this thread, but I'm so sick of hearing "I saw all the other films and I KNOW that my film was better than a 5.6 in such and such category." I'm sure everyone feels that way! The fact is that no matter what festival you enter, it's not always going to be your idea of fair.
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Gotta disagree, my friend.
I am more upset by the results of this fest (which I didn't enter) than I was by the other (which I did)

I am not saying, "I saw all the other films and I KNOW that my film was better than a 5.6 in such and such category."

I am saying, "Tim, I saw all the other films and I KNOW that YOUR film (and Broken Circle and Reunion and Lakeside and so on) was better than..." :beer:
 
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