Spy Fest 2007 - Submission Info

Larry Rutledge

Larry Rutledge

Fest Master
We are happy to officially open the Spy Fest Film Submission.

As stated in the original rules, the deadline for this festival will be May 31, 2007. Unlike previous festivals, this is a very hard date. Once we hit Midnight California-time the submission form will be closed down. As a result we are making the upload process available early.

Eligibility Requirements:
  1. The festival category is: Spy (Think James Bond)
  2. The central character of all films must be named Rob or Robin
  3. Submissions to Spy Fest 2007 can be shot on any camera.
  4. All films must be in English or be subtitled in English.
  5. Maximum length of submissions is 6 minutes including credits.
  6. Delivered film must be formatted as 16:9 or 2.35:1 Anamorphic.
  7. Delivered film must not exceed 50 MB.
  8. Delivered film must be provided as an h.264 compressed file (either .mov or .mp4).
  9. Film must be an "R" rating, or lower.
  10. Filmmaker must have proper copyright clearance for all material contained in the entry.
  11. Films must be made between February 1, 2007 and May 30, 2007 and must not be publicly screened prior to entry.
  12. Films must not have been promoted anywhere, other than DVXUser, prior to completion of festival screening.
  13. Entrants must grant DVXuser.com and its agents non-exclusive rights for their films to appear on a potential Spy-Fest DVD or for DVXuser-sanctioned public screenings.
  14. Films may be entered in other festivals, as long as it doesn't screen prior to May 31, 2007.
How To Submit
  1. Create a ZIP archive named as follows: <DVXuser_name>_<film_name>.zip (e.g. LarryR_SpyFilm.zip).
  2. ZIP Archive must contain:
    1. Entry (h.264, 50MB or less, .mov or .mp4)
    2. Film Poster - preferably a PNG or JPG file
    3. Screen Grab that best identifies your film - also PNG or JPG
  3. Point your browser to: http://www.dvxfest.com/spyfest
  4. Use the form to select and upload the film file.
(Note: There is no need to submit an MPEG DVD version of the film at this time. When we are ready to start work on the DVD we will make arrangements to receive the expanded films)

Other Info
  1. All submitted films will undergo review by the DVX Festival board for adherence to the posted rules.
  2. Any films not in 100% compliance will be rejected and the filmmaker will be notified.
  3. Rejected films will be allowed the opportunity to re-submit a revised film that meets the requirements up to the posted deadline.
Any further questions or comments, please contact myself (Larry R) or Barry (Barry_S).

Thanks,
Larry
 
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Thanks Larry! Barry S! Sounds good!!!

You state that you must attach a poster and a screen grab. This seems new to me. Are there any guidlines on the size of the poster? What about the screen grab size? I am sure that you can reduce it to what size you need but if we can save you a step I am sure that you wouldn't mind!

Finally, It seems that there is no size restriction of the film except for the file size. Is that correct? I know that in Horrorfest, we had a screen size limitation.

Thanks again! Good luck to you guys with all of this. I know that it is a chore. A worthwhile and appreciated chore!
 
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Theodore J Arabian said:
You state that you must attach a poster and a screen grab. This seems new to me.
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Yes, this is new. I want to dress up the film selection/download pages and part of that is using these images.

Are there any guidlines on the size of the poster? What about the screen grab size? I am sure that you can reduce it to what size you need but if we can save you a step I am sure that you wouldn't mind!
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The "poster" should be the image that most have created for their initial post in their individual thread. No restriction on size, but try to keep it reasonable.

The screen grab can just be the default DV image size. It may be used in a couple places (still working this out), so we'll handle resizing on our end (it will be automated by the system I'm building).

Thanks for looking out for us though :dankk2:

Finally, It seems that there is no size restriction of the film except for the file size. Is that correct? I know that in Horrorfest, we had a screen size limitation.
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Nope, no restriction on resolution as long as it fits within the 50MB limit.

Thanks again! Good luck to you guys with all of this. I know that it is a chore. A worthwhile and appreciated chore!
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You are very welcome...watching all the entries makes the work worthwhile. :thumbsup:

Kyser said:
What's a good 16:9 resolution to keep the file under 50MB?
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I'll leave this for those more experienced with compression to answer.

Also, I may need some help creating a zip file. :huh:
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There are several utilities available online for creating ZIP files both for PC and MAC machines.

If, when you are ready to submit your film, you are still having trouble just let me know and we'll work something out.
 
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Just want to push this back to the top...make sure everyone sees it since it contains important information regarding submitting your entry :)
 
Larry, regarding rule 2 (character name must be Rob or Robin); I saw in the official rules thread that you could use Bobby, Robert etc. I've used Bobby and wanted to be certain I could use that.
 
Never been in a fest before and hoping to get a chance to vote-n-such. Soooo, how does that part work? Will it be just a single vote for best flick or will there be multiple categories?

Personally, I'm hoping there's something like "Best use of an obvious toy firearm on moving public transportation disabling a main character to advance the plot" category.:)
 
This is my first entry and I was just curious how stringent the time restraint is.

Like, would my film not be accepted if it was 6 minutes and 3 seconds?
 
kurtmo - We have tried a couple different voting methods, but I believe this time we'll use the same method as during DramaFest. You will PM the title of your favorite entry to Barry_S and he will tally them. However, this is just my assumption at this point as I haven't had an opportunity to discuss the voting process with Barry yet, so don't quote me on that yet.

In the past we have had multiple categories for voting, but with so many entries it become troublesome to get completed votes on all films by all voters. For now this is the easiest method...though we intend to create an online voting system, which will integrate into the delivery system I'm building now, to make the whole process easier for everyone.


aravance - Try your best to keep it to 6 minutes, or less...but no, we won't reject it for 3 seconds. But also, don't take advantage of that and try to squeeze more seconds out of us. If we start getting a rash of 6:10+ we'll have to start rejecting.
 
Don’t mean to be negative but...

1.
Larry R said:
1. The festival category is: Spy (Think James Bond)
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I remember them saying it didn’t have to be James bondish just have some sort of spying going on. surveillance etc. People where scared of a bunch of bad Austin powers remakes.

2.I was hoping we would go back to the older way of voting. In the spirit of film, I would like more feedback than "pick one". Also other people would like feedback other than the directors. I liked the other categories. Helped u see what people liked about it and didn’t like about it. So u become a better filmmaker. "Pick one" feels like your doing it for prizes.

Why not have people vote (numerically) on a bunch of different categories, but at the end have to pick their favorite film. I haven’t seen any prizes posted yet and I did this film for the feedback. PLEEEEAAASSSSEE, PLLLEEEAAASSEE help us get as much feedback as possible.

D
 
The line "The festival category is: Spy (Think James Bond)" is just a reprint of the original rule. The assumption is that everyone entering has gone through the earlier thread and determined if their entry qualifies or not (if you aren't sure, please PM myself or Barry_S and we'll let you know).

Regarding the voting...there are a variety of reasons why the process was "simplified" the way it was last time around. The principal reason is that the original voting ballot consisted of a lot of required values in a lot of categories for each film. When many of the fest were bringing in 60+ entries, that made it hard for people to vote for every entry....so many films were left unvoted which then didn't give them real accurate feedback anyway (the reason people wanted the categories to begin with).

We have been talking about building an online voting system that will allow us to re-introduce the various categories, but make it easy enough that people will still vote for most, if not all, the entries. But that won't be ready this go around as we are currently building the infrastructure for the upload/distribution system.

With all that said...as I mentioned previously, I haven't heard yet from Barry how we intend to handle voting this time. So don't put a lot of weight in how I said we'd be voting.

I'll try to get a definitive answer soon, but in the meantime keep polishing those entries and trust that we are trying to create the best over all experience we can.

Peace,
Larry
 
I echo Deedive's plea. It'd be nice to get more feedback. I realize it's more work, but it seems like it would be worth. Then again it's easy for me to say, it's you who has the to fill in the "more work".
 
i remember the guys in the still photogrphy section had a interesting way of voting. i dont know how difficult that was.
 
what about a weighted "top 3" voting system like they use for MVP ballots and national rankings in sports? that way the winner doesn't have 284 votes and second place has 12, because if there is a clear cut winner then a film deserving of 2nd place might be lost on the bottom with all the other films that didn't get a vote

something like:

1st Place Vote = 5pts
2nd Place Vote = 2pts
3rd Place Vote = 1pt
 
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