DVX Fest trailers

Ben Sliker said:
i do appreciate the amount of hard work that went into these, but I'm not such a big fan of a trailer to promote how awesome DVXfests are being cut together from heavily compressed and muxed footage. Fun for a tribute video, not so great for promotion.
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not my favorite either, and they're definitely not tv ready with the compression settings, especially since they're re compressed once again. Believe me, i hate to see my very dark film come out looking so grainy in the compression.

The fact that there were so many different camera used, from HD to SD cameras, all different resolutions (even some of the HD was 720, some 1080, and then there's the RED footage) makes it even more difficult to get good quality rendering especially for promotion on the internet. Even if we were to get good quality clips of each film in the highest resolution possible, somebody's movie is not going to be properly represented with the best resolution.

I'd like good quality images for promoting the fests, but there are certain limitations that we have to endure and unless promotion is being set up for the next fest, while the current one is going on, there is no real way to make sure that all materials would be delivered in a timely fashion so that promotion could go forward in a timely fashion, representing the fest in the best possible light.

Any suggestions that anyone has to improve on quality, the look, the feel, the cohesion of marketing to the outside DVXUser world, please make them. I'd like to not operate in a vacuum and we all put too much work into our films.

Let's hear your voices.
 
these criticisms are more or less irrelevant. all five spots show iconic shots from the films and direct the viewer to the dvxfest.com link. that's enough. best of all, they're short. what we need is to get them in front of eyeballs. let's push these things out there, "embed and spread" on blogs, youtube, vimeo, facebook, myspace, metacafe, dailymotion, stupidvideos, revver, aol videos, blip.tv, veoh, crackle, viddler, etc.

puck, can you upload the files somewhere so we can grab them? i want to get these out there asap.
 
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i would also like to encourage everyone, if you have a blog, start talking about this fest and tag your articles with "dvxfest" so we can track them through technorati. if you dont have a blog. start one.

http://wordpress.com
http://www.blogger.com
http://twitter.com (microblog)

talk about the films you saw last fest, what you liked, what you didn't, talk about the film you are making this time. personally, i think the lack of outside promotion to date has made dvxfest into one of the filmmaking communities "best kept secrets". and that's the angle i will play up in my promotion for the fest. i'm going use my contacts to try and get us some online radio interviews and i'll make mention of the fest in the articles i write for workbook project.

this new allowance for "outside promotion" is a wonderful opportunity for us to actively expand our audience collectively, beyond this forum. we can't live by the thought of "if we build it, they will come". they won't.
 
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Zak you make an excellent point. We ALL do need to get more involved in this promotion opportunity.

Use the banners, posters, trailers and most of all, link everyone back to the fest so they know about it. We can at least plant a seed so when we remind them in March, the interest is already there.
 
your right, puck. the promotion and awareness building needs to happen now. these next few months give us the opportunity to build an audience for march the likes of which past DVXFests have never seen. hmmm... i think we need a mailing list for email blasts. i'm going to open a google docs account and I'll post the login back here so everyone can add to it. another doc with press contacts would be good too.
 
I like the idea of getting a wider audience, and there are two issues that I think are pretty important here.

1. Many people asked me, "How do I see the other films?", and of course I tell them you have to sign up to dvxuser... a real drag for some. I think there should be a way for "guests" to see the movies without needing to login or sign up. The login option would be there for the users that are elegible to rate the film.

2. If we're sending out a link now, what should it be? The DVXFEST link leads one to a world of trouble if you start to explore past festivals, as there are MANY dead links to movie files, and it isn't clear which ones are the winners, so a person is bound to lose interest quickly. If the link goes to DVXUSER, or the lossfest thread, they are seeing a LOT of "Stuff" and everyone I have pointed that way has gotten overwhelmed in the "clutter". Not to mention the fact that at this point, it's a lot of ridiculous thread-bumping banter with not much substance for anyone outside the dvxuser bubble.


I'm all for promoting things around here, because the quality of work is excellent and deserves more eyes on it, but I feel like there needs to be a cleaner "marketing" plan, with interesting content in order for it to work.
 
Agreed. A more graphical interface to encourage outside viewers would be useful... similar to vimeo or youtube.. or like how atomfilms.com used to be set up.

Quick easy viewing with emphasis on the winners (finalists) would be an awesome addition. the DVXFest is it's own link right now, why not make it it's own creature and take it all the way into the mainstream?
 
DVXfest.com will be the clearinghouse for all things festival ... and it is in the early stages of being re-designed (or finally designed :) ). I've been so busy getting the code working that the site's face has lacked attention, and so far that's been ok. But with the inclusion of outside promotion, it's time to improve our "curb appeal"
 
Larry R said:
DVXfest.com will be the clearinghouse for all things festival ... and it is in the early stages of being re-designed (or finally designed :) ). I've been so busy getting the code working that the site's face has lacked attention, and so far that's been ok. But with the inclusion of outside promotion, it's time to improve our "curb appeal"
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:beer: Huzzah and all things celebrational. Larry if you ever need help redesigning, I'll gladly volunteer my web design services to facilitate the process. Anything to make your job easier.
 
Zak Forsman said:
your right, puck. the promotion and awareness building needs to happen now. these next few months give us the opportunity to build an audience for march the likes of which past DVXFests have never seen. hmmm... i think we need a mailing list for email blasts. i'm going to open a google docs account and I'll post the login back here so everyone can add to it. another doc with press contacts would be good too.
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I can see it now... Wow, we have to watch 184 shorts? :zombie_smiley:
 
i think that's where the mods step in and set some type of limit on submissions.. it's going to happen eventually... it's just a matter of when.
 
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