Good Bye?

Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
Rarely does the cream not rise to the top.

Yeah, it's happened on occasion but usually the good entries are near the top of the list. Besides, it gets you off the couch and making a short film! That's the best reason to enter. You can do it for nothing if you're creative.
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Good point.....don't know how that didn't even cross my mind :) but yah I'm sure it wouldnt be too difficult to weed out those who are really only voting for a few films.....maybe the mods already even do this?
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
Rarely does the cream not rise to the top.

Yeah, it's happened on occasion but usually the good entries are near the top of the list. Besides, it gets you off the couch and making a short film! That's the best reason to enter. You can do it for nothing if you're creative.
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You can do it for nothing cost-wise, but it still requires a great deal of time and effort.

As for cream not rising, that may be true to some extent - though I wouldn't say it's 'rarely'. In this kind of situation, those with the biggest fan base generally win. A filmmaker can have a large following for a lot of reasons. But this stacks the deck against the newer, lesser known filmmakers whose films (or scripts) may be equally good, or even better.
 
David W. Richardson said:
You can do it for nothing cost-wise, but it still requires a great deal of time and effort.

As for cream not rising, that may be true to some extent - though I wouldn't say it's 'rarely'. In this kind of situation, those with the biggest fan base generally win. A filmmaker can have a large following for a lot of reasons. But this stacks the deck against the newer, lesser known filmmakers whose films (or scripts) may be equally good, or even better.
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Well, yes. Hard work is a given. And I would say rarely. This place isn't YouTube. I've never seen a terrible entry make it to the top 3 just because they had a bunch of friends voting for them. The Mods do police that.

Sure, you may not always agree with a few but that's life.
 
we had independent panel a couple of times before... and it's something we would love to be able to do as a regular deal at some point... have both an audience favorite, and an industry panel pick(s). Ideally, both would carry some real meaning, and booty.

but, like Horrigan said... easier said than done to sustain something like that with a free fest, that is all outgoing funds, and when interest has been waning. But, we're working on improving on all of those fronts :) But, the main motivation of the fests, has always been (and always will be) to encourage our members to engage in the process on some level beyond just talking about it.
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
Well, yes. Hard work is a given. And I would say rarely. This place isn't YouTube. I've never seen a terrible entry make it to the top 3 just because they had a bunch of friends voting for them. The Mods do police that.

Sure, you may not always agree with a few but that's life.
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I'm not saying a BAD entry would win. Only that a lot of GOOD entries stand very little chance of winning because they don't have an established fan base. So the best entries may not even place.
 
David W. Richardson said:
I'm not saying a BAD entry would win. Only that a lot of GOOD entries stand very little chance of winning because they don't have an established fan base. So the best entries may not even place.
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Again, I can only think of 1 time where a film I thought should have won, didn't even place top 3. Pretty good track record considering how many festivals there are.

And again, just because I believed it should have won, doesn't mean, it should have.
 
Well I realize it's just the limitations of a free fest, and there's not a really good practical solution. I'm just saying that this may be one reason why people are hesitant to enter. Didn't mean to hijack the thread.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program. :)
 
David W. Richardson said:
Well I realize it's just the limitations of a free fest, and there's not a really good practical solution. I'm just saying that this may be one reason why people are hesitant to enter. Didn't mean to hijack the thread.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program. :)
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Cool. Well, I hope you get out there and make something. Cheers!
 
David W. Richardson said:
I'm not saying a BAD entry would win. Only that a lot of GOOD entries stand very little chance of winning because they don't have an established fan base. So the best entries may not even place.
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Do you have any evidence of this happening in a DVXFest? Our rating system is specifically quite effective at preventing that outcome. I can't think of a single festival where the winning film wasn't one of my top 3.
 
Awards competitions are unfair, period. I'm sure no one believes that the ATAS and AMPAS awards are pure-as-driven-snow-merit-only-influence-free exercises. If you are going to compete at just about any level, be prepared for a degree of unfairness. The voters are people with their own relationships and predilictions, not Vulcan voting machines. The question is is it as fair as possible and I believe that where the 'fests are concerned the answer is yes.
 
Barry_Green said:
Do you have any evidence of this happening in a DVXFest? Our rating system is specifically quite effective at preventing that outcome. I can't think of a single festival where the winning film wasn't one of my top 3.
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Only one, because I stopped participating in fests after that. But by its very nature, this kind of voting fest can be biased toward the more popular filmmakers, don't you think?

How, specifically, would you "prevent that outcome"? For instance, say someone submitted a film or script (depending on the fest) that was, in your opinion, absolutely top notch and deserved to win -- but because the person was relatively unknown, few people bothered to watch their film or read their script. Those who did would rate it quite highly, but they would be few. As a result, a number of films or scripts of lesser quality (in your opinion) would rank higher by virtue of having more people view and vote. How could you possibly correct such a situation, while still being fair?

Maybe a two-tiered approach would help. First, all submissions would be reviewed by a qualified and impartial panel. That panel would determine a certain number of finalists. Then the general membership here would view and vote on the finalists. At least that would increase the chances of a newbie filmmaker getting a shot at winning.

Just an idea.
 
Another possibility is a requirement that some minimum number of entries be watched before one may submit votes, ie no one can just watch one or two entries and vote just based upon that degree of viewing. Although I think that runs the risk of discouraging participation.
 
Sad Max said:
Another possibility is a requirement that some minimum number of entries be watched before one may submit votes, ie no one can just watch one or two entries and vote just based upon that degree of viewing. Although I think that runs the risk of discouraging participation.
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One other potential flaw may come from voting as you watch. In other words, you watch one video and think it's the best, so you give it a 10. Then you watch another and decide it's better than the first. Now what? Ideally, you'd watch all the videos and then go back and score them based on how good they were compared to each other. Maybe?
 
Sad Max said:
Another possibility is a requirement that some minimum number of entries be watched before one may submit votes, ie no one can just watch one or two entries and vote just based upon that degree of viewing. Although I think that runs the risk of discouraging participation.
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This is what I was thinking as well. I personally think all entries should be watched and voted on to be valid votes. Although I agree, it could discourage participation, but, on the other hand, isn't it one sided participation of voting that is trying to be eliminated? It doesn't even mean you need to watch it to the end, if it just happens to be THAT BAD! :) But at least trying to watch it and voting on each entry means you've at least gone through a bit of a vetting process.

Of course, I've not been involved in the fests as an entrant or a judge, so what do I know! :)
 
Rick Burnett said:
This is what I was thinking as well. I personally think all entries should be watched and voted on to be valid votes. Although I agree, it could discourage participation, but, on the other hand, isn't it one sided participation of voting that is trying to be eliminated? It doesn't even mean you need to watch it to the end, if it just happens to be THAT BAD! :) But at least trying to watch it and voting on each entry means you've at least gone through a bit of a vetting process.

Of course, I've not been involved in the fests as an entrant or a judge, so what do I know! :)
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I was director of a film festival one year. We broke down into groups and each group covered a different category of entry. I was part of the group that watched features. Our rule was we had to watch at least 15 minutes of each and every film. If, after 15 minutes, we knew there was no possible way -- for whatever reason -- that the film was going to make it into the festival, then we stopped it and moved on. Otherwise, we watched the entire film. Each group chose the top 5 for its category, and those 5 films were watched and voted on by the entire festival board. That seemed to work pretty well.
 
David W. Richardson said:
Those who did would rate it quite highly, but they would be few. As a result, a number of films or scripts of lesser quality (in your opinion) would rank higher by virtue of having more people view and vote. How could you possibly correct such a situation, while still being fair?
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Because that's not how it works. Five 9's beats a thousand 7's. The only way it would be unfair as you're thinking, is if those masses would unfairly rank the known filmmaker HIGHER than the better film. If you had a thousand people voting on one film, and they all gave it an average of seven, and you had twenty people voting on another film, and they gave it an average of nine, the less-popular but better-rated film would win. That's how the system works. Which is exactly why we have two rounds of voting -- so that the lower-viewed but higher-rated films will get a higher exposure by virtue of being a finalist, so that everyone will watch and rate on all the films that are in serious contention.

So the only way it'd be unfair is if someone watched a mediocre film from JDS, and a great film from ... I dunno, Rob38881, and said "well, I sure liked the Rob38881 film better, but I don't know who that is, so I'm gonna give it a five just because I don't know who it is. And the JDS film wasn't very good, but I know who JDS is, so I'll rank it higher just for that."

Do you think people really behave that way?
 
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