Pretentious

thartley said:
At one point, there was discussion of making the submissions anonymous (did we do that at any point? I'm old, cant remember) so that "the usual suspects" situation would not apply.
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We did indeed do it that way for the first few fests. I thought it was great, people commented on the films themselves without having to worry about whether they were making friends or enemies; nobody could "take it personally" because we didn't know who we were referencing.

However...

I guess that wouldnt work becasue of all the build-up to the fest and behind the scenes footage people post. Its gets people excited and I think it a good part of the festival too.
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Yes, this time we tried something different -- actively allowing and encouraging hype and promotion. And I think it really worked out well overall, right? I mean, there was a level of anticipation that we haven't seen before, and frankly I think the quality of entries this time around is heads and shoulders above any prior fest. Heck, without promotion we wouldn't have had the whole Movie Master phenomenon (er, wait, I'm sure many would think that was a good thing...) but hey, you get my point.
 
Matthew B. Moore said:
You see it as small and unimportant (like a fly turd), I see it as crap that is not needed (You know, a small smudge of fly turd on a clean window). Kind of the same, I guess, yet it spawned this thread.

Funny - why wouldn't I be reviewing entries?
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I think you're reading way too into my text, here. I don't know why you wouldn't be reviewing entries--

I just said that I didn't even know you were reviewing them.
 
Ok. Um, yes I am reviewing the entries. I like to when I can find the time. I do enjoy being entertained.

Kholi said:
I think you're reading way too into my text, here. I don't know why you wouldn't be reviewing entries--

I just said that I didn't even know you were reviewing them.
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Matthew B. Moore said:
Ok. Um, yes I am reviewing the entries.
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Yes, that's good for you, Matthew. Please, leave everyone with beneficial no-holds-barred information from the B. Moore better side of things.

P.S. I'm not referring to the movie starring Hulk Hogan, either.
 
That is all they will get. You too, player-pimp. I hope you can handle it if I am honest.
Kholi said:
Yes, that's good for you, Matthew. Please, leave everyone with beneficial no-holds-barred information from the B. Moore better side of things.

P.S. I'm not referring to the movie starring Hulk Hogan, either.
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Matthew B. Moore said:
That is all they will get. You too, player-pimp. I hope you can handle it if I am honest.
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I didn't enter Candy Gram. I'll link you to the post with valid reasons, if need be.

But, I'm totally open to taking the harshest criticism, in any case. I've had it from all ways with different kinds of rusty razors. So, when I do finally get into it, I hope to see your comments, suggestions, and insight there.
 
Don't mistake me for a man of "rusty razors". I call it as I see it after so many years of dealing with independent filmmaking. Information can some times be a ***** to swallow. I also have dealt with tons of criticism and have for many years. How can you avoid it, especially after 25 films. The people who I thank and remember are those who didn't hold anything back. It has made all of the difference. For that reason, I choose to say the things I say.
I promise you that when I do see your flim, this discussion we have just had will have nothing to do with my opinion. Every one starts at "0". Even Spidey.

Kholi said:
I didn't enter Candy Gram. I'll link you to the post with valid reasons, if need be.

But, I'm totally open to taking the harshest criticism, in any case. I've had it from all ways with different kinds of rusty razors. So, when I do finally get into it, I hope to see your comments, suggestions, and insight there.
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Matthew B. Moore said:
Don't mistake me for a man of "rusty razors". I call it as I see it after so many years of dealing with independent filmmaking. Information can some times be a ***** to swallow. I also have dealt with tons of criticism and have for many years. How can you avoid it, especially after 25 films. The people who I thank and remember are those who didn't hold anything back. It has made all of the difference. For that reason, I choose to say the things I say.
I promise you that when I do see your flim, this discussion we have just had will have nothing to do with my opinion. Every one starts at "0". Even Spidey.
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It shouldn't. Was it a bad conversation? Sometimes things fly right over my head. Especially when I'm awaiting the oven to beep so that I can broil the hell out of my Filet Mignon.

Seriously, honest criticism is a good thing. I'm glad someone has the guts to do it; I try.
 
Kholi said:
It shouldn't. Was it a bad conversation? Sometimes things fly right over my head. Especially when I'm awaiting the oven to beep so that I can broil the hell out of my Filet Mignon.

Seriously, honest criticism is a good thing. I'm glad someone has the guts to do it; I try.
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Yeah, that and my snappyness don't win me many friends on this site, but I'm glad we reached a common ground.

Not a bad conversation, just a discusion in the middle of confusion and misinformation. Either way, I think we understand each other on the real points.

Word
 
I see Movie Master's doings as a big joke, which it was. It was almost beautiful. His is the funnest thread to read out of all of them. The joke works.

The game should remain pure.

Actually, f*%k it, this is taking too much time away from my edit.

What ever happens will happen, regardless.

Barry_Green said:
We did indeed do it that way for the first few fests. I thought it was great, people commented on the films themselves without having to worry about whether they were making friends or enemies; nobody could "take it personally" because we didn't know who we were referencing.

However...



Yes, this time we tried something different -- actively allowing and encouraging hype and promotion. And I think it really worked out well overall, right? I mean, there was a level of anticipation that we haven't seen before, and frankly I think the quality of entries this time around is heads and shoulders above any prior fest. Heck, without promotion we wouldn't have had the whole Movie Master phenomenon (er, wait, I'm sure many would think that was a good thing...) but hey, you get my point.
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Interesting how this thread went from one person's comment about promoting quotes in the banners to a mass discussion between two users, lol.

I think if someone has a tendency to be "snappy" that PM'ing could be wisely used to carry on the conversation? That way, it can leave the thread to the original topic, and communicating (or lack thereof) can be carried on & worked out one-on-one.

Back to the quotes thing ... I've not done it with my signature, but I think it's a cool idea only because this fest was so centered around hype & promotion, why not carry it on all the way up to the end of voting? As THartley even stated, it enticed her to see films she many not have watched otherwise, which shows they actually had a purpose & effect.

For the few users I've seen who've commented about how hard it is to read the threads with them in the signatures, maybe they're just on whacky monitors, but it's not caused a stitch of trouble for me in reading the threads.
 
I've used pretentious in one of my reviews... I think it was in the "Killer Sound"
thread.

edit: I'm not referencing the comedic short "Killer Sound" just my comment in the thread.

Now mind you that this is just one man's opinion but, I think viewer
comments in sigs works on the basic level of hype only. Hype is hype nomatter
what. Just like bad publicity is just as good as good publicity. It's just a hook to
gather more eyeballs and it serves it's purpose well. I understand the similarities
of promo in the motion picture industry to it's use in Horrorfest but, this is why
it all comes off as superfluous to me.

For me though, it's just as ridiculous to hide bad reviews at the expense of being
happy that one has recieved favorable words. That doesn't mean that one should
be scared to put them in their sig.

Just the same as it is in the movie industry, for me anyways, I hate reading the
comments on a film on the side of a bus, billboard, poster, magazine ad, tv trailer,
etc. We are all bombarded with advertising everyday that it's all so uncomfortable
to me now. It feels sort of like intrusive advertising... like popups that get in the
way of reading a website. In this case, getting in the way of reviewing a horrorfest
entry that one would like to see without being tainted by other comments first.
 
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I did it coz I didnt think about it til I saw others do it and seeing how the very few people who reviewed my work said some nice things, i felt the need to put the on my sig. Why?
A) to see them myself, as an artist (not filmmaker, artist and I feel that I am an artist long before I got a camera,art is general) as an artist I feel the need to feed my needs on my own and not wait for others, if I dont give the necessary drive to my ego and soul, no one will

B)coz it's a near marketing plan, not that it did any good to me anyway, and someone said that he posted reviews on his sig coz he was a late entry (Darkline I believe) and he was behind some of the others who had hype already going on...still...I was here August1st, every day working my butt with my threads, grabs, talking,sharing and still I got less reviews from some late entries, and that is ...I dont know why that is but still you got to do what you got to do

C)Finally I did it coz I send my friends and family links to this place and they go 'wow, nice reviews, its like the movies' and of course there's a big smile on my face...so shoot me if you will officer albrecht (person who finds this movie wins something special)
 
Barry_Green said:
...this time we tried something different -- actively allowing and encouraging hype and promotion...
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This is my understanding and I think its a golden opportunity to practice the skills other than great filmmaking which are necessary for a filmmaklng career. DVXuser has become a film school of sorts for some of us and this semmesters curriculum includes pimping.

It's a part of the contest this time just like stealing bases in baseball.

Also, I enjoy seeing ingenuity such as displayed by the Black Angel team and Brandon and others with various contests or journal entries etc. To me that just makes it all more fun and I am impressed and consider it a challenge to rise to.

I also enjoy seeing the quotes in other people's banners and knowing that everyone's film has been well recieved by someone and usually a few someones. I like seeing that Ted, or Edgen, or Versus, or whomever is doing well and having a good fest.

And none of that is to say I didn't start the whole quote thing to garner as much positve buzz for my film as humanly possible - you're darn right. This fest is VERY competitive. It's almost ANYBODY's ballgame, and I can sit back and be passive and see what happens or I can drive to the endzone as hard as I can until the buzzer goes off.

Why wait to practice your hype skills when you are actually trying to make a sale, when this contest has been officially designated a pimp zone? It's like saying don't user your layup in college or highschool ball. Wait until you are in the Pro's?

The fests here have outgrown that pure filmmaking experience of Zombie fest, and making pimping officially part of the deal has just elleviated the growing pains of the last two fests and I think made for a more supportive fest, actually, as we were more invested in the success of each other's films due to the early threads, AND the open pimping policy provideds POSITIVE proactive rather than reactive outlets for healthy competitiveness.
 
So whaddya think, Barry? Will promotion be allowed on future DVXfests? I really enjoyed the promotion aspect of HorrorFest. It was really helpful, morale-wise, to able to type somthing about your short, or post some stills when you felt things weren't moving along as quickly or as well as you would've liked on your short.
 
PRETENSE + PROMOTION:

What are we all talking about here? I really liked the promotion aspect of HorrorFest! I think the quotes are fun, too. In fact, it made me think to try to get real movie reviewers to see my short, and try to get quotes from them! I think the more pimping the better. I stooped to almost every cheap trick in the book to populate my thread views. Mind you, I didn't stoop to mindless "bumping" for no good reason--I think I invested a lot of resources and assets into my thread so that the viewer got something out of it, too.

But so much in this life is about tooting your own horn. In this impression-competitive, media-rich, 1-second-attention-span, YouTube-iPod-Sidekick, pop-culture world, you really gotta scream loudly to get noticed in this town!

So whatever you got, I'm all for it. You got contests? Good! You got girls in bikinis showing up in your thread all over the place [CLICK HERE for RUNWAY bikini pictures thread] for no particular reason other than to get people to download and view your movie? I'm all for it! Anything and everything--give it all you got! Or no one may ever know you were even here!
 
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Rezfactor, that was classic! Love it!

I do hope that this promotion aspect of the festivals can continue.

It has felt like a bit of a course in filmmaking. Make it, Upload it, Sell it.

A lot of lessons all in one. And, for me, it has been fun! A lot of fun.

If this isn't suppode to be fun, then why exactly are we doing this? I don't need more "Work!"
 
To add something here. People who devoted their spare time and more in making these films, people who spent from hundreds of $ to just 10$ , they need to SELL their products even in a contest like HorrorFest. Why? Because they deserve the attention and the recognition or guidance that comes through the reviews and comments. No marketing, no 'selling' of any kind, sounds like we could submit a thing that we did with a miniDV of 200$ and get on with it. But here are people who own a DVX100 or an HVX, to me the cost when i purchased my DVX100 was 4000euros...which is more than 4000$...things are more expensive here in Greece I can tell you! So I may know that I am not really good at this point with my skills and that my talent may need a lot of polishing, but I took this contest/fest seriously enough and I want to know what is going on with what I did. So if I need to get a big sig I ll do it. It made me work with Photoshop and that was a nice motivation to use it more extensively. If I need to make BTS I ll do it, coz its fun and makes you work more on editing and stuff. So selling your thing can make you a better artist! Nobody sold their stuff in a non-artistic way. People WORKED with their marketing efforts.
 
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