Welcome to IndieTalk, Mr. Smith!
How fortuitous that you discovered IT just as this topic came up, and that you were passionate enough about it to join and share your passion with us in your first post. Some might dismiss it as coincidence, but I prefer to view it as serendipity.
Are you sure you are talking about the same competition as this one?
Yes, I'm quite sure I'm talking about the same competition.
We like the 48 Film Project concept because as filmmakers we get freedom to choose our genre, which, as you know, is crucial for anyone in the creative arts.
Sure, choosing your genre is a nice option, because it removes some constraint from the competition. But isn't working creatively within a set of constraints the whole point of these competitions? The chance of getting a genre you're not familiar with can force you to step outside your comfort zone and stretch creatively. If all you're looking for is the freedom to do what you want, why do one of these competitions at all? Why not just go make a film on your own next weekend?
We also like the freedom to choose our time and place for completing our entry, and the fact that it is a global, online competition. For those of us with full time work commitments, this is a real blessing. It gives us more opportunity to participate than if we were tied to specific kick-off and drop-off deadlines in whatever city.
Personally, I've got more than a full time work commitment at the moment, and somehow managed to complete six similar competitions last year despite having to work with their specific deadlines. But I completely understand that some people might not be able to commit a specific weekend to a competition, and there is some appeal to the flexibility that choosing your own dates affords.
However, you trade off a lot of valuable things for that flexibility. The Friday night kickoff in the 48HFP is a great time to meet & network with your fellow filmmakers, and it's an exciting time as everyone is amped up for the weekend ahead. The drawing of the genres is a big part of the fun, as everyone hopes to get certain ones while dreading the possibility of drawing "musical/western".
Then throughout the weekend everyone's posting on twitter, facebook, instagram, etc - you can get a feel for what other teams are doing, commiserate with each other's struggles, and get inspired to step up your own work when you see someone else doing something that looks awesome. Sometimes you even run across each other's productions as you run around the city to different locations.
Sunday night it's a rush to the deadline, and a race to the finish line. Nothing quite like having to jump on the motorcycle and split traffic all the way across town to make it in time. Or sprinting down the sidewalk, laptop in hand as the render bar chugs along, hoping it'll finish in the next couple of minutes. People are cheering, there's a countdown to the finish, and afterwards you get to hang out with the other filmmakers and swap tales of the crazy weekend you just had.
About a week later you gather with a bunch of the same people in a theater to watch your film on the big screen. You get to experience your own film in front of a packed audience and truly discover what worked and what didn't. You get to see your fellow filmmaker's work the same way, and a big part of the fun is seeing all the different ways people interpreted the shared required elements and incorporated them into their films. There's a Q&A with the teams at the end, so you get to see the faces behind the films you just watched and then meet and talk with them in person afterwards.
And the audience choice voting is structured in such a way as to filter out the effects of stacking the audience with your friends. We've won the audience choice award with 3 people in the audience, despite other teams having 10-20 people there. That makes me a lot more confident that the voting reflects the audience's experience of the films, and isn't just a popularity contest based on who could get the most people to come vote for their film.
A few weeks after that there's usually another screening for the winning films in the competition, where you can see the best of all the screenings, and it has all the same benefits of the first screening. And of course, the winning teams from all the different cities go on to compete globally against each other as well.
And finally, if you come back the next year you run into a lot of the same people. You get to see how people have grown and improved their skills over the past year. Maybe you even team up with some of the people you met the previous year, especially if you've collaborated with them on other projects since then.
It's all those community aspects that you lose when you have no set dates, no local kickoff or drop off, no local screenings. It may make it slightly more convenient, but that convenience comes at the cost of some of what I consider the most valuable aspects of these competitions.
And what is $19? It’s hardly the price of a family bucket of fast food, for a lifetime membership. We got free tickets to their 2013 screening at AMPAS last year. Tickets to AMPAS for a night out, for $19, compared to around $300 for a 48 Hour FP provincial screening? Are you kidding? What’s not to like?
Where are you coming up with the $300 number? Registration for either competition runs about the same price, $150.
You mentioned their logo was similar to 48Hour FP. We noticed the new branding of the 48 Film Project web site this year. It looks totally different from their previous style. Are you sure you are talking about the same company and haven’t mixed up 48 Film Project with another organization? There are hundreds of 48-style competitions in the world, so it’s easy to get confused, I guess.
You're right, they've removed some of the elements from their logo this year that made it look almost the same as the 48HFP logo. That's a step in the right direction, but it's not enough to change my views on them yet since they did use the more similar logo for the past couple of years. Their name also still trades on the 48HFP - leaving out the word 'hour' doesn't do much to convey that they are an unrelated competition. And you're right - there are a lot of other similar competitions, but it's generally not that easy to get confused because they have completely different names, things like '3 Day Film Challenge" or "Film Racing" or "Cinemasports". In fact, "48 Film Project" is the only one I'm aware of that would be so easy to confuse with the original.
Bottom line we are 48ers, we love 48 FILM Project more than any other similar or “copy cut project”
I'm glad you feel so strongly about it, and have had good experiences with them. But that doesn't change the fact that they are the 'copy cat' project - they launched the same year the 48HFP turned 10 years old and was already running in over 100 cities around the world. They made the choice to brand the project in such a way as to ensure confusion with the original, rather than putting in the work to build a brand and competition of their own. And personally I feel that the direction they've taken it over the past couple of years has eliminated a lot of the value that comes with participating in the original 48HFP.
Plus there is no comparison between a very old fashion 48 hour local oriented 1980’s event, with the absolutely all time classy International 48 FILM Project.
Now here's a point we can both agree on - there's absolutely no comparison. We'll just have to agree to disagree on which way the comparison goes.
And 1980's? Really? I think you're off by a couple decades. I've certainly got my own opinions on ways the 48HFP could be improved, based on my personal experiences in the competition, and I've considered starting my own competition to try implementing some of those ideas. Honestly, if I hadn't just moved across country I probably would have taken on the 48HFP producer role for my previous city and tried implementing my ideas there. But none of those ideas are anything like what 48 Film Project is doing, for a lot of the reasons I've stated above. And if I were to start my own competition I definitely wouldn't call it 48-anything - I'd put in the time and effort to build my own brand rather than trying to capitalize on someone else's.
So again, that's just my take on things, people can take it or leave it as they will.