I challenge all of you interested to make a short 1 minute micro short film based on one thing as your central piece. We can decide the central piece by vote, or I can choose for us. Film it with your cell phone, or whatever gear you have. I can set the due date to the end of November. Anyone wanna take me on, see who can make the best micro short?
I Challenge You to a Duel!
- Thread starter ShortFilmSensei
- Start date
Sure I'll enter your film director fighting championship. I don't have any actors, so that could limit the central theme a bit, but otherwise, I'm there.
I foresee it going down something like this
I foresee it going down something like this
you live in Cali, and you are limited with actors??? Impossible. lol. I'll give this about another week to get a couple other people involved too. Does end of November sound like a good end date?
I was thinking as a central piece using dried pasta as the McGuffin.
I was thinking as a central piece using dried pasta as the McGuffin.
Here's a few counter proposals. I'm ok with the pasta, I'm not crazy about the mcguffin constraint. I could work with it if I had to, but I've made a lot of films, and 3 constraints in 1 minute is somewhat limiting. It boxes me in a bit. A mcguffin is a multi stage thing also, so it would kind of dictate what every second of the film had to be at that length.
Here's a few ideas that might be more free forum
must include one of these (rather than specifying how)
pasta
a snake or snakes
a tower
a new car
a window
stepping on something
a foghorn
rain
an interesting idea would be to supply a single sound sample, that anyone could use in their own way. An example that could be interesting is the classic wilhelm scream. Might be fun to see 4-5 1 minute movies where we all tried to find the most interesting use of that.
Anyway, I'm just brainstorming here. I get the need for a constraint, I just want it to be open enough so we can be more creative.
Here's a few ideas that might be more free forum
must include one of these (rather than specifying how)
pasta
a snake or snakes
a tower
a new car
a window
stepping on something
a foghorn
rain
an interesting idea would be to supply a single sound sample, that anyone could use in their own way. An example that could be interesting is the classic wilhelm scream. Might be fun to see 4-5 1 minute movies where we all tried to find the most interesting use of that.
Anyway, I'm just brainstorming here. I get the need for a constraint, I just want it to be open enough so we can be more creative.
I will suggest the sound effect so you have an impartial suggestion:
freesound.org
Rules:
This clip must be used in full but may be manipulated tonally or otherwise.
Author attribution in credits: Justin S Barrett
Just an idea, take it or leave it!
Freesound - Breaking glass by jsbarrett
Freesound: collaborative database of creative-commons licensed sound for musicians and sound lovers. Have you freed your sound today?
freesound.org
Rules:
This clip must be used in full but may be manipulated tonally or otherwise.
Author attribution in credits: Justin S Barrett
Just an idea, take it or leave it!
Fine with me, you're going to have trouble finding a sound effect that I can't work with!
If we're voting, I'd vote for sound x chosen by an impartial party. Lots of creative freedom there. I could literally make 30 different films centering around or including that glass break sound. I can do the pasta also, but then I have to hand animate pasta, which is kind of expensive. As in it would take me longer to animate pasta noodles than it would to animate the international space station. Just different mediums you know. Sound effects are pretty universal, and could be supplied so that everyone is working with the identical central element. My 2c is that a sound sample would level the playing field between live action and animation contenders.
Or here's a meta alternative, every film must be titled "the Duel". I think that's quite open to creative interpretation, and could spawn interesting projects.
Or here's a meta alternative, every film must be titled "the Duel". I think that's quite open to creative interpretation, and could spawn interesting projects.
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Anything I'm adding in here is just a suggestion, though I think the idea Indietalk raised of having an impartial 3rd party involved makes sense. It's traditional in any contest that none of the players decides the rules or for that matter the winner.
so to summarize questions so far,
1. It is Cams contest and no one is debating that, but does Cam want to appoint an impartial non contender such as IT?
2. What is the central constraint of the contest? Sound, theme, name, item, or plot device?
3. Is it a hardline 60 seconds or would cam consider something looser like <100 seconds?
4. When does it start and when does it end?
5. how many people are allowed per team, or is this solo vs solo?
6. How is the winner selected?
7. Is there a spending limit?
It's that no 6 that's tricky. I think both Cam and I (and likely many others) consider Indietalk a friend, so others that had not previously interacted with him might feel at a disadvantage if he called the winner. If we do this by votes, this becomes a contest of who can get the most friends to vote, rather than a film contest. It's a small site, most of us know each other, etc. I don't immediately have a clean solution for this. I'm just bringing it up. If you look at the IT video section where people can vote, everything is 3 votes or less, so not even close to the kind of numbers that would be beyond, "he who has the most cousins wins" I guess one possibility is that we all upload the videos unmarked to one of the staff, and they publish them, so that no one on the site knows who made what. Still, there is no question that people will know which one I made for example, so maybe it doesn't solve the problem of how to create anonymity.
If we had a small budget for the contest itself, like 300 bucks, we could make it fair, by combining all submissions unmarked into a single youtube video, and then running 100k ad views of that video. That would dilute our own peoples comments enough to get a fair read. Does anyone know a popular youtuber who would run that video for free and get us enough hits to light up the comment section with strangers?
@CamBlamo I'm not in any way trying to interfere with your contest, I'm only trying to gauge whether we can make this legitimate enough to be fair to all involved. Ultimately this is your contest, so consider anything I write here as a mere suggestion.
Additional thought: would anyone be open to a small entry fee so there could be some prize? like 10 dollars per entry, and the pot paid to the winner by a mod? I'd pay it. Alternatively such an entry fee could be routed towards promoting that youtube video, giving us all a bit of exposure, and bringing in a lot of unbiased voters.
Last thought: we should invite some people to compete, to expand this out a bit. as in
Hey @obliquevoid @Frikanih @directorik @jacksonboyd @Society Speaks @Art of Duke @Scoopicman @Niven @GOLDENMORAL CINEMAS @turing21 @sfoster @leppy @Baeppel_Entmt @Pj Mills @through.daniels.lens @Feutus Lapdance @PaulW @NickClapper @JCredfox
Would you like to join this forum wide contest?
Those are just all the names from the videos section, of people that have previously uploaded original films. I'm sure I missed many qualified people. Just trying to do my part to help grow this contest! In fact, I might even suggest that IT post this around a bit in other communities, this kind of thing might get some new blood interested in the forum, potentially an opportunity to increase membership here.
"One Minute to Spin it" "put your own creative spin on concept X and compete with filmmakers around the world on the No 1 Indie film forum" or something like that.
Anyone have thoughts?
so to summarize questions so far,
1. It is Cams contest and no one is debating that, but does Cam want to appoint an impartial non contender such as IT?
2. What is the central constraint of the contest? Sound, theme, name, item, or plot device?
3. Is it a hardline 60 seconds or would cam consider something looser like <100 seconds?
4. When does it start and when does it end?
5. how many people are allowed per team, or is this solo vs solo?
6. How is the winner selected?
7. Is there a spending limit?
It's that no 6 that's tricky. I think both Cam and I (and likely many others) consider Indietalk a friend, so others that had not previously interacted with him might feel at a disadvantage if he called the winner. If we do this by votes, this becomes a contest of who can get the most friends to vote, rather than a film contest. It's a small site, most of us know each other, etc. I don't immediately have a clean solution for this. I'm just bringing it up. If you look at the IT video section where people can vote, everything is 3 votes or less, so not even close to the kind of numbers that would be beyond, "he who has the most cousins wins" I guess one possibility is that we all upload the videos unmarked to one of the staff, and they publish them, so that no one on the site knows who made what. Still, there is no question that people will know which one I made for example, so maybe it doesn't solve the problem of how to create anonymity.
If we had a small budget for the contest itself, like 300 bucks, we could make it fair, by combining all submissions unmarked into a single youtube video, and then running 100k ad views of that video. That would dilute our own peoples comments enough to get a fair read. Does anyone know a popular youtuber who would run that video for free and get us enough hits to light up the comment section with strangers?
@CamBlamo I'm not in any way trying to interfere with your contest, I'm only trying to gauge whether we can make this legitimate enough to be fair to all involved. Ultimately this is your contest, so consider anything I write here as a mere suggestion.
Additional thought: would anyone be open to a small entry fee so there could be some prize? like 10 dollars per entry, and the pot paid to the winner by a mod? I'd pay it. Alternatively such an entry fee could be routed towards promoting that youtube video, giving us all a bit of exposure, and bringing in a lot of unbiased voters.
Last thought: we should invite some people to compete, to expand this out a bit. as in
Hey @obliquevoid @Frikanih @directorik @jacksonboyd @Society Speaks @Art of Duke @Scoopicman @Niven @GOLDENMORAL CINEMAS @turing21 @sfoster @leppy @Baeppel_Entmt @Pj Mills @through.daniels.lens @Feutus Lapdance @PaulW @NickClapper @JCredfox
Would you like to join this forum wide contest?
Those are just all the names from the videos section, of people that have previously uploaded original films. I'm sure I missed many qualified people. Just trying to do my part to help grow this contest! In fact, I might even suggest that IT post this around a bit in other communities, this kind of thing might get some new blood interested in the forum, potentially an opportunity to increase membership here.
"One Minute to Spin it" "put your own creative spin on concept X and compete with filmmakers around the world on the No 1 Indie film forum" or something like that.
Anyone have thoughts?
I pretty much agree with everything you said. The challenge needs to be defined with specifics. If I can manage in time I'd like to participate, so count me in.
Glad to see more people jumping on board for this. I think a contest could be good for the forum, the more entrants the better!