Christian Filmmakers

In this thread ask the judges questions about your film and the scores or comments it received. Judges are not required to answer, but they may.

Last year we had some strong language from disgruntled filmmakers who thought their film should have won. If you feel strongly about something, please wait a few hours before speaking your mind. The #1 goal of this little contest is to have fun.

Contest Results
http://www.christianfilmmakers.org/contest/2009-12/

The first ten films are scored and ranked, the remaining films are listed in the order they were submitted. Comments are included.

YouTube Playlist
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9F059C32B2D7859C

My big issue this go round was TONE. SO hard to manage it in a minute. There were some very well shot and written films that were tonally confusing. It’s one of those things that won’t be universally noticed and as the creator, it will be hard to have much perspective.

This should be a fun thread. There has already been a good deal of back and forth from the judges and odds are, you will find at least one of the judges on your side of any disagreement.

ash =o)

I’m curious as to how it was going from 2 to 5 judges but having 1/6th of the material to have to watch (32 minutes versus the ~180 minutes of the 3 minute contest).  Many thanks to all 5 judges for taking the time to slog through all of this stuff as volunteers… I remember the nastiness that cropped up last time, and it’s a brave soul to stand up and try to help a bunch of filmmakers when that sort of thing inevitably rears its ugly head.

-Ryan

Ya I’m actually upset already…JK! Not at all! You guys are SO appreciated for doing this for us. It’s a ton of fun and it really does help us all get better at BEING a ‘christian filmmaker’ So like a lot of people have already said, thank you! To all the judges and the people behind the scenes who set up the contest and keep this site going! You guys are making a difference and I’m thankful to be a part of this group.
So to whoever wins, congratulations, and I hope everyone has a great New Year!

Hey, whatever the results are, thanks so much to the judges! And to CF.org for putting it on! I am just gonna try and learn as much as I can from it.

A few thoughts on the “feedback” thread before it gets going.

First, there were 5 different judges, which inevitably means there were some differences in judging style. Each judge will have different feedback to give you depending on the film in question, so be sure to note that a single judge doesn’t necessarily speak for all the judges (not saying we were divisive, just that there were some differences of opinion). The results are an amalgamation of all our scores, and they don’t necessarily reflect our individual scores.

Second, the sooner you ask for feedback, the more likely you are to get it. I know that the last time around, after giving in depth feedback to 15 people or so, I was burnt out and didn’t get to the rest of the requests. Hopefully that will be mitigated with 5 judges this time around, but regardless, the earlier you ask the more likely you are to get a response.

Thirdly, just to reiterate what everyone else has been saying, have fun, even in this thread. Try not to get too hot under the collar and accuse us of eating small babies and kicking puppies into the gutter.

First of all, thanks to all of the judges who helped out. Your comments were very helpful. I’m just curious, do you have scores for all the films? Maybe scores that you can email us?

Thanks

I didn’t enter - I never enter.

But a quick question, based on some of the comments on the top ten from the judges:

It’s my opinion that one of the most important elements in a short film is the button/payoff - the shorter the film, the more important the payoff.

I’ve long posited that a short film is best as a joke - not as in it’s funny, but as in it’s intentionally structured to lead directly to a specific payoff that is clear and emotionally satisfying to the tone of the short.

Any thoughts on that, and if it influenced you judges in the scoring?

Curiously,
Calix

(...I’m also wondering what seasonings you use when stir-frying the puppies while you’re kicking small babies into the gutter…)

All I can say right now is, WHA…!? Going from not even expecting to get in the contest (thanks Nathaniel or whoever involved for even letting me in) to this. lol. I just have to chuckle.
And I can appreciate all your criticism/suggestions and I could probably give an excuse for each one {IE “shallow depth of field”, hm, I can do that with a Canon Powershot SX1? ; “refocusing”, that’s what I get for leaving focus on manual, most of which I was happy with for auto settings; “sound issues”, I was on holidays, stuck with none of my fancy, what I’m used to equipment, so, you’re lucky to have even got what you did (by the way, imagine me saying all of this IE in a very non-serious way )}; but, they are good suggestions, some of which I would have liked to do or thought of doing, just very limited with time, expertise, or equipment. Thanks guys. You know how much more I’d get out of your skills if I could talk to or email each one of you personally?

Thanks so much to all the judges for their hard work! The comments on each video are great, lots to learn from reading them.

The only question I have about the scoring for our film, Running, is on Performance - what was it that you didn’t like about the performance that caused the low rating?

Thanks again for all your work, and I’m just glad to have gotten in the top 10! Congrats to the winner!

God bless,

Geno

Thanks judges for your hard work and the suggestions.  Wasn’t really expecting, well anything, until I saw Ryan had said something on my facebook, so thanks Ryan.  I agree about the robbery wasn’t terribly noticeable…good note.  Thanks to the 3 that helped with the video!  Happy new years to all. 

tim