Christian Filmmakers

Ideas for our next video contest include:

1. Do it in March? Or April?

2. Have all entry fee income go towards the final prize. So if 50 people enter, and the entry fee is $20, the prize will be $1000.

3. More prizes?

4. How can we challenge everybody to do even better in the story department? Maybe we should call it the “Video Story Challenge.”

5. Do it as a 36-hour contest?

6. Have 3-minute videos? Our should we stick with one-minute videos? Ash says he might be able to get 3-minute videos on Crossbridge or Hulu, but the bar for story quality really needs to rise. We’re still having trouble with just a one-minute story.

Other ideas?

The quality is getting good enough to have 3 prizes, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

I also agree with raising the entry fee.

I think you need to have more prizes. Like $300 for first place, $200 for second and $100 for third. Especially since it’s so close. (and I gather this is not the first time the finalists were really close.)

If entry fees go toward the prize that would make it easier to organize, wouldn’t it? Not sure I know what I’m talking about here…

April would probably be a better time in my opinion. More people would have less snow on the ground. I’ve noticed one thing in all three contests, that is that they’re always at winter. It would be really neat to have one in the summer time so people have more options with outdoor sets besides snow. My opinion anyway.

One minute is a really, really short time to tell a story on. It can be done, but it’s much, much harder to do. I think we all learned that.  :D So if you want contestants to put more in their story I would suggest going back to three minutes. One minute is cool for a change from the norm but I wouldn’t make it a norm.

Anyway, I’m new to the forum, new to filmmaking and new to this contest, but there is my teenage opinion. I think these contests are really great, but I’ve got to go get myself some better equipment. 

Nathaniel Bluedorn wrote:

$20

Pleas lets not raise the entry fee that much. I enter for fun, I don’t expect to win. With a short time frame like we use on these contests I am not putting my best foot forward, not making a show case product, just having fun. If I am wanting to make money, I will spend that $20 on a film I can make money with, not on a contest I probably won’t.

The entry money going toward the prize makes sense. Like I said I don’t enter one the hope of getting the prize money, if it is less it would not effect my enthusiasm to enter.

Multiple prizes area good idea.

I agree with Katie about the length of the finished films. One minute is really short to tell a story in. It’s hard just to introduce a character in a minute, (not to mention title and location). If we have to up our story I’d prefer a 3 minute time frame.
Not that I didn’t enjoy the challenge of a one minute film, it’s just that even commercials these days get more time than that and they don’t have to tell a plot!

I also agree with Dallas that if the admission price gets any higher than $10.00 a lot of us will have to drop out.

March, 36 (or even 48) hours, 3-5 minutes.  If we’re going to possibly be able to get our work up on Hulu or Crossbridge, that means NATIONAL EXPOSURE.  If we’re trying to put our best foot forward from ChristianFilmmakers.org onto the national stage, perhaps we need to give our contestants a little more time to develop their stories.

As far as a raised entry fee, I’m not sure what to think about that.  I enter so I can get the motivation to make something new with my team when I’m otherwise focused on larger projects.

When we did Leave Me, we had 3 story meetings to drum up 6 story ideas and then a pitch meeting to the team as to which story to go with.  On this last one, all of the team members were out and about for the Holidays and we could only put a minimal amount of work into it.  1 minute may be easier to judge, but I think the stories are going to suffer unless you have experienced storytellers.

Nathaniel, I think you’re going to have to look at the purpose of the contests, and what you’re wanting to accomplish with this site.  Different people will have different goals with contests, and those are just my thoughts above.  Some people may want to take this more seriously, and some people may just want an excuse to run around with a video camera with family and friends for a day.

-Ryan

1. Personally, I’d love to participate in these as often as possible, so I’d love to have one in March.

2. I’d rather not see the entry fee get higher than $10, but I’d understand if you had to take it higher. As far as putting all the entry fees toward the prize… I would prefer a set prize. I think if people don’t know what the prize will end up being, they may decide not to enter because it may not be worth it if they win (if all they think they’ll win is $100, they may not consider it worth their time to even enter). I’d rather know what prize I’m striving for.

3. More prizes would be great, even if just for the top 3 places. During the 36-hour contest I seem to remember there being software packages and such for the 2nd-place winner, which I thought was really cool. 2nd and 3rd place prizes would probably make the competition more tight, as there would be more to work for, even if you don’t get 1st place.

4. I think one thing that might help story-wise is not having to use 3 security elements. What if there were 5 to choose from and only 1 had to be used? It’s just sometimes hard to tell a story that has to include 3 random elements, while if you just needed to include 1 of them, you could focus more on the story and less on including the elements. It may heighten the chances of someone cheating and creating a video early, but that doesn’t seem to have been a problem in the past, and it would still be difficult to cheat, even with just the 1 security element.

5. Depends on the time limit for the videos…

6. If there’s even a possibility of being able to get the films into more venues, I think 3-minute videos are the way to go. In which case, I’d prefer the 24 or 36-hour time frame to make them.

Anyway, just my 2 cents… God bless!

Geno

If you raise the entry fee it’s less likely that people like me who knew they wouldn’t win but did it for fun. If you think you’re going to be disqualified or know that you didn’t have enough time to do a good job you’re not as likely to enter if it’s going to cost you. Ten bucks is all right with just about anyone, twenty is pushing it, especially if there’s only one winner.

Higher entry fee = less entries

this time there were only 33 entrys out of 1700+ members. i find that rather sad. a larger entry fee would make for less entries and therefore you’d probably get about the same amount as you would have with 10$.

(i’d probably do it if it 50$ though :D )

Brain storming here:

...What if security elements were released in stages? One set of story based elements a few days before the contest so people could start writing their scripts. And as second set on the filming start time of filming and editing elements. That would allow for better writing.

I know we usually spend over half the allotted time working on our story idea. It might be to complicated, just thinking out loud.