logform submission date?
 

Meryem,

I was wondering if and when there is an October submission or do we just submit final in November?

The official date is supposed to be Oct 11-14 for the fourth submission.

yes, you should have submitted already - from the rules:

5. Your postings will take place during the weeks of February 16-18, May 10 - 13, August 9-12, and October 11-14.

E-mail me if you need grace -

Just be advised that there will be no grace on the final deadline...it is an easy and good thing to grant extensions for the short term deadlines, since, as I say repeatedly, this is a marathon not a sprint.

But the final deadline is fixed and firm.

Meryem,
Speaking of the final submission, getting an hour long movie down to 180 MB might be the biggest challenge of all. Can you suggest some guidelines for compression?

Hi Steve:

I think the 180 mb only applies to the 5 min minimum requirement for the 4 works in progress clips. There has been no discussion about a mb maximum for the final.

I had fired an email to Meryem last round about this because I had 18 minutes of material and had concerns about the same thing and this is what she told me. My submissions lately have been more than 180 mb because they have been longer submissions (18 min and 11 min) and there have been no comments about this being over bounds.

Cat

Hi Steve - it is a good question that will be somewhat dependent on how many players are still standing. If all 30 who originally signed up had finished, it would look different than, say, the five required to complete the contest...due to bandwidth considerations...

Now that I know who and how many the potential finishers are, I'll get this question answered for you - for now, what Cat said...

Now about "that" rule .... the one where 5 entries must finish or the judging won't take place. Ouch, that one is a tough one. I couldn't imagine working as hard as we have for a full year, getting our movie submitted on time and meeting all requirements... and then that's it, because the quota wasn't met by others. Wow, that would sting. What to do?

Cat

I've got a question for you guys. I've done more work on the round 4 entry and could re-submit by tomorrow. Is that O.K, or should I just let it go until the final?

Thank you!

let it go until the final...you want to leave a few happy surprises on the table, don't you?

i don't think the judging is in any sort of jeopardy, at this point. it would just be hard to find an outside judge for this thing if the contest itself dropped below five entries.

when i make these rules a year in advance, with no existing precedents to base these decisions on, it makes it very challenging to anticipate the outcomes. i had really no idea whether anyone would think it was a worthy pursuit - or whether it would result in a load of hard feelings and negativity (think UWOL X...)

one thing i do know is that to take up someone else's time judging this thing, we have to consider their time and their volunteerism, as well as what we may want or think is just. they need to feel as if their participation matters, too. having sucked a few people in to do this work, i have a pretty good feel for what motivates them, too.

as far as i'm concerned, anyone who finishes this thing -- or anyone who has quit this thing but committed to their longform entry outside of the boundaries of the contest - is a king or queen of the UWOL hill...no matter what any judge says. those of you who gutted it out and took on a bigger video project than you have ever completed before, and went after it, are rockstars.

with 10 of you still standing, I am actually taking suggestions on final compression size. I still need to keep the 428 x 240 dimension for judging purposes - the file dimensions need to be consistent, and they need to be a reasonable size for a judge to download, ("reasonable" having a different standard for these films than for the typical short-form or 5-minute draft...)

But since we designated this "feature" length, these durations can range from 22 minute, minimum to 90 max. I'm betting there will be a bit of a range.

Did anyone max out the 90 minute limit?

You are the people with the files. What kinds of file size needs/requirements do you perceive yourselves as having?

Hi Meryem:

I never thought about that rule from the judging perspective! I understand now the reasoning behind it.

As far as the file size for the final, I will have a better feel for that by this weekend and post my duration and size estimate as food for thought. Mine isn't a 20 minute film, nor a 90 minute film, but I'm estimating it will come in between 35-40 minutes.

We are on the final stretch and I'm feeling the "dead man's hang" as they say (oops, that's for sprinters I think!) but the finish line is on the horizon.

Cat

Hi Meryem - my film will be in the region of 40 minutes too.

Marj

My only worry is the effect over compression might have on some graphics...so I'm all for as large a file size as is manageable. For judging, I am even for the idea of sending in a separate DVD for the judges to view.... and having an online version for everyone else. It always seems such a pity to shoot/edit/create in HD and "dumb it down" for judging due to bandwidth. I've been posting on vimeo and Youtube to avoid that in the recent submissions... even though there is no judging involved.

Chris

ps. I still have no idea as to finished length yet just having gotten my archival stuff. I'll guess 45-55 mins.