From: JEFFREY PAULL (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Jun 03 2009 - 17:40:27 PDT
Way back, I was on the board (and a judge) for the Toronto super-8 film festival (latterly called "Imagine-8", ugh)
Anyway, since this was mostely an amateur / student festival, we made sure we sent feedback with the movies.
I was also a judge at another amateur super-8 festival which allowed us about 5 minutes between each film being juried
to write out a response.
The people who ran these festivals considered it crucial to give some comments - trying to be helpful rather than judgemental.
Although, once, one film was passed from one to another judge with the note, "Get a load of this piece of shit."
OF COURSE the note got left in the can when the movie was returned tothe filmmaker.
OOO-eeeee, that was a time!
But that's before there was a festival under each rock, and small-form moviemaking hadn't become the world's hobby.
With cheap video rather than $$$$$ super-8 or 16.
Off-the-top-of-my-head ideas:
Maybe it would be a good idea to charge an extra entrance fee if the filmmaker want's feedback.
Ground rules would need to be established.
Maybe even evaluation festivals where that's the main purpose. The prizes - say 10 - 25 of the top movies are given crits.
Those would be the prizes.
Maybe the net i the way? Keep it cheap, nok travelling as other festivals do that.
Or you have a lottery and, say, 20% of the movies, are randomly picked to get helpful feedback.
But then, perhaps I'm being impractical and/or naive.
JP
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.