Subject:
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Re: A BricksWest Critique?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.events.brickswest
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Date:
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Thu, 11 Jul 2002 16:00:35 GMT
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Viewed:
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892 times
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Some friendly comments below...
In lugnet.events.brickswest, William R. Ward writes:
> As for next year, I'm not sure who's going to be running the show, but
> one tradition that I would advocate we adopt for BricksWest is that
> whoever runs it one year should be the assistant the next. This way
> the reins of power as it were are passed smoothly and whoever is
> running the show has someone with experience to guide them, while at
> the same time nobody gets burned out having to do it again and again
> year after year.
I think this is a great idea. Most organizations with conventions have a "past
president" postion or the "president" has a assitant that becomes the
"president" the next year, essentially learning the ropes before being handed
the mantle of responsibility. I particularly agree with the burned out comment.
I don't know about Matthew but the person in charge rarely gets to maximize
their experience. If the same person runs it year after year the whole thing
will get stale and the person will grow to hate it. After all the organizers
should be AFOL's that are there to organize the aspects of the convention that
interest them.
>
> That all being said, here are some things that I think we could do to
> make it even better. Don't read these as criticisms, as much as
> suggestions...
>
> MOC display
> -----------
> * The people running the MOC display, especially Dan and the SCLTC
> members, didn't have much of a chance to attend convention
> functions because they had to be manning the pavilion the whole
> time. Obviously whoever's doing this is going to miss some of the
> events, but it would be nice to try to make an effort to avoid
> this. (My club is doing the big train layout next year, so I have
> a vested interest in this...)
I agree! There should be some provision that allows the MOC area participants a
chance to go into the park or attend the presentations that interest themselves
the most.
> * There was very little announced about how the display would be
> organized. The models that were brought didn't match up well with
> the categorization scheme that was used in many cases. A bit more
> planning would be good here, and having people pre-register their
> MOCs would help the planning for this.
I agree! Involving more people in the planning and implementation will enable
the leader or "president" to communicate among all the organizers and the
participants, which is the main responsibility of the person in charge in the
first place.
> * The barriers against little fingers disturbing models were
> inadequate. Some people either didn't put their models on display
> or only did so for a short time due to this.
Agreed! The tent was large and the tables were well spread out for easy
viewing, but the displays needed to be constantly watched. Parents in my
opinion allow there children to do far more today than I was allowed. I
personnally watched an adult reach over a barrier and had a MOC to a child so
that they could look at it closely. I wonder if that parent lets their child
drive their Mercedes?
> * Some form of contact between the various venues (pavilion and
> hotel in this case) would be essential. Talkabout two-way radios,
> HAM, or whatever - but some way to keep in touch is critical. We
> ended up using cell phones, which were in some cases paying
> roaming charges, and dealing with low batteries. That was a mess.
I have a couple family band radios an VHF radios that I would be happy to bring
next year to help out with this. I am certain we kind find others with the same
gear.
>
> Film Festival
> -------------
> * The choices of categories didn't match the entries very well.
> There should be about a half dozen or so movies per category,
> using a nomination process like the Academy Awards(R). But have
> more categories, so there are more chances to win.
I agree with more categories. Being the first time this was ever done and being
open ended I wasn't certain (as the organizer) how many entries would come in.
I have read these comments and others Bill emailed to me personnally and I am
going to implement several of these changes in the next animation festival,
assuming I am asked to organize it again. If not asked, I will stress to the
organizers some of the lessons I learned.
I also like the idea of soliciting others that have their animations on the web
to submit theirs. This was consciously not done in the first festival becuase
there are many animators oout there without their animations on the web. Web
serving video is still expensive and not always reliable so their are some that
are not doinging it. Limiting ourselves to only those films that have
"distribution" in theaters (the Internet) will limit the number of films
considered, but it might be tried.
> * Some possible categories: parodies, derived works (based on
> movies, TV, etc), or totally original works. People reacted so
> positively to the parodies and derived works that the original
> ones were overlooked in my opinion.
I agree. I am not certain how to make this work. Do you have the entrants
choose the categories or do the organizers determine the categories based upon
the films being entered? Maybe the categories should be created, solicite
entries, and include a general categories for films that do not fit.
> * I was concerned about the use of copyrighted sound in many of the
> films, apparently without permission.
Well, I really do not know what to say to this. I have learned from real video
and television work that I have done (very few, just enough to get my feet wet)
"video" is a misnomer. Often what we mean about "video" is the audio and the
picture together. I have seen a lot of student film and video projects were the
sound seems to have been an after thought and the whole project/effort suffered
becuase of it. The most important part of video is the audio. The second most
important part of video is the lighting. Both of these seem to be the most
problematic portions of the animations and ametuer efforts seen on the web.
Yes audio is stolen from copyrighted sources. Fortunately, most of the work out
there is either enough of a paradoy or under the radar enough not to be
noticed, or if noticed at least tolerated. These is the main impediment to
producing a collected work and making it available to others that would like to
have a copy. In the future this will need to be addressed if we are to get
serious about these juried animation festivals.
> * A video tape or DVD should be available that includes all the film
> entries, to be sold at the event. Cost should be low enough to
> cover only the costs of production. Entrants should have to
> license their work for such a purpose as a condition of entry, and
> that they own or have permission to use any copyrighted material.
> To avoid technical glitches, the video tape can be used as the
> presentation medium during the show.
All good points but difficult to do "low budget" or with amatuer equipment and
expertise. The DVD media is dropping to good levels that will make it more
practicable. Unfortunately, licensing agreements will be the down fall of much
of the wanting to do this. The music industry is incredibly unwilling to create
a pricing scheme for independents that is both reasonable and practicable. A
teenager is simply not going to write a copyright holder and ask for permission
to use a copyrighted work and the copyright holder is less likely to even
respond. Producing video tape sounds easy and a lot of non-linear editors
promise that their equipment will do it, but often the output is substandard
for broadcast quality and animators often neglect the screen safe area and
place important action or title outside this area.
> * Deadlines for entry should be sufficiently in advance for the
> video dubbing and licensing issues to be resolved in time.
It took a friend on mine that produced "Trooper Clerks" 1.5 years to obtain the
license for music from a group he comissioned to produce the sound track for a
movie. This was work for hire he paid for and yet had to get licensing issues
cleared even after all of that. It's really not time practical to require this
of animated shorts of independent animators that are messing around with the
hobby and are entering their efforts for bragging rights on the web. When the
LEGO Animation Festival become bigger entities a lot of these issues will have
to be addressed in order to grow the competition and the festival. Along with
that will come other headaches that in the early stages are not worth dealing
with. Just my humble opinion though.
>
> Panels
> ------
> * Panels should start and end on time, at the locations specified in
> the program. It should be someone's job to make sure this
> happens. Allow time between panels for cleanup, people to come
> and go, and furniture and props to be rearranged. Panelists
> should be consulted in advance on how they want the chairs
> arranged, etc.
In what conventions do the panelists get to decide how they want the chairs
arranged?
> * All panels should be videotaped and tapes made available later for
> sale. Panelists should be required to sign authorization for
> this.
If the panelists are being taped the video director or producer is the one that
determines how the seating is done and how the audience is arranged.
> * More hands-on panels, like the microfig presentation, would be
> cool. For example I could could (help) run a sculpture tutorial,
> where we could teach how to build a sphere and other basic shapes.
>
> The K8's
> --------
> * Rummaging through the K8 (bulk LEGO supplied by TLC) was noisy and
> distracting during some panels. It should be done in a space
> farther away from the panel areas if possible, or at a time when
> no panel is in session. This was more of a problem towards the
> end of the conference.
> * The K8 volume diminished during the event. The rule is that we
> are supposed to give the boxes back as full as they were when we
> got 'em. I assume that someone managed to top them off, but I
> don't think that people were made adequately aware of the rules,
> or just didn't obey them.
Agreed! The room and location simple was not condusive to this. I think the
convention should be moved to a different hotel. There are several in the area
with way better facilities than this hotel could offer. They are farther from
the park, but I think a lot should be done in the park anyway and have the
evening for hotel events. This should reduce the cost of the hotel spaces
anyway since most convention space in hotels is primarily day space (except for
balls and stuff) which typically requires a lot less of the facilities.
>
> Robot Challenge
> ---------------
> * This was a great success. I wish we could have a couple of these,
> rather than just one. We could also have other types of building
> competitions at the event.
It should really be a much larger part, much like John Barnes and others are
doing with the BrickFest.
>
> Scheduling
> ----------
> * Lots of people had to miss the last day (Monday), and many left
> early on Sunday, because it isn't a holiday for many employers.
> Try to schedule events with this in mind, so that the most
> important events are on Saturday or Sunday morning. It'd be
> better if we had a Fri-Sat-Sun schedule for this reason, but the
> holidays in February don't accomodate that well.
Off days may get us better financial deals for space and equipment. I can get
Monday off just as easily as Friday. For those that are local a Friday night of
travel and Sunday night back is better. Its a toss up really. The schedule
should accomodate the audience focus, local people or people traveling.
Respectfully,
Todd
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: A BricksWest Critique?
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| Getting enough FRS radios should NOT be a problem. They are dirt cheap and very common these days. I own 4 myself so far (for car club outings), and I'll probably own more by next Feb. Bringing them all for use is not a problem. HOWEVER, the problem (...) (22 years ago, 23-Jul-02, to lugnet.events.brickswest)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: A BricksWest Critique?
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| (...) Sounds good. (...) First of all, I want to say that it was a big success, despite all the adversity that Matthew had to deal with... TLC really dropped the ball with regards to the luau and things of that nature, and I hope that they do better (...) (22 years ago, 10-Jul-02, to lugnet.events.brickswest)
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