Topic: Septemberfest: The Citizen of the Year LIVES
Welcome, everyone, to the most magical time of the year!
After 5 years, the annual-when-it-suits-us Septemberfest contest is back, and more ambitious than ever. In fact, it’s too big for just one month! That’s why this contest will be running from the 1st September to the 31st October 2015! If you’d like to take part in the celebrations and have a shot at some incredible prizes, read on!
Now, last time there was a Septemberfest contest back in 2010, the contest didn’t relate to The Citizen of the Year in any way other than appropriating the “Septemberfest” name. This time is different - this year it’s ALL ABOUT the masterpiece by Watson Films!
Confused about what all the fuss is? Check out the wiki article on The Citizen of the Year for a bit of a backstory on why this film has become such a cult hit.
The theme for TCOTY Lives is actually more of a challenge. For your entry, you must set a film in the “The Citizen of the Year Cinematic Universe” - much like how Marvel’s films all exist in the same universe.
However, it's not just about this inside joke. You can watch the film, and then approach it as a sort of creative limitation. The premise of the contest is to set your film in the same world as the original film, but you can approach this any way you see fit.
For example the film could be set in the past, the present, or the future. You can cameo the character from the original film, but you don’t have to. It's not just about putting some parrots in your film.
You should work the world and events of The Citizen of the Year into your film in a concrete way!
In an effort to make this contest just that little bit more special, we're featuring custom LEGO models designed by the renowned Chris McVeigh, otherwise known as Powerpig. We're also awarding prizes not only to the top three winners, but to every person who makes it into the top ten!
Due to waiting on the arrival of various parts (some quite rare!) for the custom designed kits, images of some prizes are not yet available. Check back soon!
1st Place:
Brick-built 1st place winner’s trophy designed by Chris McVeigh
A handful of LEGO parrots to put in the trophy
Bike Shop & Café (Try the Café’s breadsticks and water!)
2nd Place:
Brick-built 2nd place winner’s trophy designed by Chris McVeigh
A handful of LEGO parrots to put in the trophy
Mountain Hut (A pleasant hut away from judgemental neighbours)
3rd Place:
Brick-built 3rd place winner’s trophy designed by Chris McVeigh
A handful of LEGO parrots to put in the trophy
Beach Hut (Small houses can be nice!)
1st - 10th Places:
Large scale LEGO trash can model designed by Chris McVeigh
A handful of LEGO parrots to put in the can
Septemberfest Art Contest:
There's a side contest with another fabulous prize! Details here.
Entries will be judged on criteria including originality, production values (animation, set design, cinematography, sound, etc.), story, and creative interpretation of the theme by the 5 judges. Rather than judging on categories individually, judges will examine how all these elements work together to create a complete film. Films will be discussed and ranked collectively by the judges until a consensus is reached. The top 10 films will eligible for prizes. Entries below 10th place will not be publicly ranked.
We’ve assembled a panel of judges for the competition with a wide range of filmmaking experience and achievements. Here’s a look at each of them (listed alphabetically):
Philip Heinrich
Philip is an American director and producer and has worked on films and videos at a professional level for eight years. He currently is directing the feature length documentary Bricks in Motion, and has served as the owner and administrator of BricksInMotion.com for the past seven years. His brickfilm work includes Unrenewable and The Oven.
David Pagano
David Pagano is a brickfilmer and founder of the animation studio Paganomation, known for the brickfilms Little Guys!, Playback and the upcoming Little Guys in Space! David Pagano is also the co-founder of the brickfilming blog The Set Bump.
David Pickett
David Pickett is an American brickfilmer. He is known for his Nightly News at Nine series and The Franky Job. David Pickett is also the co-founder of the brickfilming blog The Set Bump.
Sean Warton
Sean is an Australian designer and animator. He’s been brickfilming since 2008 and enjoys focusing on post production, compositing and visual effects and is a recurring entrant to the annual THAC contests, where he enjoys trying new things and pushing his limits, such as animating the musical number in No Crawme Steals Christmas and pushing his lighting setup in Turning. He enjoys technical challenges and is working on a project to generate LEGO face graphics from the head bricks themselves using his FacePaste application.
Nathan Wells
Nathan is an American graphic designer and stop-motion filmmaker. He is currently running the BiM Awards with Zach Macias, producing the Bricks in Motion documentary, serves as a moderator on BricksInMotion.com, and ran the 12th Twenty-four Hour Animation Contest. He also founded the Brickfilm Archive and helped create the Brickfilms Wiki. His brickfilm work includes Alex and Derrick: Five Years Later and 30 Years: The Story of the Minifigure.
All entries must be primarily composed of stop-motion animation. 3D, Flash, or other animation techniques may be used to in addition to stop-motion as long as the finished product is at least roughly 70% stop-motion animation.
Entries should use LEGO or similar building toys as primary elements.
No mature/explicit content is allowed. This includes, but is not limited to: swearing, excessive/gory violence, overt sexual content, and blatant drug references.
Minimum runtime is 1 minute, including any titles and credits. There is no maximum runtime. Remember, it is better to focus on quality and attention to detail than to make a very long and ambitious film, but let the quality suffer. A highly-polished three-minute movie is better than a ten-minute movie that falls apart because the director ran out of time to do it the right way. The judging system won't favor a film for simply being longer, but low production values will hurt a longer film when competing against a shorter film that is better made.
Submitted films must be new films, created specifically for this contest.
Entrants may only submit one entry per person.
Films may not be posted publicly until after the contest deadline has passed.
The entry you submit to the judges must be the entry made publicly available to everyone else.
Entries must contain only images, sounds, music, and story material which you have the rights to distribute -- no copyrighted content to which you do not have the rights may be used. No trademarked properties which might be confused with commercial enterprises may be used. This means you can not use storylines based on characters from Star Wars, Marvel, Ninjago, or other trademarked series. You cannot base your work on copyrighted material; however, old works that are now in the public domain are acceptable source material. All material included in films submitted must be original, or content that you have express permission to use. If you use content that is not your own, you must be able to provide proof that you have received permission to include it in your film. All music must be credited, even if you made it yourself.
The deadline for submissions is Saturday, October 31st 2015 at 11:59 pm UTC.
Films may be submitted early, though they cannot be made public until after the deadline has passed.
To submit your film, send a link to your entry to our Septemberfest forum account by private message. Put "[FILM]" in front of the subject for the private message.
Our preferred method of submission is unlisted YouTube links. If you do not have a YouTube account, we also accept password-protected Vimeo uploads.
Q: Are we allowed to use the contest logo in our entry? In the credits of our film, for example?
A: Yes, although this is not required. If you want a high-resolution version of the logo to use for this purpose, here's a link to the logo on a transparent background for that purpose.
Q: May we ask contest judges to voice act for our entries?
A: Because of the limited number of people on this site with experience in voice acting and access to recording equipment, we've decided to allow it. Please refrain from involving them in creative roles beyond this, however.
Q: Should entries focus on a particular genre?
A: Your film can fall into any story genre you like, as its story ultimately fits the criteria laid out in the theme section. The examples are just examples; there's no need to stick to film noir, science fiction, or any other particular genre.
Q: Can we collaborate with others to create an entry?
A: Yes! Collaboration is encouraged. However, we won't be able to divide up the prizes evenly for you, so you'll have to determine who receives the prizes in the case of a win. Entries may be submitted on the basis of one entry per director, so you can help with someone else's entry and still enter a film you've directed.
Q: May we post trailers, images, or other work-in-progress elements of our film publicly on the forum?
A: This is encouraged! Feel free to post about the progress on your film in the forums. You can even make a thread devoted to your progress on a film if you like.
Q: Can we use some non-LEGO elements in building our sets and characters?
A: Yes. The intention of the rule is to put the focus of films made for the competition on LEGO animation.
Q: Are we allowed to release alternate versions of our films at the same time as the version submitted to the contest? (for instance, a version with profanity or other restricted content)
A: In order to maintain the integrity of the judging process, please only release the version you are submitting to the contest publicly at the time the deadline passes. Entrants who violate this rule may be disqualified. If you want to re-release a revised version of your film, you may do so after contest judging is completed and results have been announced.
Q: Are we required to include any "mod elements" like BiM's THAC contest?
A: No. Those are used in THAC to ensure films are created in the 24-hour period. You have two months this time. Even if you did submit a film you began working on before this competition was announced, that would be fine as long as you haven't released it anywhere before this contest, and it fits the theme of this contest.
Q: How fast and loose should I play with the content restriction rules?
A: Ultimately, we want winning entries that won't earn us angry emails from parents, or concern from contest sponsors (present and future) if they win and are celebrated throughout Bricksinmotion.com and our social media postings. This community has members of a diverse variety of ages and backgrounds in it, so for a competition we want to be respectful of that. These rules are undoubtedly going to be limitations for some filmmakers, but we believe it's still possible to make compelling, even dramatic stories within these limitations. Potentially, one could approach them as creative limitations that empower the filmmaker to find more original, inventive ways of conveying ideas in a story.
Q: When can we share our films publicly?
A: As soon as the contest deadline passes; here's a countdown clock.
Q: What’s the deal with The Citizen of the Year? Why is it so special?
A: The Citizen of the Year, a masterpiece of modern and classical cinema, has been known to trigger enlightenment upon being viewed as well as curing a plethora of diseases. Really though, it's just a fun joke. Check out the wiki article on The Citizen of the Year for a bit of a backstory on why this film has become such a cult hit.
Q: Do I need to include parrots in my entry?
A: There’s no requirement for parrots or trash cans to appear in your film.
Q: Can we take clips from The Citizen of the Year and use them in our own films to help tie the worlds together?
A: Yes! The Citizen of the Year is public domain and as such, you're free to take and use clips from it as you see fit.
We'll continue to expand this section as we receive questions. If you have a question, feel free to reply in this thread to ask. Sean Warton will be running the contest. Whilst every effort has been made to clearly include all relevant information in this post, it may be updated if deemed necessary.
Obviously, you cannot prevent people from making films about certain things that you might want to make a film about (for example, the "Anniversary is ruined!" lady), so either you do the very best you can and see what comes of it, or you push your limits and make something unique and original, while still sticking with the theme.
