Topic: The Future of THAC (and BRAWL)
THAC has been a big success once again, with a total of 74 entries (+ 4 that missed the deadline by a hair's breadth), compared to 76 the previous year. Talking to participants throughout made me wonder if we could change it up a bit in future.
A lot of people I spoke to said that they wished THAC was more often that just once a year. To some extent I share the sentiment, because while having it come round so rarely means it's more special, it does seem a shame to limit it perhaps unnecessarily. Not only that, but the stress of the contest is multiplied tenfold by the knowledge that if you don't finish your film, you have to wait a whole year to try again. The contest is meant to be hard, but I saw people break down, become reduced to tears, proclaim they were done with brickfilming forever and apparently Squid got so delirious that he chatted in a rather out-of-character manner in a Skype call for an hour, then completely lost any memory of it happening.
I'd toyed with the idea of having THAC in Summer and Winter, but the fact that BRAWL (Brickfilm Rapidly All Week Long) traditionally took place in Summer prevented that.
After a little discussion, we came up with this plan:
Spring: THAC
Summer: BRAWL
Autumn: THAC
Winter: BRAWL
BRAWL is best placed in Summer and Winter because those are typically the longest school holidays, so the BRAWL week could be convenient for the most people. As THAC only requires a weekend (that's debatable) you could still participate even with no time off.
Other ideas for the future:
Should we change the mod element to only be in every shot, rather than every frame?
Should THAC even be a contest at all? To me it was always about the participation, rather than actually winning anything.
This is all up for discussion, I want to know what you think! Is there anything else you'd like to see changed in future contests?