2007 fanfilm awards curiosity

As some of you may have seen, the OS has made an update about the 2007 Star Wars Fanfilm Award Competition (for those who haven't, check it out here).
Pretty much bog standard stuff for the most part, there's this little oddity near the end:

Now obviously we'll get more information when it becomes available, but how about some speculation as to what the "more types of movies" might be. "Serious" fanfilms, mayhaps?

 

I've got my fingers crossed for "lightsaber duels".

M. Scott

 

Do it.....

 

I certainly hope not.

This actualy has me a little annoyed. I went well out of my way to plan, and pay for a spoof. Ah, well, it's still gonna be awesome, sure to give ya all a run for your money

 

You're making a fanfilm to pander to an awards competition? Call me an idealist, but that seems wrong to me somehow. Ah well, to each their own.

 

At long last, Lucasfilm will recognize the burgeoning popularity of "Star Wars"-themed erotic cinema. Now, more than ever, the world needs my epic vision of "Last Tango on Kashyyyk".



Rick McCallum loves you!

 

Get the bantha butter...

 

I think this is good. Howard Films, we could actually enter more than one film in each category AND be officially recognized at C4!!!

 

You know, making a film strictly for this competition is hardly *pandering* - some of us have done quite well with and because of this competition...

 

Pandering?

I believe the term is entering . Not unlike a million contests people enter everyday.

Princessleia, I seriously doubt our other films will qualify anyway, if for no other reason than time restrictions that will be put in place, and we may not be able to enter more than one film.

 

Yeah, adhering to a competition's rules isn't exactly what I'd call "pandering".

 

Just got the e-mail from Atom films. They are accepting Fan Fiction this year. Selected entires will air on SpikeTV. Deadline is at the end of April. They say they want entries to be around 5 minutes. Interesting that it's changed from "Fan film awards" to "Fan movie Challenge".

 

They finally decided to accept "serious" fan films, eh?

When this contest hits 88 mph, you're gonna see some serious ****.

M. Scott

 

The news is up on starwars.com too. Yep, fan fiction is indeed allowed now. I'd love to hear why all of a sudden a change of mind? And what rules will go with it.

 

Well, the full rules and regulations don't appear to be online (that I can find), but one big change is that all the money awards are gone - only trophies and recgnition now, plus the shot at airtime on the eventual Spike TV special. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that the decision to accept fanfic entries is what led them to drop the money prizes - they don't want to open the door on potentially paying for unsolicited in-universe fiction...

 

That puts you out of the running, Dorkman. I had that same exact thing happen to me in 8th grade with a student contest for my first edited piece. It was 5:30, but I didn't know how to edit music for time yet.

Rargh.

-Vaportrail

 

Were the money prizes in that last competitions?


5 minutes, seems like it's getting worse every year. I know it's a really big step to allow fan fiction, but what exactly can you do in five minutes?

 

Not so. They RECOMMEND that entries be kept to "around" 5 minutes. It's not a hard cut-off.

M. Scott

 

You know this leads me to thinking...I wonder if this will open the door to recognition of past fan films on starwars.com. Like Duality, Broken Allegiance, Knightquest, etc. And maybe even hosting such films?

One could hope?

 

It might, if the makers submit them.

Which - coupled with the length restriction now being merely a "suggestion" - is quite possible, assuming the makers can meet all the usual requirements as well - no unlicensed use of music, etc.

There's no requirement for when the films were made, after all, so near as I can tell Shane could submit Revelations this year, for example.

I sure would if I were him.

 

Two words - Pink Five...

Since the beginning, the Lucas Selects award had a cash prize of $2000, while all of the other categories except Audience Choice had a $1000 prize. Audience Choice always got shafted on the money award due to technicalities in California law regarding popularity contests vs. contests judged on skill. So I never got a cash prize - twice...

Revelations might hit a snag on the union rule, which they still have on this year's contest - it prohibits "use of any SAG or other guild actors, performers, crewmembers, writers, etc." I could be wrong, but I think that hits some of his actors... There's still a rule about unlicensed material, be it music, trademarks, or whathaveyou, so Knightquest would be ineligible because of its use of actual SW music, as would Broken Allegiance...

 

Aha, didn't know there were union actors in Revelations. But yeah, that would make it ineligible.

And thanks for the plug, Fenn. Yeah, five minutes is plenty of time to do something, numerous finalists have been well under that limit. For example - i think - all of Durb's films, most or all of Mike Kane's, Jeremy West's Han Solo Apple parody, etc. etc.

Heck, if i were to do it again, I'd make Pink Five just a tad shorter myself. The original that is - it's too late to make Return shorter.

 

So we can make a Star Wars movie, but can't use star wars music? What if there is a lightsaber in the movie? Aint that licensed? What about the sound effects for sabers and blasters? What if we get a sound clip of 3p0 and use that in our movie?

 

Usually, the only sound clips from the movies allowed are the ones offered in the production kit on the site. No idea if the rules will be more flexible this time around, what with the allowing of fan fiction and (apparently) "Galaxies" footage.

 

Yeah, no Star Wars music, you have to use music that's royalty-free or you can make your own or pay for the rights (as if). For lightsaber effects they have said with past competitions that you can use the lightsaber sound effects that are out there, like from games and stuff so that's not a big deal. Remember, they are in control of all merchandise and the movies. As far as C-3PO you'd have to create the voice yourself, you can't use the audio directly from the movies except for the few clips that they give you.

They really want you to be creative in this so try to make sure you keep in the right restrictions and try to do as much of it that you can.