AV News 174 - November 2008
Judging the Geoffrey Round AV Competition
Linda Gough FACI
The sun shone and the daffodils bounced around as I made my way to
Bradford for the judging of the IAC Geoffrey Round Competition. In other
words it was a normal sort of day for judging films or AV sequences.
The National Media Museum at Bradford
seemed the ideal location for this event. Unlike
the Film competition the judging was to be
done with an audience. I was a bit concerned
at my lack of experience at judging AV but I
found the other judges very supportive. We
discussed whether we should concentrate on
technical excellence and whether an AV which
moved was a good AV or a poor video. In the
end it seemed we all agreed that technique
was important and we needed to take
advanced technology into account, but most
importantly the sequence needed to entertain.
The word entertainment was used in its widest
interpretation.
We saw some amazing sequences and as always some appealing to one
judge more than another but in the end we agreed with the top three
sequences. It was a busy two days. Almost half of the entries were
commended in some way. Even those which weren't commended, were
extremely interesting.
Those people who attended, enjoyed the weekend. It was a shame that
more of the entrants were not in the audience. It is always sad when a prize
is awarded and the winning maker is not present to accept the award. I
appreciate that since it is an International event those people living in other
countries might find it difficult but there were some fairly local entries where
the authors were not in attendance. Surely you want to see what impact your
sequence has on an audience. As with the film and video competitions it is
always disappointing when this happens.
I enjoyed the experience and would encourage both filmmakers and AV
sequence makers to attend next year. The technology is getting ever closer
and the ideas can be copied from one format to another. We can each learn
from the other.
I hope more of you will take the opportunity to attend next year when the IAC
Geoffrey Round Competition will take place at Lowton, Lancashire on April
4th and 5th 2009. The closing date for Entries will be the 5th February 2009.
Linda is the Chairman of The Film and Video Institute, the IAC. See
www.theiac.org.uk More details of the 2009 Geoffrey Round Competition
will be posted on the website www.avnews.org.uk as soon as available Eds
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