AV News 192 - May 2013
As we have often done in the past, we asked a first time attendee to write
something on what he felt about the day. He wrote back afterwards saying
that he didn’t feel it was right to comment as he was dissapointed with the
standard of the entry. ‘I had hoped as a newcomer to the world of AV to be
inspired and learn a trick or two...’ ’I sound like I am rubbishing all the entries
to the competition and I'm not, I guess I just expected better. However, I do
completely agree with the judges selection of award winners, they were by
far the best of the bunch.’
I wrote back:
‘No what you put in the email was fine…..at least it was an honest opinion
which reflected on what you felt on the day.
The L&CPU AV competition is one in which we hope to encourage all the
clubs within the L&CPU to take part, however, just like in the L&CPU annual
print and pdi competitions, there is a great variance in the standard of work
entered. It is supposed to be one step up from a club’s internal AV
competition and should be the best work from that club.’
Having been invited to judge a few of these internal competitions in the
past – surprisingly the excellent sequences that I saw on those occasions
were not entered - and despite many email reminders, neither did those
particular clubs enter the competition – which is a great shame
Unfortunately, despite a few of us going along to give practical lectures
and demonstrations at clubs, some class an ‘audio - visual sequence’ as a
collection of their (sometimes) excellent images shown sequentially without
any consistency of format, progression or storyline and accompanied by a
(sometimes) suitable piece of music.
That is the thing that is difficult to teach in a couple of hours in an evening
visit …..but the first step in the learning curve is to go along to events and see
just what the current standard is - and then learn from that and produce better.
The main plus that comes out of the L&C competition is that we invite the
judge to stand up and comment on each and every sequence…..something
that is not done in National and International competitions. Richard’s
comments were I felt a true appraisal of what he had seen ….and whilst trying
to be positive and polite….he definitely did not hold back in what he had to
say. Here lies the problem – getting the authors of those sequences to come
along to the event to hear those comments and to see just what made the
sequences that won special.
Maybe there is room for another workshop/competition day within the
L&CPU (and beyond??) – including a novice competition which is only open
to people who have not won any AV award…the criteria for this being that
if the author is not present on the day – their sequence is not shown!!
Then the judge/judges could spend some time suggesting in detail how
each sequence might be improved – yes we would not maybe get through so
many sequences…but maybe we would have a more constructive and
enlightened day – what do others think??
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