AV News 190 - November 2012
The 20th RPS AV Festival - My Impressions
Juha Tiihonen
The 20th RPS AV Festival which was held at
Cirencester was my fourth (2000, 2004, 2006,
2012) and for an isolated worker, it is a
wonderful opportunity to see some of the
world's best work and to discuss with 'those in
the know'. Seeing a good number of top
sequences and the discussions on these alone
made the long trip from Finland worthwhile!
Most sequences were well worth seeing,
naturally 78 sequences with a not-so-strict
pre-selection contained some that could have
been left home, but overall I was most pleased.
The results of the competition and very well
deserved hum of great organized event will
certainly be reported in detail by others.
Anyway, I want to thank the organizers,
everyone that I talked to and to everyone
whose Sequence was shown - it all made for a magnificent weekend. It was
full of enjoyment, friendly discussions, and good time! I must not forget the
perfect technical accomplishment of the projection team - few if any jumps,
freezes, fumbling with controls or any other imperfections. Also applause for
the great screen, colour-accurate full HD projection and the high-end audio
quality!
The Authors' relationship with zooms, pans, etc. seems to have matured,
there were only a limited number of exceedingly used effects. In most cases
their usage supported the Sequence.
The standard of soundtracks has in my view greatly improved. In most
cases there was little, if any, audible background noise in voice-overs or
music and effects were used when appropriate. Still some sequences
suffered from too little separation between a voice-over and music.
As on previous occasions, Sequences with a strong story dominated the list
of winners. But other elements had to match, too. Well balanced results in my
view!
Due to my missing a key sentence (a lapse in concentration) and possibly
my limited skills of English, I missed the point of 'Beewun' during projection
session 3. Thus, this excellent sequence never reached my 'short list'
however the other two of top 3 were there! The prediction of category winners
and 'commended' was way less accurate though…
Many long-term masters of the UK AV scene are still doing very strong
however the long-term thrive of the UK AV depends on involving also the
youth. At 46, I was probably the youngest (not counting a visiting nurse!) What
the heck can we do about it?
Thank you for organising the event and see you again in two years!
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