AV News 201 - August 2015
PAGB & Judges
Rod
Richard
Wheelans Spiers
Paul Robert Howard
Keene Albright Bagshaw
A n A u d ie n c e M e m b e r’s V ie w
Martin
Fry
Roy
Thomas
Alan Colegrave FACI
I think it is always reassuring to see a signpost indicating you are near to your
destination when you rely entirely on a SatNav to plan your journey. After an
uneventful drive, I was parking in the large car park at The Village Hall in
Steventon, near Oxford - the location of the re-vamped PAGB AV Awards.
The meeting opened with Rod Wheelans explaining that the PAGB makes
its Awards for Photographic Merit and that, even in AV, the photography has
to be good although, not necessarily, to the same standard of the equivalent
awards in still photography. Some AV producers in the past have made a lot
of use of other people's images (third party images). Now the use of such
third party images, graphics, clip art and video is restricted to 25%. The
judging panel consisted of two judges with an AV background and two with
a more photographic one, although both have some AV experience. The
chairman of the judges would have the casting vote in the event of a tie.
So what was going to happen? Would I cringe at every decision? Disagree
with every word uttered. In fact, I agreed with almost every comment and
every decision made. Well nearly! However, after a few AVs, I wondered if
there was another rule which stated only one piece of music could be used.
Almost every AV projected used just one music track. Why? In my opinion,
a large number of entries lacked changes of pace. It seemed often that the
shot length and the dissolve had been set to 4 or 5 seconds and left.
One production, 'Monopolising Chelmsford', used a novel approach with
animated dice, sound effects and the rest. Great but after few times, the
effects became a bit repetitive.
Page 34