AV News 178 - November 2009
Reply to Brain Harvey and Melanie Chalk
from Peter Brown, Chairman National AV Championship
Brian Harvey - The NAVC organising committee took the agonising decision
to make a pre-selection of the entries, when we realised that it would be
impossible to fit the 73 entered sequences into our time schedule. We
needed to reduce the overall time down to approx 8 3/4 hours with only
allowing 1 minute between sequences. The time span between close of
entries and the event did not allow us to arrange for a pre-selection jury to
be arranged. Therefore with the experience of the committee in AV being
extensive, we took the decision that we would undertake pre-selection
ourselves.
The entered sequences were projected and discussed with the prime
object of keeping the standard as high as possible; this is after all the
National Championships. When we had drawn up a 'short list' these were
looked at again this time by consultation with the entry form. The Nationals
is not only for individuals, there are also club and federation championships
at stake. Therefore we were careful not to remove any entry that could affect
these. Mr Harvey was the only entrant not a member of a club. We also took
into account whether the entrant would be attending the championship.
Just because a sequence has won an accolade at a previous event does
not mean that it will score at another with different judges. Those of us with
this experience know only too well this can happen.
The entries that I myself returned had a letter of explanation enclosed, and
to show some consolation we returned the entry fee in full. They will also be
sent a programme and a result sheet.
Melainie Chalk did not send an entry to the recent Nationals, but the
Nationals entry form contains her query, so I may as well answer for AV
News. The entry forms are not usually looked at by the jury unless
requested. However the organiser has to be extremely careful in projection
of entries because of the copyright laws. That is why many events request
details of where and what sounds used came from and also details of the
licenses to record held by the author. The rules also contain a disclaimer.
The amount of photography or other work undertaken by the author is not
usually taken into consideration. However if a