Sunday, April 15, 2012

Music video competition calls for talented locals - Red and Black

Sponsored Links

Music video competition calls for talented locals - Red and Black

Music video competition calls for talented locals - Red and Black

Posted: 15 Apr 2012 09:18 PM PDT

Calling all directors — now may be your chance to shine.

For its seventh year, Film Athens is presenting the Sprockets Music Video Competition. And it's accepting all entrants who think they have what it takes to be nominated "Best Music Video."

Geared toward the director inside, the competition is focusing more on filmography than the music itself.

The Sprockets Music Video Competition, presented by Film Athens, is looking for filmmakers who are both fun and focused. Courtesy Film Athens

"Of course you can't have a video without a band," said Danielle Robarge, director of the competition. "But it is a film competition. The judging is based on everything, because you could have a great video with a terrible song and it's going to hurt the quality of the video."

Quality isn't everything though.

"There's plenty [of videos] where the quality of the filming might not be so great," Robarge said. "But the story and the concept and the song are so good that it does really well."

A typical video is two-to-four minutes Robarge said, with five minutes usually being the cut-off point.

But exceptions can be made.

"If we get an experimental 12-minute video that's kind of hard," she said. "What ends up happening for the videos to be that long is you have to be extra-good to be as competitive."

Short and sweet seems to be better.

"When you start getting longer time, attention spans of the audience don't last that long," Robarge said. "I've seen people look and it says seven minutes and they'll go take a cigarette break."

The competition took a two-year hiatus during 2009 and 2010, which caused the 2011 competition to be flooded with entries, with more than 60 videos last year. Robarge expects to see a similar number for this year's entries.

She doesn't know what to expect for genre and theme of the videos — but in the past, they've seemed to have a general pulse.

"What's interesting is that over the years … like one year we had a really really plush, gumball pop," she said. "One year we had a lot of Americana and country. And last year we had a good number of hip-hop videos … It seems to be a very good mix, but it seems to have a certain mood."

In the past, Robarge has had some select favorites.

"Last year's winner was really incredible and was really well-directed," she said. "I think I have those favorites along the years like in 2006, Elite [Tha Showstoppa] did a video called 'Liquor' that won an Audience Choice Award, that was just so much fun … it's always great to see people really take it seriously."

Whether these directors shoot for the Best Music Video or Audience Choice Award, the prize is more for honor and adulation — but there is a nice badge of honor.

"There's no prize money or anything," Robarge said. "But the trophy is a unique piece of art … and there's not a lot of opportunity for someone who makes music videos for it to be shown on the big screen, so it's about giving them that moment."

SPROCKETS MUSIC VIDEO COMPETITION

Early Entry Extension — Happy Hour Drop-off

When: Tonight from 6-7

Where: Flickr

More info: Late entry deadline (mailed-in) is April 30. All guidelines and entry forms are online at filmsathens.net.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)