I’m leaving 10 minutes for introduction, voting, etc.

You’re right, this is going to be extremely difficult. I’m looking at your list thinking “what about…” but realizing none of the ones you have should come off.

Daedalus and Icarus has really incredible sets. I think at 4 minutes, AFOLs wouldn’t mind just checking out some cool sets, not to mention some great animation. I’d also like to include Seeing Red, but you have a point in that it isn’t funny, and the audience might not like it.

I wish we could show the best films, as opposed to the funniest. Brickfest, to me, is an opportunity for us to show what brickfilming is all about, and it’s unfortunate that we can only show the “light” side of our hobby. If an audience, one that has never seen a brickfilm before, sees nothing but light-hearted comedies, they will enjoy it, but they won’t have any idea of the other types of films here.

However, as we are going to chose the funniest films, I think it should be made clear to entrants as to why these films were chosen, and something that was well done (like Seeing Red) wasn’t chosen.

logan

To be fair, not all the films on my list are ‘funny films’. Eye of Aphrodite falls short in the humor department but it will still appeal to the BF crowd in my opinion because it is exciting and vibrant.
I used my son and my nephew to verify my choices. I showed them each film and guaged their reactions. I was able to predict the results pretty much 100%. They loved the funny movies, didn’t care for the head scratchers (Seeing Red, Lost), thought Daedalus and Icarus was OK, but sat enthralled through Eye of Aphrodite. They both said the same thing when it was done- it wasn’t that funny but it was COOL.
In Brickfest ’02 the big winners were in the General fest were comedies, but Jays Rise of the Empire, winner of the Star Wars Trailer Contest, generated a lot more buzz I think simply because it was so cool.
I remember my sociology professor explaining what made cartoons so appealing to children. The gist of it was: they like simple humor, they like bright colors, they like fast movement. The BF crowd may be mostly adults, but they are adults who play with toys. I think the same principles apply.
This is not to say that there will be no one there who won’t like the head scratchers, but as the goal is for the contest to be a crowd pleaser, I’m afraid we must discriminate against such a minority.
Finally, my list is not written in stone. Feel free to try and change my mind.

Here’s where I am:

Sai the magic word
Imagine That
Fred’s Day
Eye of Aphrodite
Alidababadad
The Green Dragon
The Factory Fix
Daedalus and Icarus

Total – 57:20

I’m thinking maybe that 10 minutes isn’t all that necessary. Doug, isn’t the animation competition usually fairly late on Friday night? Do you think we could stretch it by a few minutes and get away with it?

I’d contact Suzanne and explain the situation to her. She may be willing to try and start it a bit earlier.
In ’02 they did the whole thing on Saturday night and it took way too long.
Last year they got a little smarter about it and did the Fest on Friday night and made Saturday night the Awards night.
What happened with the Fest last year was that they had everyone in the auditorium to listen to the Lego Rep, and when he was done they started the Fest. That was around 8 I think and the building closed at 9. Also you had many other things going on at the same time which helped to suck out the crowd. That, combined with the ‘technical difficulties’ from the previous year resulted in a very low turn out for the Fest. On the upside I think that word spread the next day on what a great Fest it had been that when Todd agreed to reshow the films in the middle of Saturday afternoon, it drew a bit of crowd, at least as many as the previous night’s showing.
Sorry to ramble but I was trying to give you some idea what to expect.

My revised list:
Eye of Aphrodite 8:19
Factory Fix 8:08
Aladibababad 8:09
The Green Dragon 8:16
Fred’s Day 5:55
Sai the Magic Word 9:40
Daedalus and Icarus 4:12
Imagine That! 4:41
TOTAL TIME: 57:20

OK, I can agree with this, I also agree about cutting the Green Dragon if it comes to that, but what about the othe 4 films I havn’t seen yet?

I’m not too worried about things taking too long. I plan to put the entire show onto a DVD that plays straight through. Information about the contest and films will all be presented in one showing. Todd will only get things started and collect the ballots.

OK, but as I said, what about the other 4?