I am from Cruiser Team (Group10) and I would like to congratulate on the completion of the Canon DV Triathlon. I applaud your efforts in making this competition a success. It was very encouraging to see local film makers and their works. Your technical support staff knowledge assisted us during the most crucial times of the day. The time limit was a challenging hurdle as we witness many teams not being able to complete their works on time.
However, I would like to address certain issues that my team has. The team and I were very upset during the screening portion of the competition. Honestly, upset would be an understatement. As we sat in the room from 8.30pm till 10pm, we did not see our work being screened. There were about 30-34 teams that day, each took about 3minutes, maybe less. If you do the math, that 1.5 hours would be enough to screen all the works. I would like an explanation why you chose not to screen the remaining works. We sat there anticipating to see our film, to see the audience reaction to our work, but it never came. However we did see a repeated screening of teams "tcube" and "dotz". Your actions or rather the lack thereof, has puzzled and upset us in many ways.
I am still questioning the many possibilties of what might have happened. Were we disqualified? The film made was not controversial, it has all the elements. Our team registered early, went to all the seminars, submitted our finished product at about 7.15pm, left for dinner while there were still many teams in the room still editing. We "shared" to our desktop, transferred to your portable hard drive. We did everything right. I'd like to state that the issue here is not about winning or losing. But the simple courtesy of screening of our works, as promised. I am greatly disheartened as a film maker to not be able to see my work screened, and worse not being to feel the audience reaction to the film. Art is subjective, and as film makers, our work was meant for the audience, to see their expression as they watch it. I invited friends to watch the screening, and my team mate got his parents down as well. Do you understand the gravity of your actions?
Were there other works not being shown as well? I believe that you owe them an explanation as well. Imagine what you have done, to destroy an aspiring director or future local film makers' dream. What is a film if its not shown. The least you could have done was to apologize to individual teams that were not included in the screening. Or if it was impossible to screen everyone's due to shop closure times or other reasons, we could have another screening on another day, where the judges could have taken their time to watch and appreciate all the works.
I would love to join next years DV triathlon. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm in full support for the local art and film scene. I believe we have many local talents and your actions should not put down or discourage their dreams. I want to hear back from you with your explanations. If you are not able to respond to this email I wish that you would forward it to someone who can.
Your sincerely,
Local Film Enthusiast.
Kenneth
Cruiser Team.
Their reply:
Hi Kenneth,
Firstly, thank you very much for entering the inaugural Digital
Life-Canon
DV Triathlon. The response from the public as well as the quality of
clips
were much better than expected and we must credit it to your team and
the
rest of 30 odd teams who took part.
Let me clarify a little on the happenings of the competition's final
few
hours. The contest was supposed to end at 7.25pm (as per emcee Billy's
announcement) and the iShop crew was to go around saving everyone's
work on
the portable hard drive. This process took longer than expected as some
teams who edited till the final minute at 7.25pm needed more time
beyond
that to save their clips. There were 3 men going around saving the
clips in
3 different hard drives.
The clips were then transferred from the hard drives to a iMac located
in a
private screening room (its actually at the left side of the screening
lounge) where the judges viewed ALL the submitted works.
Only when the clips were transferred over for judging, then did the
iShop
crew bring the hard drives over to the screening lounge, for the clips
to
be downloaded to the iMac for public screening. Thus by the time we
started
the public screening, it was already about 8.25pm, instead of earlier
planned 8pm.
Each clip being about 3 mins, we can only screen an estimated 20 clips
for
an an hour from 8.25 to about 9.30, when the results were announced.
The movies that were shownn ran by alphabetical order
[weird cos my team name was Cruiser and the movie title was Armoogeddon],
with no repeat of movies. The winning teams' works were screened for the presentation of
prizes and it was a mere coincidence that they have been shown earlier
in
the general screening.
We must apologise for not screening all submitted entries and I can
definitely comprehend the disappointment that you and your team felt.
There
should have been better time management and tightening of technical
issues,
which we will work towards improving in the contests ahead.
Meanwhile, you will be pleased to know that all submitted entries will
be
uploaded on Asiaone.com for a fortnight for a "viewer's favourite"
contest
-
http://digital.asiaone.com.sg/news/20070513_001.html.
The clips should be uploaded by tom. Check it out then.
Once again, thank you for your team's support for DV Triathlon 2007. We
hope for your understanding of things lacking in the event on sat and
look
forward to your continual support.
Regards
Vivien Goh
Assistant Marketing Manager
