Monday, January 24, 2011

Fizzylimpics Official Rules and Suggestions!

So you're interested in entering the competition, eh?

First of all, thank you! Hopefully through these video competitions, we will help share a lot of really good content and become a little stronger as a community. This isn't really about winning as much as sharing videos--but, of course, prizes will be awarded, because what is a competition without them?

However, there are a few things we have to get out of the way before getting this competition going.

A few rules that will apply to EVERY VIDEO in order to be eligible for competition:
  1. It must stay within the time limit of 4 minutes. The judges and I would love to watch hours and hours of footage, but realistically, most of us are still in school and/or have real lives we need to keep up with in the meantime!
  2. The video must be posted as a video response to the official Fizzylimpics video in which the contest is announced--we have to be able to find it for you to win!
  3. The video must be uploaded to YouTube no more than eight and no fewer than two days prior to the announcement of winners--we'd love to see new content and to have time to watch it!
  4. The video must abide by US copyright law and creative commons licensing. Please only use content you are allowed to use--the more original, the better!
  5. Only one entry per category per channel--make it your best!
  6. By entering the competition, you grant me (fizzylimon) the right to use your video for monetary gain, ie, I will use clips of the winning videos in the prize announcement, and there will be ads on that video.
On to category-specific rules and suggestions:

Vlogging (submissions accepted 1/27 - 2/2): Contestants will be judged based on subject matter, delivery, pacing, editing, and production value. Don't worry if you don't have good equipment--the judges will take that into consideration if you have really good content! There will also be special awards given for standout pieces, such as "best first vlog," "best snapshot of a collab channel," or anything the judges are inspired to award.

Sketch comedy (submissions accepted 2/3 - 2/9): Contestants will be judged based on the premise of the sketch, acting, pacing, editing, and production value. Most of all, though, the judges care about the lols. If there are lols, you can consider your video a success! Much like vlogging, there will be special awards given for standout pieces.

Music (submissions accepted 2/10 - 2/16): Contestants will be judged both on the quality of the music and of the music video. In terms of music, the judges will be looking for lyrics, orchestration, balance, intonation, and most of all musical interest. For the video, whether you want to tell a story visually or use the "making-of" video style à la Pomplamoose, try to make the video something interesting we'd want to watch. As with the other categories, special awards will be given for things with exceptional characteristics.

Animation (Submissions accepted 2/17 - 2/23): As the most open-ended form there is, frankly, I don't have much to say of guidance here. If it is an animation similar to a sketch comedy, it will be treated much like a sketch comedy but with special attention paid to the visual aspect of animation. If it is something like kinetic typography, the judges will look for the text's relation to the music and its visual appeal. Stop-motion, flash, hand-drawn cartoon, you name it, this category can have it all.

Enter in more than one competition and you could be eligible for a special award! Enter in all four and you get a special tetrathlete award, which has yet to be determined!

So I hope you guys are as excited as I am to see this happen... because it will be awesome!