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TSP Ep 144: The Tribulations of Being a Judge or Where the Hell is Tom?
34 Plays22 days ago
In this episode, Steve goes it alone again. He shares his thoughts about being a judge for a film competition for the first time.
So come along with us as we learn a thing or two!
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Transcript
Introduction and Solo Hosting
00:00:00
Speaker
All right, here we go. yeah this is TSP episode 144. one forty four No idea what the title is.
00:00:11
Speaker
And, you know, I don't have an idea what the title is because I'm all alone again. There's no Tom here. i did learn from the last podcast I did alone ah not to get too light in the head because then it was extremely difficult.
00:00:26
Speaker
to discuss and you know have any sort of like, I don't know, emotion to my voice. No, that's not the word. Excitement to my voice, perhaps.
00:00:38
Speaker
And then Tom did his episode and he was so good and he's so good on the mic. Natural, he's a natural. But me, ah I need a little bit of liquid courage. So I learned my lesson from the last podcast.
00:00:55
Speaker
And decided, okay, let's not get high this time. And
Reminiscing and Courage in a Drink
00:01:02
Speaker
instead, we're going to be more responsible and we're only going to get drunk. So I already had a first drink, a point, third of a drink, so I could get ready to discuss this episode with you all.
00:01:16
Speaker
And I have my Buchanan's Deluxe in front of me. Got it from Mexico. It's always a nice hard alcohol I like to have when I come back from Mexico. Reminds me of hanging out with my good buddy, Charlie, who's been on this podcast, Charlie Tostado.
00:01:32
Speaker
And that's what they drank in his hometown, I guess, or maybe in all of Mexico. I don't fucking know, but they drank it. It's a fond memory. And
Excitement for Judging Films
00:01:43
Speaker
here's to Mexico and Charlie and to this podcast.
00:01:48
Speaker
And of course, to keep the theme going, I also have a beer in front of me. I have Bohemia, the Pilsner, the red one. That's a good one. There's also a Blue Label ah Bohemia that I like to get in Mexico. I only ever find it there.
00:02:01
Speaker
Really good. don't know what that one is, but that that's a really good one if you come across it. The yellow one, and not so much. It's a little too light, a little too sweet for me. So outside of the alcohol, what are we talking about today?
00:02:17
Speaker
Today's subject is going to be about being a judge in a film festival. Tom and I were asked to be judges in a film festival. And of
Family and News Reflections
00:02:28
Speaker
course, we said, hell yeah, why not?
00:02:30
Speaker
That sounds awesome. We're very critical and judgmental of everyone. So why not extend that into a more positive outlet in the form of judging some films.
00:02:46
Speaker
So first off, we always like to start off with news. And you know, when I'm alone and my studio by myself, well, my family listens to me outside my door and laughs.
00:03:02
Speaker
They don't. No one really cares what I have to say. Damn, the alcohol is already hitting. Anyways, to go along with that, i it was funny. Well, it wasn't funny.
00:03:15
Speaker
There was some humor in this. In that I've been sick for the past few days. I'm still sick today. And and i go on Facebook and it's like, ah let let me go on Facebook and see what's up because that's...
00:03:31
Speaker
One way I like to kind of get some of my news, especially with friends mostly. But still, you know, it tells me about what's going on in the world at large. i always log on to Reddit too to kind of see what's going on.
00:03:44
Speaker
But this time I didn't have time. You know, I was sick. So just taking care of the family and and trying to get some stuff done and also take it a little easy because I was going to go into work today.
00:03:58
Speaker
And I go to work. And first thing I do when I log onto Facebook is like, what? Nothing bad can happen, right? You know, let's have a good day. Let's start it off right. It's been rough.
00:04:08
Speaker
Being sick is rough. And what's the first thing I see? Jane Goodall has passed away at 91 years old. I thought she died a long time ago, and then I found out she didn't.
00:04:22
Speaker
But she has been such a... Well, I don't really know
Emotional Reactions to News
00:04:25
Speaker
what she did. I never saw the Jane Goodall movie. I think Sigourney plays her. But I know it involved monkeys. And she was ah pioneer, as far as I'm aware, in the science, the study of, I guess, primates. Would it be primates?
00:04:41
Speaker
Apes? I guess it'd be apes. Right? Primates is like all of that, right? So primates. Anyway, she was a pioneer. You know, one of the few big female scientists that trans...
00:04:59
Speaker
trans, what's the word? I don't know. That, God, what's the word I'm looking for? see, this is when I knew Tom. One of the few female scientists that has extended beyond the sciences and into the zeitgeist. And she's always been that figure, especially that figure when you think of monkey science.
00:05:24
Speaker
And she has done a lot of good work. And been such a great figure. And unfortunately, she has passed away. i mean, ninety one s old and a long, good life. But in this day and age where it's just like so much bad shit going on.
00:05:42
Speaker
You know, Robert Redford, a good one for film. Jane Goodall, a good one for science. Passing away. is... it it is more heartbreaking and especially because that's someone who I've grown up with and to. I've always heard her name and known about her ever since I was a kid. and To know that she's gone, i guess it just hits a little differently and and hits deeper you get older because, well, plain and simple, as you get older,
00:06:17
Speaker
The people around you, not immediately, but extended outside of you, start dying and your loved ones die and everything just fucking dies.
00:06:32
Speaker
So he lost a good one. So... I don't know. It was just very depressing to to see that for me to like literally the first thing I log on to and that's what I see. It's just like, fuck.
00:06:46
Speaker
God, why Why? Please stop.
Film Discussions and Art Critique
00:06:51
Speaker
No more good people. Can't Trump just like have a heart attack or J.D. Vance get hit by a car? Like, Jesus Christ.
00:06:57
Speaker
Come on. and Please. You're out there, right? Anyways, that's probably not respectful to Jane Goodall's memory. I just want to say rest in peace.
00:07:09
Speaker
And yeah, starting off good. Starting off real good. So that's about the only news that I looked at. um I did look at some AI news that's always on the forefront.
00:07:25
Speaker
Kind of the same things we've been going over. Nothing new there. haven't heard a lot and about film. I think I've been a little too wrapped up in the politics right now to really focus on films. I don't and don't know how box offices are doing or how films out there are doing.
00:07:41
Speaker
It was interesting. i was talking about like some of the best films I've seen this year. and Weapons. Tom just saw Weapons well probably for the next podcast that we're going to hopefully record this weekend. We'll talk about that a little bit.
00:07:55
Speaker
But I was thinking that was one of the best films I've seen this year. Certainly one of the best films I've seen is maybe the best film I've seen this year is 28 years later this year. for this year What is Warfare came out? I don't know if that came out this year year or not.
00:08:11
Speaker
I think it came out this year. That was a really solid film.
00:08:17
Speaker
I watched it with my family and and we all got high. um and won't say who in my family, but we watched it together. And man, that I put on the projector with the sound and that was like...
00:08:32
Speaker
It was kind of a good movie to pick for my family because you know they they want to see action. The less talking and the more shooting, the better. But we've watched that film and we were all just so depressed and bummed out by the end of it and just like, Jesus Christ, this is war you know That kind of deal.
00:08:50
Speaker
But that was a very visceral type film, even though it might have been devoid of like character development and story in a sense, as far as character goes.
00:09:03
Speaker
um There was definitely some, and it was definitely shown to you as opposed to told to you, so you can kind of have some perspectives of some of the characters, specifically the leaders.
00:09:14
Speaker
ah But really, really well done film. And yeah, so we're going to be talking about being ah judge. And that's where I'm at right now. I have to judge six films, I believe.
00:09:30
Speaker
And I've been mulling over how I'm going to do this because, you know, i could just sit down. i could just easily sit down and watch the films and then give them ah rating.
00:09:42
Speaker
ah One of the stipulations for the for the judging was to rate the films out of five, one to five. And I was asking a lot of questions because, you know, i'm trying to figure out where to come from.
00:09:54
Speaker
And we're definitely going to get into that. ah But I guess we'll just start with where my notes are and we'll kind of follow along there. And hopefully that will lead us into a full conversation here.
00:10:05
Speaker
So I've been in a few contests and I've certainly submitted my writings to publishers. And what I carried over from when I submitted to contest, because when I did photography, I did that a long time ago in my 20s.
00:10:23
Speaker
I mean, not that long ago, like two weeks ago, you know. Not that long, I'm not that old. And one of the um one of the things that I was told to consider when submitting work was to kind of get to know the judges and to see what the judges liked. For instance, within photography, and was like, okay, you're so let's say submitting to the state fair or the county fair is where we would submit to.
00:10:55
Speaker
think I, did I ever do it? I might've done it once. Did I get anything? don't think I got anything. I think I got something. Maybe like a crowd favorite or some something like that.
00:11:09
Speaker
Maybe not. I don't remember. But anyways, um
Objective Film Judging
00:11:13
Speaker
my my photography instructors, my mentors, they're telling me like, hey, look at what the judge is like. If they prefer landscapes, maybe you don't submit a portrait of someone.
00:11:26
Speaker
If they prefer portraits, maybe you don't submit a still life. And kind of those basics. And why is that? Because when it comes to judging, the bias will play out.
00:11:40
Speaker
and And I think that's where a lot of the difficulty comes in, that I started to face was that, you know, the bias, like, I want to be as unbiased as possible when judging these films, but my natural inclinations, is that the right word?
00:12:03
Speaker
Maybe not. It are going to affect how I view something, right? Like, Everything that I am is going to dictate what I lean towards, whether it be consciously or unconsciously, and that's going to play a role.
00:12:19
Speaker
I mean, it's it's just going to be a part of it. And so that brings into the issue of subjectivity, right? I mean, when it comes to art, it's just so subjective. What someone likes and what someone doesn't like, it's different for each person. I mean...
00:12:34
Speaker
I always like shooting on Marvel films. There's a lot of people who love Marvel films. I mean, those movies make billions still, right? No, maybe not. They haven't made a billion in a while, but they still make decent money. ah Probably not returning the profit they want, but they're still producing some good films. And it seems like they kind of are getting on a better track. The Marvel films, I saw the the one with the a Black Widow... Gosh, what web was he? One-armed One-armed guy.
00:13:10
Speaker
one arm guy a Fake Captain America. The Thunderbolts, I think, is what it was. That was actually, i liked it. It was a lot different from a normal Marvel film.
00:13:22
Speaker
um You've definitely felt the power level of the big bad and their power level and how they solved it. was I thought it was very interesting. Not a lot of action. actually would have liked a little bit more action, I think.
00:13:35
Speaker
But I thought it was really solid. Just more of a... cerebral film and in the sense that it delved a lot more in emotion and trauma and having to deal with that and and how to face that.
00:13:49
Speaker
And then I know Fantastic Four came out, and I saw some of it. And from what I saw, it was pretty good, but then I didn't finish it. But from what I saw, I liked. It seemed good.
00:14:01
Speaker
And so maybe Marvel's kind of having this this revival that no one is aware of because so many people are burnt out by it. And because Thanos and that...
00:14:16
Speaker
Those two films kind of raise the bar so high that maybe be a lot of Marvel fans... Don't want a more subdued, quiet films. But again, art is very subjective in what people like and don't like. I kind of like the Marvel films a little bit more of the past few ones that I've seen than before.
00:14:37
Speaker
And this always comes down to the biggest issue when we critique things or share opinions that I've always talked about or I try to mention is the pointlessness of it.
00:14:49
Speaker
Because it is subjective. For instance, to say, like, who's better, Kurosawa or Kubrick, it's going to be a subjective thing. I mean, I think Kurosawa's the better filmmaker, probably, but that's hard to say. I mean, really, that's that's a hard one. I mean, that's probably not even really true if I think about it more, honestly.
00:15:12
Speaker
And so there's that you can't really critique or judge something like that, let alone to judge six... individual films, you know, there's a pointless to the judging in the sense that it's all subjective.
00:15:26
Speaker
And so before I started this episode, I was obviously going to go into my approach on how I want to judge and all of that. But I wanted to do some research and maybe provide some so good information for you you all and what might go through the mind of a judge.
00:15:45
Speaker
And in my research, I didn't really find anything. um and just kind of found a lot of stuff about how to hold a contest or just different rules of ah various competitions where they needed a judge. And they so they were providing like...
00:16:01
Speaker
ah guidelines to follow. And a lot of the ones that were just like, hey, you're going to be a judge for this thing and this is how you should judge. Those were very good. I mean, they were trying to advise the judges to not be bias to be a little more fair.
00:16:20
Speaker
Also, they were trying to incorporate a type of measuring system so that you can take the subjectivity away and make it more objective. ah You know, if you can, for instance, a dance, one of them was about a dance, you know, like the complexity of a dance, if you could rate that one through 10, and then the difficulty of the dance, if you could rate that one to 10,
00:16:48
Speaker
And then, i don't know, maybe like the the theme of it, like keeping in touch with the music and the choreography, how well they did that, one through ten. And then, you know, as you rank those, then you can get an actual normal numeric value to then dictate, okay, this film slots in at this point.
00:17:12
Speaker
And so... And one of the few um articles I researched, because i you know I'm doing this last minute. you know I just go off the top of my head when I'm going to judge these films. I don't know.
00:17:24
Speaker
But one of them was In Confessions of a Contest Judge by Kelly Kane. Now, in the article, she was just kind of giving anecdotal examples of different situations she's faced while judging.
00:17:42
Speaker
And so just to kind of summarize a point I wanted to speak about, she discussed how for some of ah contests, she would just show up and they would just ask her to decide a first, second, and third place winner.
00:17:59
Speaker
And it would simply be done by the criteria criteria that she held in her head, right? Right. For instance, maybe I give cinematography more weight than editing, and maybe that would dictate how I see Kubrick versus Kurosawa.
00:18:17
Speaker
And then she was also talking about um attempts where the contents wanted her to be more objective, and they would do that by incorporating a sense of measurement to grade on in specific categories, again, like I mentioned and in her example.
00:18:36
Speaker
such as originality, elements of art, difficulty, etc. That is the method that I wanted to incorporate in this because I was mulling it over, you know, trying to figure out, like, how how do I go about this? how am i How am I going to do this? I don't want to just score these films.
00:18:57
Speaker
I wanted to do something a little more objective and...
00:19:09
Speaker
All right, what the hell was I talking about? So I wanted to incorporate a more objective method into my judging. um
00:19:21
Speaker
Mostly as a means to possibly counteract the but the bias and to establish a more hardline form of fairness. And i I thought that would be a good means of proof within my judging.
00:19:49
Speaker
You know, that way in case there was any, you know, with the idea that a director is like, oh, this is bullshit. I want to, I want to see the scores. Show me what the judge, show me the judge's card. And so i wanted to incorporate that. So let me go ahead and read you the grading material and and kind of the way I'm doing this.
00:20:09
Speaker
I decided to do this based on a binary score. Because when we asked you know how to grade it, they basically said 1 to 5, which is fine.
00:20:21
Speaker
which is fine And i decided to break it up into a binary scoring of either a one or a zero. And to make it a little bit more fair, because again, one of the issues is you know, in judging these films that I thought about was, well, what am i judging exactly? Like,
00:20:42
Speaker
Am I judging ah filmmakers who have no budget? Am I judging? Should i consider the limitations of the director? I actually mentioned this in my show notes. But, you know, like from which lens should I view these films through to judge them?
00:21:03
Speaker
The response I got back from the organizer was essentially, just be honest. um that was one a well That wasn't what they all said, but that that was the takeaway that really landed with me. Like, okay, just be honest.
00:21:18
Speaker
And so in my mind, if I'm going to just do it from that perspective, then I'm going to hold it up to the greatest films I've seen. you know like I'm going to hold it up to Kubrick, to Kurosawa, to Citizen Kane. I'm going to hold it up to that standard, and then we're going to see where it falls within that.
00:21:39
Speaker
And I'm going to be that harsh on it because they didn't tell me to um curtail that That level of judgment.
00:21:49
Speaker
So I broke it up into how many? Let's see. That's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Into eight different
Balancing Bias and Fairness
00:21:58
Speaker
categories. Even though it's one through five. Because I figure. Because I'm imagining these films are going to be done by filmmakers like Tom and myself.
00:22:09
Speaker
and then it's going to go up from there. And so if I want to give a fair chance to filmmakers like Tom and myself, well, then um i wanted to give more numbers to kind of get a more robust grading to count from.
00:22:27
Speaker
And then I even doubled on that by how would I describe it? Like double loading ah category. So for instance, cinematography, I have cinematography slash lighting.
00:22:41
Speaker
Those two are kind of related. um They play a lot into each other. um if a cinematographer should obviously pay attention to lighting. And so it's like, well, maybe the cinematography might not be there, but maybe the lighting will be there.
00:22:56
Speaker
And the lighting is really good. So maybe I give that a one. And then also I have sound and sound effects, like Foley, ADR, anything ah other than on-set recording.
00:23:09
Speaker
And then I have directing, acting, because I felt like those two were very related. I mean, sometimes when you're watching a film, you can feel the lack in the directing. But I thought maybe it could be made up for in the acting, because a strong part of the acting is the casting.
00:23:27
Speaker
And then also how much the director might be working with the actor to get the lines across and get the proper delivery for it. So, you know, kind of budding these two together to ah for this category, essentially, or for this point to give a numerical value. Yeah.
00:23:52
Speaker
Then I go on to writing story or writing slash story. I should say the slash, huh? Make a little easier for all of us. So was writing slash story, pacing slash editing, ah location slash wardrobe slash set design, originality slash novelty, ah execution.
00:24:16
Speaker
And then I added an extra curve, ah more for myself. And then this one might be the more... a controversial one that I believe, which is a suppressant curve.
00:24:28
Speaker
And essentially, that's a negative number. So I figured, well, what if I'm watching these films and it scores a five or even above a five?
00:24:40
Speaker
But let's say five is the limit. So if it goes above a five, it's still a five, right? So let's say it scores a five. But then also let's say that ah, the film's just not feeling right. I guess, let's say my bias just doesn't appreciate the film, unfortunately.
00:24:59
Speaker
Even though I'm trying to remove that as much as possible, I allow the suppressant curve to kind of move the needle on where the film falls within the one to five um grading scale.
00:25:13
Speaker
Maybe it's scored a five, but i still don't think it was there for whatever reason, even though I think a lot of these categories do encapsulate everything I would ah score a movie on and I would be fine if You know, with what that score is, but maybe I need to suppress it so I have a negative scoring to kind of bring it back within to range.
00:25:38
Speaker
And I think that could be a controversial one, but I felt that might be necessary because, again, i haven't seen these films. I don't know what I'm walking into And I think it would be nice when Tom and I get together this weekend if we can discuss that.
00:25:55
Speaker
ah Probably can't get into too much detail on what we're ah being judges on, what we're um judging, and also for who.
00:26:06
Speaker
But certainly... It would be nice to talk about and kind of see Tom's approach to it. Because if I had a guest, Tom just sat down, watched it, and just gave a rating on it. Which, and I'm not trying to criticize that. I think that's completely fair. I think, well, I mean, I was listening to his last podcast that Tom did. And i'm my God, dude, that guy is like a fucking encyclopedia. He's got some knowledge on films. Just when he was...
00:26:32
Speaker
Naming some films that resembled other films and what he was alluding to. I mean, he's really good. We were talking about weapons. I was asking him, spoiler alert for weapons. One of the reasons are his, spoiler alert for his take on weapons.
00:26:47
Speaker
Some of the issues he had with the film. And one of them was how referential that film was to other better films such as Magnolia. And I had seen in ah articles how weapons, the director took a lot for a from Magnolia.
00:27:06
Speaker
I don't necessarily see it. I might have to watch them side by side to to really feel it. But initially, I didn't really feel that. But they had mentioned it, and Tom was able to pick up on that like immediately and and criticize it for that.
00:27:24
Speaker
So... You know, I think Tom and I both possess the ability to simply watch these movies and then going off the criteria in our head, decide a rating for that film.
00:27:38
Speaker
I'm just doing this to kind of give myself some a bit of a safety net in a sense in case anyone ever wanted to go back and look at the scores. They could then see how I judged them.
00:27:53
Speaker
and And see that it wasn't simply based on bias. Because, you know, it's not just bias, too. Like, what if i what if I know one of these directors? What if I'm friends with an actor?
00:28:06
Speaker
Is that playing into the judging? It could. Why not? I wanted to get away from that as much as possible, and I felt like giving a category to then decide a numeric value or a binary value of 1 or 0 would be a good way to approach this, and this was just something I kind of came up with on my own.
00:28:27
Speaker
So I don't know how good of a process this is. I'm kind of just going into this blind and hoping that I set up enough, I've planned enough for the unexpected films I'm going to see to provide a very good judgment.
00:28:46
Speaker
And so a lot of questions came to mind, right? Such as the biggest one, how do i be fair? If I have a bias, that leads to unfairness, right?
00:28:57
Speaker
Because a film that plays to my to the bias that I have, I'm probably going to rate higher. You know, film that... If a film... If there's two films, for instance, if there's two films, and one film has a lot of quick cuts in the edit, and then the other film has a lot less cuts and kind of just hangs on a scene, I might stick with the film that has the longer take.
00:29:24
Speaker
Because I just prefer that. Especially as I've gotten older, just the quick cuts really bother me. They just really take me out of film. I just don't like them. Does that mean a film is good or bad? No. I mean, a film could be great with that. I think Run, Little, Run might have had a lot of quick cuts. I don't remember. i think it might have, judging from it.
00:29:44
Speaker
And it completely works in that film. ah The film that's coming to mind... that I saw ah with Tom and I had seen it, I hadn't seen it since I was a teenager, I think on Sci-Fi Channel, was Feast.
00:29:59
Speaker
And i remember the first time I saw Feast and I was like, Jesus Christ, this movie's so cool. And it's basically about monsters that invade or, or are attacking this bar or tavern or type deal.
00:30:14
Speaker
And it establishes characters that you think are the heroes and then it subverts that. There's a lot of subversion in that film and I just loved it.
00:30:26
Speaker
But then I watched it more recently with Tom and him. And I was like, Jesus Christ, every five seconds, not even five seconds, like every two seconds, there's another cut. And it just, it ah it really took me out of the film because it was just cut, cut, cut, cut. cut cut cut cut And so, you know, the person who I was when I had first seen it, would have scored that film like,
00:30:48
Speaker
If I had to say a number, maybe like a seven or eight out of 10, not an eight out of 10, probably like a solid seven out of 10. And then watching it more recently and and just being so distracted by those cuts. I mean, it's almost like a four to one out of 10, just because the cuts take me out of it that badly.
00:31:08
Speaker
And then, you know, and how fair is that? And so that that was a question that I had, you know, how, how do I be fair? How would you be fair? But then that leads to the other aspect, because if we are judging, then there is a certain bias. you know The judge has to select a number one, essentially.
00:31:31
Speaker
And of course, the more judges you add, the more you can average that out and you can maybe get a more accurate view. But how many judges can you have on any individual thing? I mean, I'm probably going to get into this a little bit later, ah but like with ah sports, of specifically combat sports like boxing or UFC.
00:31:52
Speaker
I believe they only have three judges. And maybe if they had 10 judges, we would get a more accurate result. Is that doable? I don't know. I don't know. You know, within this contest we're doing for films, I don't think it was possible to get any more judges than they're going to get for this. And Tom and I are too.
00:32:15
Speaker
And of course, our our votes are going to be tallyed up. And from there, and an averaged number one will be picked. But there is a certain amount of bias. And so then that...
00:32:27
Speaker
follow-up question is how to be fair, but then how much bias should be removed because you don't want to be completely unbiased. I think as a judge, you need to have some bias.
00:32:41
Speaker
You know, you have to rely on the person you are with the education and experience that you have to judge a film of whether it's good or not.
00:32:57
Speaker
And the more you become, the more developed you become within the field, the more it's probably going change your perspective, obviously, because you're going know more of what's good and what's not considered good. but ah and you know And then again, you know what's not considered good, like...
00:33:21
Speaker
For instance, Tom and I criticize scripts to an extent because we'll read books on how to write a script. And those books are good and and very, very helpful. so For instance, c Sid Field's book on screenplay writing.
00:33:40
Speaker
But you know within that, they always have a formula like... Within the first 15 pages, you need to have an action and get you into the film.
00:33:51
Speaker
The best films I've seen might not even have that. Or it might happen way sooner than that. you know it it They're not really trying to constrain themselves to a formula. But if you're trying to sell a script, well, you kind of need to have your your script should hit these certain marks at these certain ah points and within the script to sell it
00:34:15
Speaker
And so,
00:34:18
Speaker
you know, how much bias should I have? And how much should I remove? Because I made a film. I know the difficulties of it. If I see, perhaps, a bad edit, how much should i criticize it for?
00:34:36
Speaker
When I can tell it's shot on a shoestring budget, I know how difficult that is. um Should I really be that harsh? with it you know For instance, ah the guests we've brought on this show.
00:34:52
Speaker
with The guests we aim to bring on this show large are people who are funding these films out of pocket. They're working on shoestring budgets. They're coming from the same place we did with our film.
00:35:04
Speaker
And so, you know, when when we watch the films and then we see like some rough areas, it's like, how rough, how critical should I be of those rough areas? Because I know how hard it is to to shoot. And it's like, well, maybe they couldn't get coverage to cut sooner.
00:35:20
Speaker
Or maybe they didn't have enough time to get enough feedback on the script to know certain sections to cut. Or maybe they didn't spend enough time in the edit. you know There's a...
00:35:33
Speaker
um ah multitude of things to consider. I think you need to have some bias because as a judge, you are coming into this as an expert to some degree.
00:35:48
Speaker
And so you have to allow that expertise to dictate How the film should be scored, I think. That leads into the thing I kind of alluded to earlier, which is how do you curtail your criticism to account for limitations within the film?
00:36:07
Speaker
For instance, is it a shoestring budget? Well, if it is, then you're probably going to allow a lot of things to slide. Whereas it if it's a Marvel film, you're going to be a lot more critical because it's like, dude, this film costs $200, $300 million dollars and this is what you produce?
00:36:25
Speaker
Like, come on. You had the money. Spend it on the areas that are weak. Whereas when you don't have the money, well, then it is kind of.
00:36:37
Speaker
what you get. And of course, this is when I was told to be honest. And that kind of answered everything I needed to know. And it was like, okay, well, then I'm going to be the harshest judge I can be for this. And f a film if if the screening If the score is 1 to 5 and I can't give a 0, then maybe I'm only going to give a bunch of 1s to these films.
00:37:04
Speaker
ah Hopefully at least one film will be a 2. But
Reflections on Past Judging Experiences
00:37:07
Speaker
you know if all the other films are just 1s, well then how beneficial will my judging have been right within that respect? Maybe then a 1 to 10 scoring could be better.
00:37:18
Speaker
Because i would give me more latitude to say like, well, this film's not 1.
00:37:25
Speaker
But it's not a two on a one to five scale, but maybe on a one to ten scale, it is a two. And then from there, you can kind of get more numbers and figure out an average better. And ah and then again, within all of this, like even within discussing this, there's a bit of ickiness.
00:37:41
Speaker
You know, there it feels like there's a bit of ickiness to even talking about this because... I think I can see why it feels like so much secrecy is attached to judging and the competition rules are at least the judging criteria.
00:37:57
Speaker
For instance, it made me think of like UFC because I watch that a lot. And there's so many times when the judge is just, it's like, what were you watching the fucking same fight?
00:38:09
Speaker
Aro was really close and it's like, yeah, you know, Maybe they lost, maybe maybe the fighter didn't win on in terms of points, but maybe the fighter won in terms of the fight and and they were winning the fight, but they were losing on points.
00:38:27
Speaker
And so you want a a certain amount of... Ambiguity attached to the judging because the judge, i think, has to be allowed to critique or to judge the film on whatever criteria they deem most important.
00:38:44
Speaker
And also, you know, like let's say I was a friend with a filmmaker. Should that remove me from being able to judge? Probably, yes. Yes, that should.
00:38:55
Speaker
But if we're super high up there... you know, like, let's say I'm judging a film on Sundance, or maybe I know, like, these actual filmmakers and actors.
00:39:07
Speaker
Maybe i I rub elbows with them. Can you then be completely unbiased? And then that's scary, right? Because maybe I'm just picking a film because i like someone more than the film being worthy of it.
00:39:22
Speaker
and And that's that's a really difficult area to get into. So I think... some secrecy being attached to this does allow for a better ah environment.
00:39:35
Speaker
But we're going to see. So I wanted to discuss the method and approach. I think I already did that with my categories. um And how I want to do it with the binary grading.
00:39:48
Speaker
So I still have to watch these films. um I'm probably just going to spend a night just sitting down in front of my computer with my speakers, my my nice audio monitor set up to a good volume and just watching it.
00:40:04
Speaker
And kind of just... Maybe establishing a standard for the audio with the first film and then films that are above that or below that kind of see where they fall.
00:40:18
Speaker
And then that might help determine like, how do I judge the audio? Like for instance, when you make a film, you generally want to do it within negative 23 luffs.
00:40:30
Speaker
And that's for brat broadcasting purposes, but that's kind of a nice standard to keep. um Did the film fall within that? Was it at 16 less, which is louder?
00:40:42
Speaker
Or was it at 30 less, which is much more quieter, negative 13, negative 16? And, you know, that that could play a role into it. So, yeah.
00:40:54
Speaker
Yeah. i think I think the binary system is the way I can be more, or not the binary system, but the categorical system is one of the ways I can be the most ah fair across the board with these films.
00:41:12
Speaker
And, you know, I did a lot of research. I did a lot of brainstorming on how I would critique these films. One of the reasons i won I did so much was because I would want someone, I would want the judge of my film or my work to put in the same amount of effort, provide the same amount of fairness. And I, you know, there's been times where I've lost and I don't think they were as fair
00:41:43
Speaker
I think they had a certain style, ah certain bias to, for instance, writing. I entered some writing ah writing competition that I lost. And it was like, man, I saw who won. And it was like
00:41:59
Speaker
was like, how did I think that film? Because the writing was more common. was more of the common style of literary, literary, the common style of writing that exists right now.
00:42:15
Speaker
And i think they went with safe choices and nothing that felt better. I mean, the writing was probably better than mine. However, I don't know if the story or what they were trying to say was any better.
00:42:33
Speaker
And so I felt a little bit robbed. And that's happened before where I'm like, man, fuck this, man. you know the judge The judge was just playing into their bias too much. And so now that I'm wearing the other shoes, I guess, I would hope for a judge to to put in this much time and effort.
00:42:53
Speaker
And maybe they all do. I mean, i don't want to imagine they do. I'm sure they do. I'm sure. But I don't want to imagine that because, you know, I'd like to believe that they just don't know shit and didn't like my stuff because they're idiots.
00:43:10
Speaker
So that's what I'm walking into. And that was just, I guess, I wanted to just provide a little glimpse into the thought process I have going into judging and how maybe other judges might view A subject.
00:43:28
Speaker
ah subject A subject? work? That's what need to talk about. Jesus. Fucking alcohol. Making me stupid. Yeah. I think within the next episode, you're going to kind of hear more about this. Hear more about our ratings. And, you know, I'll talk to the organizer.
00:43:46
Speaker
see how they feel maybe after the contest, we can really get into this and discuss it. I think that might be fun. And it be a good opportunity to kind of bring a spotlight to some films for you all to check out that you probably normally would not get to check out, but hopefully through listening to us and and getting ah recommendation from us that would ah encourage you to check out these films, maybe all six of the films and, and see if you agree or not.
00:44:20
Speaker
And yeah, so that's where I'm at. That's where I'm at with all of this. And that's where I'm at with this podcast. I guess this was just more of a,
00:44:34
Speaker
a podcast for me to kind of share my thoughts with nothing concrete to say um because i haven't done the judging yet. And i think maybe afterwards I can kind of I can inform you how how it all panned out for me.
00:44:49
Speaker
So tune tune in for next week when I can let you know like, yeah, you know, my system was pretty good or yeah, you know, my system had a lot of flaws. That whole binary system was stupid. The category bunching up of different categories into one single one.
00:45:04
Speaker
was a bad idea. i mean, maybe we'll face that. I think it's going to be good just because i think the films are going to be around the level that Tom and I can do. Maybe not. Maybe they might have a really high production value and a lot of funding behind them.
00:45:20
Speaker
Um, For instance, I did my short film, A Jog at Night, for I think it probably came out to around $5,000 to get to principal. That's not including what coloring and VFX will cost me, but it was probably about around $5,000 that I spent. you know Maybe we're talking about... um And then with Dickhead, that film...
00:45:46
Speaker
That was about $50,000 probably with mine and Tom's funds combined after principal, not including post. Maybe those films will be like, we'll be watching $2 million dollar films, $20 million dollar films.
00:46:03
Speaker
and And then that that's going to change things a lot. you know That's going to make things a lot more different to judge on. But there's always a fundamental that remains, right? Always a fundamental that remains for any film and't It doesn't matter how much it costs.
00:46:18
Speaker
Is the story good? For instance, we had Julian Sol Jordan on. he He was talking about his first film. What the fuck was it called? so Call Me Julian? I don't know what the movie was called. I can't think of it right now.
00:46:33
Speaker
But you know I think he did really good with what he had and made a very intriguing story with what he had. Whereas I look at our film, Dickhead, and it's like, yeah, you kind of did better than us because you understood the scope within what you were working.
00:46:51
Speaker
Whereas what we did, we thought we could do it all to an extent. you know our Our big influence... for that film obviously was Clerks, but also ah big, and maybe the biggest influence was the Evil Dead.
00:47:08
Speaker
But of course you have Sam Raimi on that. You have Bruce Campbell on that. And then you have the Coen brothers on that. So, you know, you have some pretty damn good filmmakers and attacking this project, but you, you see what can be done with, with no money.
00:47:26
Speaker
And so that kind of set the standard. Yeah, so we'll see. We'll see what we're walking what I'm walking into, what we're walking into. And I'll go ahead and update you on that when it comes time. So thank you for listening. I hope this was somewhat interesting.
00:47:45
Speaker
To kind of see the tribulations that a judge faces, especially a first-time judge. I mean, I've been a judge on like art pieces, art, paintings, photographs, and like smaller scale things.
00:48:02
Speaker
contests But this is a much bigger one, the biggest one I've ever been a judge on. And so I don't exactly know how it's going to pan out, and so I kind of just have to jump in headfirst. I do have to rely on the organizer and believe in them, have some faith in them that they feel that I could provide ah useful ah critique of the films to then judge them by.
00:48:30
Speaker
And we'll see. We'll see what happens. So just want to say thank you. I'm sorry. i don't know. This feels like half an episode. But it's already hitting 51 minutes. It's probably
Conclusion and Future Updates
00:48:40
Speaker
the alcohol that makes it feel like happen after half an episode.
00:48:43
Speaker
i still have a full bottle of beer and um and a half a glass of Buchanan's in front of me. I wish I could talk to you all and ask you, like, what do you want to talk about now? But I can't. So I'm just rambling on here.
00:48:55
Speaker
And you know what happens when you ramble on? You just got a call. Cut.