Pros
It is a great place to submit movies and to practice skills in the short term. It is a great place to gain connections and to meet people for projects, after that competition ends. It is great for beginners FilMaker’s and then FilMaker’s with many years of experience. It really growe people skills and pushes people to innovate and have standards for themselves .
Cons
I have had city producers be very rude to me and other people. In some cases, falsely reporting Facebook post as spam. In other cases, Would be rude to me right after I sign up for the competition and condescend me in email’s. There is been incidences of ignoring my emails, when I offer advice to other filmmakers on their Facebook page that Are based on their own Facebook post that they would complement other people and ignore my comments. There’s also been an incident where I’ve asked them about using special effect through Red Giant weeks before the competition and they question me on the spot for cheating, whereas a couple of years ago there was a FilMaker would accepted A best special-effects award for that city, he confessed to cheating, while accepting the award and plagiarism of images online, and then he was allowed to keep his award and he still credited for that award on their webpage. There is also been very blatant double standards: there of been many times where people have won awards for saying one line and I remember one time there was a film that was nominated 23times for a specific category. Sometimes after the weekend, some of the producers do show their attitudes and be snippy in their emails, so it’s almost like they’re nice to you during that weekend and they can be very rude to you the rest of the year. Disturbingly, there are photos where the city producers are Sitting in on the judging and also going on trips with the judges while during that weekend. I believe the rule is that see producers are allowed to proctor the judging and they are a tiebreaker, but it’s also been shared to me from city producers that they do act as a fourth judge, when they’re not supposed to, And many people have complained about city producers talking about how they can have some pull at the grand finals events. With all this said, this competition is really about helping your own people, instead of being for everyone. There of been times in theaters where films are played out of order, computers/projectors breakdown showing people’s films, them having to cancel award categories because they don’t have enough time At the Award convention, and I have purchased tickets to some of the events and they don’t inform you when they change the showing dates so remember taking a day off work and traveling four hours to an event, just to find out that there’s only 15 minutes left because they didn’t inform me of the time change . I’ve really not liked how they award certain films and give out special awards. They do have a person of color award for some cities and I find that very dated, even the term person of color, just like with the NAACP ending with the acronym colored people and United Negro College Fund, Having the word Negro in it; they can easily change this award to Spirit award or person of the community award, And many people have felt that it’s really just give a brown skinned person or a black person an award, just because they’re black. I have seen films where the special character is a tapdancer and it did win for Washington DC special character, but the actor was somebody African-American, he was tap dancing, he was speaking in a very lyrical way, he had magical powers and he was guiding this white child home, So they have to be aware of characters that play negative racial stereotypes from winning. Another example was a couple years ago there was this film about a teenager having OCD and going on a date, and it was a comedy about his disability and it came off more as mocking The disability over actual depth. There’s always been films about drinking and bowel movements, sometimes winning and sometimes the direction of the 48 hour film project is to have those type of films win more, that comedy Is more favor then something insightful, so I really feel that it does alienate and it does not intellectually challenged FilMaker’s to have films when that are either stereotypical, I have awards feel dated and that again with rude city producers, some people have been very condescending to people who disagree with so many comedy films being made and going far. For example, last year the winner was a film about these two buddies to steal powder from a gypsy and one ends up peeing on it thinking it is cocaine, but it turns out to be ashes of one of the gypsies relatives: this material one over a film about a person and his partner struggling with accepting his deafness so many people have thought that they really need to start raising their maturity level in the content of what films need to win. The entrance fee does run from $175 all the way down to $125. And they expect you to pay that every single time and rarely it’s through discount and some producers do have the power to haggle, not all of them. I also feel that they have not been respectful about constructive criticism and there’s also The act of blacklisting and shining FilMaker’s who have a disagreement so it’s very concerning that they are very defensive over solving problems.
