Gloucester Film Makers


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Competition Rules

I.  A number of competitions for members will be held during the year.

   The competition entry dates are laid out in the annual programme.


2. The winning film in each competition during the year will be judged in a final competition for:

      a. Film Of The Year Award known as the 'The City of Gloucester  Trophy'

      b. The film having used sound to the best advantage known as the 'Higgs Trophy'

3.  Competitions are open to any media entries. However if you are submitting an entry on any media other than DVD,      Bluray disk or MPEG2 or MPEG4 files on a USB memory stick you must provide your own playback equipment.

4.  No film will be acceptable for any competition which has been previously entered in a club competition at Gloucester.

5. The maximum length of any film is 20 minutes with the exceptions of the Mike Carwithen and Weston Trophies for which      the maximum duration will be published in the club programme

6. Recognising that film making often requires the input of a number of people, in order to define the term 'own work' the     following rules must be followed:

a. The persons submitting the film for competition entry must all be club members.

b. The persons submitting the film for competition entry must be responsible for all of the editing of the film.

c. The persons submitting the film for competition entry must have filmed, or directed the filming, of the whole film.

d. The inclusion of professional and/or commercial footage is permitted but must be no more than 10 percent of the total      film duration.

     Acknowledgement for the material must be included in the credits at the end of the film.

e. The inclusion of footage by other club members not under the direction of the submitter is permitted but must be no more      than 5 percent of the total film duration. Acknowledgement for the material must be included in the credits at the end of      the film.

     If professional/commercial footage and any footage from other members are both included then the total of the 2      contributions must not exceed 10 of the total film duration.


7.  Entries for the club competitions will be judged by club members only who are present on the evening of the competition.

In all cases members undertaking judging will be looking for the following;

a. Interesting subject matter.

b. Aptness with regards to the competition category.

c. Good camera techniques, mixes of types of shot, etc.

d. Good sound on location.

e. Good post production, including crisp editing and appropriate use of incidental music.

8. Marks will be allocated to each film up to the maximum indicated under each heading on the marking sheet. Films will     then be ranked according to the total score. 1st being the highest score. No ties are permitted on any individual     marking sheet.

9. Members may only submit one film into any one competition and must mark their own film last on the marking sheet.

    If a member submits a film but is not present at the competition then another club member will be asked to put that film     last in their ranking.

     Members may bring additional films for viewing on the evening but these will be screened separately and will not form part     of the competition.

10. Two club members will be chosen to act as adjudicators in collating the final marks from all the individual marking sheets       and whenever possible these will be members who have not entered a film into the competition.  

11. In the case of a tie for the winning position, the tie break will be based on the number of firsts allocated to   each film.

      If the number of firsts is equal then both films are deemed to have won and the award is shared.


12. Each competition will be a separate event and the trophy will be presented to the winner on the same evening.

     For record purposes the name of the winner will be inscribed on the award. A certificate will also be awarded to the winner of each competition.


13. For the Film Of The Year Awards neutral judges will be appointed.


14. The trophy will be held for a period of one year or until the date of the next competition whichever is the shorter period.


IS.  It shall be the responsibility of the person holding the trophy to replace it if it is lost or damaged whilst same is in his  or her possession and to return it to the club secretary when so requested, as per rule 14.


16. If a club member wins any particular competition for three consecutive years, that member will be presented with a suitable replica of the trophy as decided by the club committee & this will be retained by the member.


17. The Ron Turner Trophy is awarded to a film maker who has entered a film having a particular emphasis on Gloucester in one of the other competitions. It may not necessarily be the winner of the competition in which it was entered.

            In the event of there being several nominees a competition will be held following the AGM.