AV SuperCircuit 2005

[alrobin]

The AV SuperCircuit Festival in Ottawa the past weekend was a great success! We had a wonderful time, and it was very interesting to see such a variety of shows. It was nice to have a few people in from out of town, too. Paul Sparrow, the keynote speaker on Sunday morning, from Hamilton, ON, was very well-received, and gave us a very professional illustrated overview of how to put together an effective AV show.

125 slideshows from 13 countries were screened in five 3- or 4-hour sessions. It was a marathon event, but most people seemed to really get into it and enjoy it. There were no technical glitches (at least none that were not readily recoverable), so the early preparation paid off. And there were some wonderful shows.

The 7 Canadian entries did not do as well as we had hoped, but at least we were not "skunked". We all know what has to be done in order to attain a better placement in next year's SuperCircuit.

The organizers in Hayange deserve to be commended for their hard work and prompt attention to details, and were a pleasure to work with.

You can see some photos from the Ottawa Festival on our website at: Festival Photos

and overall standings on the official SuperCircuit website at:

AV SuperCircuit 2005

I would heartily encourage everyone to think seriously about preparing an entry to next year's SuperCircuit, as, even with the hard work in creating and polishing up a short slideshow, getting involved in the competition is a lot of fun. It is even more fun to attend one of the Festivals and see first-hand how the different entries are "stacking up".

[JRR]

Al and his team did a GREAT job. A good time was had by all.

Looking foward to next year, (and maybe breaking our record of "zero" score for this year's and last year's entry and remembering not to lie on the floor when Al has his camera in hand !! )

[Ricardo]

Un travail énorme d'Al Robinson et son équipe pour ramener le SCDiaporamas à Ottawa.

Le diaporama en tant que moyen d'expression et de communication mérite d’être mieux connu dans divers pays et sa diffusion doit donc s’améliorer encore . Le Circuit Diaporama va dans ce sens et nous sommes heureux que des œuvres, telles Room 17, Liquid gold, La machine à écrire, Point of view, et bien d’autres puissent être visionnées sur un grand écran, avec une sonorisation de qualité. En plus le SC permet de se rencontrer et lier des amitiés.

Merci Al!!

[Alan Lyons]

Hi Al,

Looks like you had a great weekend if a long one. What is it with AV wives? Nothing sexist here but I see Liz on the door, at the Irish IPF Festival you will nearly always see the same job been done by Phil Lyons and Mary O'Loughlin Try getting in without a ticket with that duo on the door. I wonder if there will be a convention of world A/V Festival door keepers soon. But who will do the door on that one

Congradulations on your first Supercircut Festival roll on 2006!

Alan

[Conflow]

Hi Al,

Nice to hear everything went well for you with the "A/V Supercircuit" and that all the hard 'prep work' was well worthwhile in the long run. I reckon you are well overdue for those few pints of Guinness, I must have had a few when I got the date's wrong awhile ago !

Best to Liz and yourself,

Brian.Conflow.

[alrobin]

Just a note to translate what my three friends above have said:

Ricardo: An enormous work by Al Robinson and his team to bring SCDiaporamas to Ottawa. The AV sequence as a form of communication and means of expression deserves to be better known in various countries and spread to even more people. The Diaporama Circuit does just this, and we are happy that works such as "Room 17", "Liquid gold", "the typewriter", "Point of view", and well as others, can be viewed on a large screen, with high-quality sound. Furthermore, the SC helps one to meet others and bind friendships.

Alan: You're lucky your wife was with you on the front desk and not running around with some other bloke!

Brian: With all that work, it's a shame you couldn't have scored just one point with your slideshow.

Thanks so much for your kind sentiments, all three of you. You're right, Ricardo, this medium of AV art lends itself to Festivals and socializing and meeting new friends and celebrating the art of photography in general.

Hope we can get together for another pint or two at Davey's pub again sometime, Alan and Brian, and Ricardo, I hope I can make it over to Hayange some day and get to meet you too, in person. Better still, why don't you all come over here for the next SC? Vive le diaporama!

[LumenLux]

I just want to congratulate and commend you also Al! Your extensive effort appears to have been a success. The satisfaction of a job well done is most always adequate reward. I admire you and others who commit so much of your time and talent.

I did visit your site with the photos and lists of scores I think. I seem to remember seeing that AV Peter and I think JRR had entries along with yours? Could you tell us who all from this forum were involved? And of course which shows are available for us to now see outside ofthe Super Circuit sessions?

[alrobin]

Thanks, Robert. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun, and I would do it again if the opportunity arises. And, we saw some wonderful works of art in the four days - there was a good variety of shows on all sorts of topics - some very professional, and others (like mine) not so professional.

Some people attending the Festival were upset with the large number of shows, and others with the number of shows in foreign languages without subtitles. A few others had expected more consistency in terms of quality of production. Most of the feedback which I received, however, was quite positive.

I would like to be able to say that all works will be available on a web site, but then that would greatly reduce the incentive for people to come to the next Festival. Some of the shows submitted to the competition have of course been available for some time on various forums and web sites, while this was the first, and possibly last, exposure for others. They will only be made available as the producers themselves decide to post them. I still have not been able to find the winning presentation from last year's competition, "Vanishing Race".

The list of all submissions and the names of the producers is posted on the main SuperCircuit website at:

"http://perso.wanadoo.fr/supercircuit/ingles/presentacion.html" .

Click on the flashing "Palmares Global".

Sorry, I can't give you a complete list of forum members who participated as I don't know whether some of the authors are forum members or not. As you know, many of the forum members participate anonymously.

89 of the 125 presentations were created with PTE,

19 with Wings Platinum,

8 with M.Objects,

7 with ProShow,

1 with Lanterne Magique,

and there was one "AVI" show.

There were 48 shows from France,

27 from Britain,

10 from Italy,

7 from Canada,

7 from Germany,

5 from the Netherlands,

4 from Belgium,

3 from Argentina,

3 from Poland,

3 from Switzerland,

2 from China,

2 from Hungary, and

1 from Australia

as well as 3 co-authored shows, from France/Netherlands, France/Belgium and Netherlands/Britain.

I would like to encourage more people from other countries to submit entries to the competition, rules for which will be available on the main website (listed above) once the terms and conditions for next year have been worked out. Last year saw a large increase, both in the number of participants, and in the international scope of the competition, and it would be nice to see this trend continue.

[JRR]

Robert:

For what is worth, I will be loading our 2005 Supercircuit entry (with all its worts ) on Beechbrook in a few weeks. (After our Camera Club has a chance to see it)

We were fortunate enough to get a crtique from two of the judges on our presentation and I will be passing that along with other info about it.

Our entry of last year was a nature documentary on Turtles (It was up on Beechbrook last year). It did not do well at all....