General AdultSwim.com Discussion

[Bruupo]

Hello folks, I'm new to the board, and I'm here to try to draw the attention of animation fans, music fans, or people who appreciate the encouragement and mentoring of aspiring animators, and anyone who was drawn in by AniBOOM's ads in partnership with Adult Swim.

Please Digg this:

http://digg.com/music/Radiohead_Music_Video_Contest_Massively_Cor
rupt

It was written by experienced avante garde video and music video creator Alex de Campi, in case anyone would think that amateurs are the
only ones complaining or being "sore losers". Her YouTube channel can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/alexdecampi

On March 17th, AniBOOM announced an open submission contest, occuring in three development stages, to create an original and unique animated music video for any of the songs on Radiohead's album "In Rainbows". They were partnered with the band and the band's new label. The Band will not be involved in the judging until the final stage.

The first stage, which was to be a storyboard submission, ended on April 27th. On May 6th, the ten semifinalist selections were announced. The ten semifinalists were to be determined first and foremost by page views and site member votes, with the jury only mediating the selections at this stage.

One of the announced semifinalists is Dany Saadia, who submitted an 8 shot, 56 second re-edit of footage which had been animated by other people long before the contest began. Dany Saadia is a director, by his own account, and not an animator. He gave no credit to who animated the footage, or when, and refused to answer whether the footage had been animated for his commercially released film "3:19". He now claims that the footage was not used in that film, but still has not said who animated it, for what or when.

Another semifinalist submission titled "16 tracks" was an art installation which had been produced long before the contest began and featured a completely different soundtrack. It was re-edited and a Radiohead song was pasted over it.

Another semifinalist, 15 step, claimed to have been entered by an individual, but it has been discovered was actually previously animated footage created by a Japanese production company, who had created the setting and characters long before the contes began, and again, represented no more work than simply an editing project with a Radiohead track thrown over it.

Another semifinalist is Paul Beck, famous for his work on Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, it consisted again of mostly pre-existing footage re-edited for the contest. Paul Beck has already produced a music video for Radiohead, which they have released on a DVD.

All of these entries violated the rules and spirit of the contest by not creating something original and inspired by the music of Radiohead. AniBOOM has remained officially silent about the problem.

If this were only an issue of selecting entrants based on a finished look, instead of storyboards, that would be one thing. If this were only an issue of industry-insider nepotism, with established, financially backed friends and colleagues of the site administrators getting guaranteed slots to advance, that would be one thing.

But what has come to pass is that a site which claims to be devoted to the production of independent, cross-platform ANIMATION, has awarded semifinalist positions to at least four established industry professionals who did not create original ANIMATION, and submitted re-edit projects, as though the music in question was totally arbitrary.

And what is worse, is that even after promoting and advertising this contest heavily to amateurs and music fans, including television ads on Adult Swim, and after claiming that it's purpose was to not only build the site's community, but also encourage and develop submissions from aspiring unknowns- AniBOOM has awarded the meager $1,000 in funding for semifinalists to professionals to whom it will not in any way be substantial, and in several cases simply cannot be used to further develop their submissions- since their submissions will only develop based on how much more re-editing they want to sit through.

Please help us to draw attention to this issue, and help to bring some fairness to so many excellent, aspiring animator's submissions at the site. I have already disqualified myself from reconsideration, in case it ever did become an issue, but many more deserve this, as you will see if you look at a few of the non-winning submissions.

Any Diggs you can offer, or visits to the AniBOOM forum, or comments on the violators submissions would be greatly appreciated.
You can see how the controversy unfolds in these threads, and also others:

http://forums.aniboom.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=661

http://forums.aniboom.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=692

This is as close as we have gotten to an official response, the only forum moderator, who continues to make indecipherable and cryptic posts
without ever correcting his spelling or grammar for the sake of clarity:

http://forums.aniboom.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=697

Message Edited by Bruupo on 05-09-2008 03:18 AM

[harryfrodo]

"those who are still pissed at me, don't blame you, this is the price you pay sometimes- it's all good!"

I loved that comment. It's all good!


No. No it isn't. I feel sorry for all those who spent time submitting work.

Message Edited by harryfrodo on 05-09-2008 04:02 AM

[Explosivo_420]

man i'm glad id decided not to enter.

popularity contests ftl. 

[katt_goddess]

Wow. If that's what's going on behind the scenes I'm feeling much better that I wasn't able to get anything even doodled out. Any contest that is supposed to look for and encourage unknowns shouldn't turn around and accept the works of people with entire production companies to do their "work" for them.

[Bruupo]

Jeff Massie was kind enough to make a post about this on The Animation Guild (TAG) blog. http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/you-may-be-winner.
html

Hopefully some more sites will post about the story soon, as well.

The TAG post refers to Dany Saadia as having submitted material he did not own copyright to, the issue is more that, aside from merely using pre-animated material at all, Saadia certainly doesn't have exclusive rights to the footage he submitted, and has still never given any animator credit for an entry he submitted to an animation contest on an animation website.

AniBOOM has finally made an official response, although it doesn't say very much, at least we finally know that they are aware of the issues. http://forums.aniboom.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=710 

One of the jury members who helped select the semifinalists was Michael Cahill, Senior Producer/Editor, Adult Swim On-Air. It would be nice to hear if there is any official comment from him or Adult Swim about this, but I suspect there may be confidentiality issues, and other issues, that would make that unlikely.

Someone named Jae Freeman has made a hilarious parody entry into the next stage of the contest, please enjoy: http://www.aniboom.com/Player.aspx?v=218682

Also, feel free to give FEEDBACK to AniBOOM, if you desire, through the button on the bottom of their main page:

http://www.aniboom.com/

[blinnlambert]

The most disappointing part of this whole issue is that the organizers laid it out like a storyboard competition; that they were looking for the best story as much as the style.

Then they go and do a complete 180 and pick the pretty little animations that looked cool. Out of the top 10 finalists, I'd say only 2 are actually storyboarded for a full music video.

I feel like the fat girl at prom, dude. The jock totally said he liked my personality and then he left me sitting at the bus stop because he chose the hot blonde at the last minute.