2007 H P Lovecraft Film Festival Contest

1. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN.

Void in Puerto Rico and where prohibited or restricted by law. The H P Lovecraft Film Festival's Contest (the "Contest") is open to anyone who is, at the time of entry, at least 18 years of age. Contest is and shall hereafter be subject to all applicable federal, state, and local laws. All entries shall become the property of Sponsors and will neither be acknowledged nor returned except as herein described. By entering, all entrants are deemed to acknowledge compliance with these official rules.

2. TO ENTER:

Enter the Contest by providing a link to your film in the Festival Contest thread and PM'ing the following information to the forum account "Ceronomus" and by emailing a copy of your film in Quicktime or .AVI format along with a .jpg image from the film to "Ceronomus@Gmail.com". All contact should have HPLFF Contest in the Subject line

Name
Address
Email Address
Date of Birth
Your film's title
Synopsis of the film
The URL where your film can be located

Each entrant must also submit an original Machinima Submission (as defined below) as directed by Sponsors and which complies with these Official Rules. For purposes of this Contest, a "Machinima Submission" shall mean an animated video created, developed and produced by entrant that is based primarily around footage from a computer game or similar program devoted to the creation of Machimima-style films. Submitted films should deal with the themes of Cosmic Horror, Weird Tales, and/or the works of H.P. Lovecraft (or other weird fiction author). Submissions should be between two (2) and fifteen (15) minutes in length.

All submitted works should be stand-alone works. The H P Lovecraft film festival has the unrestricted, exclusive right to disqualify any entry they deem inappropriate for consideration.

Use of a profane username or the submission of false or misleading personal information by an entrant will be grounds for disqualification. Determination as to whether information given is profane, false, or misleading shall be made at the sole discretion of the festival.

Incomplete or inaccurate entries shall be deemed void.

There is no limit to the number of films you may enter in the contest.

Personally identifiable information will be used only for the purposes of this contest and will not be retained for any commercial purposes.

All entries must be received by no later than 12:01 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time), July 16, 2007.

3. PROMOTIONAL PERIOD:

Contest commences at the time of this posting on April 25, 2007 and ends 12:01 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time) on July 16, 2007 ("Promotional Period").

4. PROCESS FOR SELECTING POTENTIAL WINNER OF THE CONTEST:

On or about July 20, 2007, potential winners will be selected by film festival staff and judged by the festival head, Andrew Migliore after review of all eligible entries. Odds of winning will depend on the total number of eligible entries received.

5. PRIZES:

First Prize (1): One (1) winner (the "Winner") will receive the latest DVD release from Lurker Films, a Hecatomb 40 card starter deck from Wizards of the Coast, an H P Lovecraft Film Festival T-Shirt, an H P Lovecraft Film Festival Poster, H P Lovecraft Film Festival printed program and a 15% Discount coupon to Arkham Bazaar (http://www.arkhambazaar.com/lurkerfilms.html). In addition, the Winner's Machinima Submission may be shown at the Lovecraft film festival, at the festival's discretion.

Runners Up: Any runners up may have their Machinima Submission may be shown at the Lovecraft film festival, at the festival's discretion.

All entrants whose entries are shown at the festival will also receive a copy of the H P Lovecraft Film Festival program, listing their film.

The H P Lovecraft Film Festival reserves the right to terminate this Contest at any time or not to award any prizes in the event an insufficient number of eligible entries meeting the minimum judging criteria is received, as determined by Sponsors in their sole discretion. The H P Lovecraft Film Festival does not guarantee that the Winner's Machinima Submission will appear in the festival.

Winner shall be solely responsible for compliance with any and all federal, state and local taxes associated with the acceptance and use of the Prize, as well as any and all expenses in connection with the Prize not expressly described herein as being awarded. All details for the Prize not specified herein shall be at the sole discretion of the Sponsors. Substitution of Prize by Winner is prohibited. Sponsors reserve the right to substitute the Prize with another prize of comparable or greater value, at the Sponsors' sole discretion.

6. WINNER NOTIFICATION/QUALIFICATION:

Potential Winner: During the seven (7) day period following the selection of a Potential Winner, the festival will attempt to contact the Potential Winner via email. If a particular Potential Winner cannot be reached within said seven (7) day period, that Potential Winner will be disqualified and an alternate Potential Winner will be selected by the H P Lovecraft Film Festival after its review of all remaining eligible entries. Potential Winner must prove eligibility to the satisfaction of Sponsors, which may include verification of age, within five (5) days of notification. In order for a Potential Winner to be deemed the Winner, he or she may be required to sign an affidavit: (i) releasing Sponsors from any and all liability, claims, demands and causes of action for personal injury and/or damage, theft, or loss suffered in connection with this Contest, or the use or acceptance of the Prize or any portion thereof to be eligible for the Prize; and (ii) where permitted by law, granting Sponsors the right to use his or her name, voice and likeness for advertising and publicity purposes without additional compensation. In addition, Winner may be required to provide a signed affidavit of eligibility and compliance with official rules and any and all legal documents which Sponsors may require within five (5) business days of receipt before being deemed the Winner. Prize will not be awarded until such requirements are met.

Upon receipt of the Prize, the Winner shall comply with any and all applicable federal, state and local laws, rules and regulations. The value of the Prize is taxable as income and Winner is solely responsible for all matters relating to the Prize, including, but not limited to, all applicable federal, state and local taxes that become due with respect to the Prize. In the event, (i) the Winner chooses not to accept the Prize, (ii) does not comply with these Official Rules, or (iii) Sponsors are unable to contact Winner or notification of Prize is undeliverable, the Prize will be forfeited in its entirety and awarded to an alternate Winner who will be selected from the remaining eligible entries.

7. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY:

By entering, entrants acknowledge compliance with these Official Rules including all eligibility requirements included herein. Released Parties are not responsible for entries that are illegible, incomplete, garbled, lost, delayed, mutilated and misdirected, or for typographical errors in the entry forms and/or rules. Released Parties are not responsible for any problems or technical malfunctions, human error, lost/delayed data transmission, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, line failures of any telephone network, computer on-line systems, servers or providers, computer equipment, software, failure of entrants on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the internet or at any web site or any combination thereof, including injury or damage to entrants or to any other person's computer related to or resulting from participating or downloading materials contained in this Contest. If, for any reason, the Contest is not capable of running as planned including, without limitation, due to infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or any other cause beyond the control of the Released Parties which corrupts or affects the administration, security, fairness, integrity or proper conduct of this Contest, Sponsors reserve the right at their sole discretion to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Contest in any manner. Should the Contest be terminated or cancelled prior to the stated expiration date, notice will be posted on ?the Movies? forum in the contest thread. In the event of a dispute over who submitted the winning entry, the holder of the winning ?The Movies? account will be declared the Winner. The use of any system or agent to submit entries in connection with this Contest is prohibited and will result in disqualification. The H P Lovecraft Film Festival reserves the right at their sole discretion to disqualify any individual they find to be tampering with the entry process or the operation of the Contest or any web site associated therewith; to be acting in violation of the Official Rules; or to be acting in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner, or with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any other person.

8. GENERAL CONDITIONS:

All entries become the property of Sponsors for the purposes of the H P Lovecraft Film Festival and will not be acknowledged or returned except as herein described. Entry into the Contest constitutes entrant's agreement to sign any and all legal documents which Sponsors may require. By participating in this Contest, entrants agree to be bound by these Official Rules and the decisions of the judges, which are final in all matters relating to this Contest. All interpretations of the rules and decisions by the Film Festival are final.

9. MACHINIMA SUBMISSIONS

(a) Each entrant recognizes that the Festival and/or third parties may independently develop, or third parties may submit or may have submitted to the H P Lovecraft Film Festival or made public, or may hereafter originate, submit and/or make public, material similar or identical to one or more of the submitted Machinima Submissions, and each entrant understands and agrees that no entrant will be entitled to any compensation because of Sponsors' use of such other similar or identical material.

(b) Entrants acknowledge and agree that their Machinima Submissions may be used NON-exclusively by the H P Lovecraft Film Festival in whole or in part for any purpose whatsoever regarding the festival and the promotion of the works of H P Lovecraft. Entrants hereby grant to the festival NON-exclusive, irrevocable right and license to exhibit the materials contained in their Machinima Submissions and/or any portions or excerpts thereof, an unlimited number of times, at any of the H P Lovecraft Film Festivals, in perpetuity.

(c) Entries should either be made with a ratio of anamorphic 16:9 (preferred) or in 4:3 with a preferred frame rate of 24 FPS.

10. WINNER'S NAME/OFFICIAL RULES

For Winner's name and/or a copy of these rules, send a stamped, self addressed envelope to:

H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival Machinima Contest
2626 NE 31st Avenue
Portland, OR 97212 USA.

Vermont residents may omit return postage on all rules requests. All requests for Winner's name and/or a copy of these Official Rules must be received by August 15, 2006. Winner's name will be available after selection and verification of the Winner.

That out of the way, let me speak without the legalese. The idea of the contest is to create a film, between 2-15 minutes long, inspired by or based upon the works of H P Lovecraft or a related weird fiction author (Robert E Howard, August Derleth, etc).

Please keep in mind that we REALLY want to show the winning selection at the film festival so we have preferences for technical quality that certainly help in getting your film shown. If your film is in 16:9 it needs to be in anamorphic wide-screen so that we can size it for the screen in the theater.

That's it. You can direct any questions to me and we can't wait to see what you folks come up with!

Bob

For purposes of this Contest, a "Machinima Submission" shall mean an animated video created, developed and produced by entrant that is based primarily around footage from a computer game.

Can we have something in the rules saying that for the purposes of this contest, Moviestorm can be considered a computer game?

Or something else that means that Moviestorm movies are not excluded by this clause.

According to the rules: "For purposes of this Contest, a "Machinima Submission" shall mean an animated video created, developed and produced by entrant that is based primarily around footage from a computer game."

Moviestorm isn't strictly a game (though it is a machinima engine built with game technology and behaving much like a game). But just for clarification, that isn't a problem?

Not at all. For OUR purposes, Movie Storm is a computer game. You are right, technically, it isn't. However we needed a distinction in there that would allow for traditional Machinima (such as the HALO and Quake created films) and would still weed out people making non Machinima but computer created films. If someone has better language to make the distinction, we're all ears.

Edit - Clarified.

Thanks!

No problem. We really can't wait to see some of the entries.

I can't either, i mean I'm working on one. *thinks to self that is lying* well i really can't wait to see them.

Anyone have any questions so far?

We've just posted a download in the beta forums for a cthulhu statue made by Chris specially for the contest. You can scale it so it could be used as a hearth totem or the centrepiece of a town square. Hope it inspires some of you!

Now that is some FANTASTIC support! Do I need the program to be able to look at the idol?

Here's a little look at our Cthulhu (this taken in 3DS MAX so a bit better lit than in engine)

Wow! I'm really looking forward to seeing what people can do with Moviestorm

Ceronomus, I haven't heard of the author so it's tough to work out which other authors would be like him. Could you give a longer list?

Well, some of Lovecraft's contemporaries would be people like August Derleth and Robert E Howard.

Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos has influenced authors such as Brian Lumley and Stephen King (both of who have written mythos stories).

In film, Lovecraftian creations such as the Necronomicon appear in numerous movies and his aquatic race, the Deep Ones, where the inspiration for Universal's Creature from the Black Lagoon. That doesn't include such well known (if frightfully bad) adaptations such as From Beyond and Re-Animator.

There is a website online (here) that has a good number of Lovecraft's tales. Most of his work is short stories, so it doesn't take long to read a few and get a feel for the genre.

Hope that helps.