As far as interviewing the Gold Medal people more professionally, I tried that and gave up. I begged people to move in to better light or quieter settings but for the most part they just refused. If I wanted to talk to them, I could talk to them where they were or not at all. Making a documentary with people who aren’t very interested in participating is really hard. Now I know why no one else has tried to make a Gold Medal documentary. Maybe after they see the final product, next time they will be more motivated to move to better light and less ambient noise.

I basically agree with most of what Arlo said but I think the Murkowski video packed much more punch than the Raw Hide short. It was a significant topic that was handled with enough discretion that it didn’t offend but did get the message across with humor. I’ve been around Frank in a social setting and he seems like a decent enough guy but he really screwed up the state and I don’t think that we should cut him any slack. He may not be totally evil but… I can’t think of a polite way of ending that sentence. I started an anti-Frank video a couple of years ago but I didn’t have enough original footage to really make it work. I never considered using stock footage. Maybe next time.

Well congratulations to everyone on yet another successful festival!

18 Random Things
I thought this was a good way to open the festival with, short and some good jokes.

Fruitcake of Joy
I thought that this was a good movie and well acted. Still I grew tired of the walking scenes.

Food Fight
This was good for a little while but it seemed to drag on with no real change. I also think it was too tame. A good foodfight movie would be someone getting hit in the face with a pan of lasagna.

Come Una Pietra Scalciata
I heard this song on the radio a little bit after the show, I was like, “Hey! Hey! its the song, the one from Jump!

Be Nice
I’m 14 and Be Nice was my second real movie with this new animation program called toonboom. Its so crazy that it has a BUILT IN LIP-SYNC! It was so easy! You just draw some mouths and put in the audio and BAM! Instant talking. I had to do this movie about four days before the submissions were due so it probably could have been better. I don’t know if many people noticed it by the animation had a shadowy effect. I think it was something to do with the projection? I felt it ruined the whole thing when I first time I saw it but the second time, I saw that nobody really noticed…

Gold Medal Pride
I liked the feel for this movie and the learning about the gold medal basketball tourny. I never had even heard of it before. But the part with the basketball clips dragged on too long and the second time I watched it I grew tired of the song.

In the Offices of JUMP
When I turned in Be Nice the first time I forgot to finalize my DVD’s so there was notjing on them. When my dad told me this I cringed. I felt awkward the next time I came in I felt and thought somebody was going to scream at me, “You fool! Don’t you know how to do DVD’s what kind of man are you!!� Well thats my little story and I thougt the movie was funny and good.

Adventure Club Video Scavenger Hunt
Good lead up to all the crazy stuff they did.

Oops
I thought that the switch from black and white and drawings was distracting but it had a good plot.

Zombie Movie
The makeup was great. But I got it more the second time.

Yozhik
I like hedgehogs and I thought all the pictures were well shot, but after a while it seemed kind of tiring to see the same hedgehog over and over, expecially the second time I saw it.

Freakin’ Fungus Trailer
I thought this one was good and gross and scary

Intermission
I like how people were all dissapointed and “Awwww� “Whats wrong� I laughed at those people in my second viewing.

Kneading a Metric Ton of Dough
I really didn’t get this movie. I thought the weird picture color and not so good sound and length made me get tired of this one. I thought a better Idea would be to have a one consistent shot in fast forward of them kneading the dough. Still kneading a metric ton of dough is cool.

Quest Contest
I thought this had a good blend of color and a very pretty to look at movie. The plot was good and the ending was great.

A Puppet Movie
huh? lost me on this one.

The Green Room
This was probably the hundreth time I saw this one, twice on the DVD once somewhere else and two times in the festival. I just got plain tired of seeing it. i did like the costumes though.

Face
this was interesting I was wondering where she got all those clips. Good movie though.

White or Wheat
I thousht this had a good plot and was a fun movie.

bubba
Sad movie. I want a dog. White and Black shots helped and lack of sound added to it.

Catching Bears
I saw this guy at Fred Meyers yesterday. I wanted to introduce myself but it would be embarissing if it wasn’t him.

Frank Murkowski: A Tribute
It’s Pat’s it has to be good.It’s late I probably didn’t make too much sense and I was talking about myself, and this is really late. Also I said good around 13 times. My bad. I thought it was a good festival this year.

Props to Clint for poking fun at himself. It would have been hard to enjoy
Yet Another Baby Video, but by making himself the butt of his own joke, by pushing
the joke so far (with Carmina Burana!), it worked.
Loved the fade-to-white joke. Great stuff there.
Also, I thought that the whole feeling around the JUMP office was handled remarkably
well. I’m one of THOSE GUYS that has dropped something off before every
festival. None of my films have been rejected yet, but I can’t help but
worry that those crazy JUMP roll their eyes at my footage when I’m gone.
Especially this year, when I was very uncertain about the JUMP-worthiness of
my sentimental pet video submission.
Anyway, at the beginning of the video I felt as though I, and others like me,
were the ones being made fun of. But by the end, I saw that Clint was taking
all the weight on himself, and that made me forget my own insecurities.
Adventure Club Video Scavenger Hunt by Bad Larry Productions
Great documentary style. Wonderful payoff at the end after wondering if the
story was going to go anywhere. My favorite moment was a transition somewhere
in the middle of the video. I don’t remember it exactly because I only
saw the film once, but I think it ended with the line “Basically if you
got arrested, you automatically won.” Not only did that perfect-linking
transition between scenes get immediate laughs from the audience, it foreshadowed
the ending of the film. Great editing.
And Palin? Awesome.
More to say about Bad Larry after White or Wheat.
Oops by Patty Kalbrener
Good stuff in here, really, but it was spoiled by some stuff that could be worked
on.
The dead-silent audio was already mentioned; it distracted me, too. Overall,
I think the video could have been much shorter, too, especially considering
the repetitive nature of some scenes. I really liked the drawings (can’t
help but think about A-HA’s video), but couldn’t figure out WHY
they were there. Could just be me – I’m sometimes oblivious to symbolism.
Criticisms aside, the video had a good story with a great twist at the end.
I thought it was one of the better entries in the show.
Zombie Movie by Kevin Fremlin & Aaron suring
Short and sweet (or rancid, if you’re of the zombie bent.)
A couple things: I remember the announcer’s voice being spot on. Also,
I initially didn’t get the joke that the zombies were actually interested
in the static. At first, I thought they must have been watching a regular show
that went to static just before the EBS signal (because we’re all couch
zombies in front of the TV, right?), but eventually I figured it out. I think
Pat’s right. Something could be done to make the joke hit harder. I’m
just not sure what that something is.
Yozhik by Arlo Midgett
Editing the Yozhik video was a sort of catharsis for me, for obvious reasons.
After showing it to some friends and seeing strong reactions, my wife encouraged
me to enter it into JUMP. Despite depressing a lot of people, I’m glad
I did. I’ve had many people tell me afterwards that they cried, but that
they also understood that our hedgehog was loved. It’s sad, but I think
it’s a “good sad,” you know?
To address a couple comments:
I don’t believe I reused any photos, but I did use almost every one I
had (admittedly, some are too similar to others). I was surprised to find that
after five years, we had surprisingly few pictures and very little video. I
filled out the song with what I had.
I struggled to find a narrative in both the song and the imagery. Greg said
it went “from a cute reflective piece to medical horror story.”
My knee-jerk reaction was to refute that, but to tell the truth, that’s
a good description of what we went through in real life.
Honestly (and I realized this only in retrospect), I think that frontloading
all the “sweet and tender” footage in the film is what formed a
bond between Yozhik and the audience. Without it, the “medical horror
story” wouldn’t have had the same emotional impact.
I wasn’t setting out to depress anyone, but I have to think a film (any
film) is something of a success if it evokes an emotional reaction.
Freakin’ Fungus Trailer by Paul F. Disdier
Whomever was responsible for the *feel* of this video (the person shooting it,
editing it, or directing it – heck may have been the same person doing
it all) did a great job. I noticed many horror movie styles in there –
styles that are probably cliché, but then… they’re probably
only clichés because they work so well in the genre.
Acting was pretty good, too, if I remember right. It’s hard to sell “disturbed,”
“terrified,” etc.
The only thing that put me off was the constant use of the green titles telling
me what I should feel. They seemed out of place, but I think that’s because
I went into this film not realizing it was a trailer for a longer piece. (Yes,
I know it’s entitled “Freakin’ Fungus Trailer,” but
somehow I thought that the “trailer” was the entire creative piece,
created specifically for JUMP.) As a short piece, I really enjoyed it. I think
it’s the best stab at horror I’ve seen at JUMP so far. As a longer
piece, I don’t know. Story would have to be pretty solid.
Intermission by Lou Logan
Interesting. Some friends and I batted around very similar ideas for a JUMP
intermission segment. Maybe we saw the same energy drink (car) commercial.
Kneading a Metric Ton of Dough by Roald Simonson
I couldn’t get into this video and neither could the people sitting near
me. More than one person I talked to later complained of nausea (from the incessant
hand-held motion of the camera) and was forced to stare at the floor, instead.
I can’t imagine that was the filmmaker’s intention.
My problem was the pacing – too slow. I tried to pay attention to the
narration and the footage, but because there was so much extra time in the video,
I found my mind wandering. I think this could have been very powerful if it
had been half as long, but as it is, I couldn’t even tell you what it
was trying to say.
Quest Contest by Greg Chaney
I thought this film was quite good, if not for the joke ending, for the attention
to composition. I think Greg must have spent more time framing his shots and
post-processing the footage in the film than normal. The stand-out image for
me was the deep black silhouette of the hooded figure near the beginning.
It also left me wanting to know how the fire was wrangled into performing on
cue.
A Puppet Movie by Caro LeVeque, Lauren Alweis & Eve Southworth

Yeah, I didn’t really get this one. Somewhat because the audio levels
could have used some work, but mostly because it seemed like an “inside
joke” that I wasn’t a part of.
The Green Room by Alaska Robotics
Having partially participated in the pre-production parts of this film (whoa
– that just came out like that), I have to say I was disappointed in the
final product. The hardest part of filmmaking, in my opinion, is translating
the images in your head to an image on the screen, and the script that I heard
pitched had more going for it than the final film shows. I think there were
some great images in the filmmakers’ heads on this one, but working by
committee (not to mention being under severe time and genre constraints!) hampered
the transition to film.
I recognize that the piece needed music, but I have to say that, for me, what
was composed did not add to the drama. I kept wanting the music to build, build,
build to something, but instead it seemed to be all over the place, up and down.
Again, time constraints are the only place to lay the blame.
Not to say that there aren’t some great moments in the film, there are.
Parts of the story were told very elegantly, simply with an image or two.
And, hey. “Silent film” as a mandatory category? That’s just
brutal.
I find myself thinking about an interesting parallel between The Green Room
and The Fruitcake of Joy. While there are problems with each, I can dismiss
many of them because I recognize the restraints the filmmakers were under at
the time.
Face by Mukhya Khalsa
Wow, one of the first films in JUMP that I thought was almost too short. I want
to know more! Good voiceover, decent visuals, and a topic that’s so strange,
it’s instantly engaging.
Like Pat, I’d like to know if the project had some built-in requirements.
White or Wheat by Bad Larry Productions
I wish the old JUMP forums were still up. I’d love to point to a post
where BLP was (constructively) criticized for showing Yet Another Skiing Highlights
video. If I remember correctly, in response to pleas for “more story,”
someone in BLP responded that they were making highlight videos in order to
attract sponsors. And everyone knows that skiing/snowboarding/skating videos
are big on highlights, small on story. I mean, duh!
I remember thinking that BLP needed to “know their audience.” I
wanted to point out that a JUMP audience isn’t likely to be full of sponsors,
so the requests for “more story” were probably valid, but the BLP
poster seemed to be projecting a “get off my back” attitude, and
I didn’t want him to feel like we were ganging up on him.
With their two entries in this show, I think BLP is finding their audience.
Some people had problems with the close-up bread chewing (Were they trying
to be gross or convey the enjoyment of eating toast?) Some people didn’t
understand why one person would wake all his friends up for a midnight snack.
I, personally, thought the video could have been half as long, but White or
Wheat was still pretty funny.
I think everyone understood what they were shooting for. And though I like
seeing some great skiing and snowboarding aerials, I think this better suits
the JUMP audience.

bubba by Kenn Magowan
Wow, what are the odds of having two sad pet videos in the same show? I worried
about that when I read the program, but after seeing Bubba, I think this was
a very different story than Yozhik. I enjoyed it, even though the program description
gave away the ending.
I’m a little too close to the Yozhik video to do this objectively, but
I think it would be interesting to compare the setups of the two “dead
pet movies’” (as Greg put it) to their respective emotional payoffs
at the end.
Catching Bears by Riley Woodford & Kent Crabtree
This was probably my favorite film of the show. It was a nice little documentary
that tells a succinct story. As Greg mentions, the focus could probably be tightened
just a bit, but I honestly didn’t think that after my first (and only)
viewing.
My only reaction was: Holy shit, that man’s got balls of steel!
I mean, seriously. That scene where the bear tries to lunge toward the guy
with the tranq gun really sticks with you. Especially since you’ve already
learned that the dart takes about 30 minutes to put the bear under. Talk about
faith in your equipment.
Frank Murkowski: A Tribute by Pat Race
Pat offered to show me this film as a work-in-progress a few days before the
first JUMP showing. I made him stop after watching a few seconds – I wanted
my first viewing to be with an audience. And then, since I went to the very
last show on Saturday, I heard all sorts of great reviews about it.
It pains me to say that I think it was over-hyped. I don’t know what
I was expecting, but I wanted something more. For instance, I think the Rawhide
video, from years back, was more memorable.
There’s some good stuff here, though. I loved the awkward footage of
Murkowski dancing with the natives and standing next to Ms. Fur Bikini. Plus
the interspersed “exit interview” footage was a nice touch –
I can’t help but wonder where Pat got these recordings! Even the headlines
had their place (though I’ll bet most people in JUMP’s audience
didn’t need them.)
When the song’s first chorus hit, it had a great impact as a joke, but
I think that was it – a one-trick pony. Also, using the exit interview
footage created conflicting feelings. I couldn’t quite tell if the filmmaker
wanted the audience to join him in mocking our former governor or in feeling
sad for him.