COMPETITION RULES

These are the competition rules for the Cyberpunk Now Film Festival. 

These rules may be amended prior to the start of the competition at the discretion of the organizers. 

Any dispute with regards to the rules, conditions, judging, or awards of the competition will be settled at the sole discretion of the Festival Organizers.

If you have a question about the rules, please join the Rules channel on the festival Discord server to communicate with festival organizers.

ELIGIBILITY

The competition is open to any person anywhere in the world, except where their participation is prohibited by law.

In order to be eligible to win prizes, entrants must abide by all competition rules and challenge requirements.

Employees, major shareholders, and their immediate family members of Cyberpunk, Inc., 2600 Enterprises, and any other Sponsors of the competition are not eligible to participate in the competition. 

To submit a project for consideration by the judges, participants must pay a submission fee when uploading their project unless they have applied for an exemption as a ticket holder of the Hackers On Planet Earth 2020 conference (see the Submission Fee section below for HOPE exemption fee application instructions).

Any required documents or submission form responses submitted by participants must be in English.

START TIME

Contestants may begin producing their projects for submission only after the Required Challenge Elements are published. Required Challenge Elements will be published at approximately 12 NOON EDT on July 25th, 2020 on the festival website.

PRODUCTION TIME

Participants will have approximately 135 hours from the time the Required Challenge Elements are published on the festival website during which they may plan, produce, and edit their project, which must be submitted before the deadline.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE

Teams must have their videos uploaded to the FilmFreeway submission portal and submitted to the competition no later than 11:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time on July 30th, 2020, in order to qualify for consideration in the competition. 

Teams must also have all the required release forms completed and submitted prior to the deadline.

If widespread technical difficulties with the submission portal are reported, the submission deadline may be extended at the sole discretion of Festival Organizers.

SUBMISSION FORMAT

Projects should be uploaded in either 720p or 1080p resolution with h.264 codec as MPEG4 files (MPEG wrapper, not Quicktime) via the FilmFreeway submission portal at https://filmfreeway.com/CyberpunkNow. The file should really not be larger than 1GB.

Entrants must upload their videos directly to FilmFreeway. Linking to videos uploaded to Vimeo or YouTube, although optional for other festivals in the FilmFreeway system, will not be considered a valid submission for the Cyberpunk Now competition. Viable entry videos must be uploaded directly to FilmFreeway.

After your submission has been uploaded, you should receive a request from Festival Organizers to download the video through the FilmFreeway system, which will allow Festival Organizers to upload it to YouTube to be screened publicly with the other submissions during the Screening Period (see details below under Screening). The download requests are triggered manually by organizers, so there will be a delay between your submission and the arrival of the download request.

SUBMISSION FEE

The basic submission fee is $75 US per category, payable through the submission platform.

There is a reduced $35 rate for student projects and projects with two or fewer team members on the production side. For either case, select the Student option when submitting. This means on non-student submissions if the discount is requested, only two individuals may be credited as producer, director, camera operator, editor, visual effects artist, etc. This does not include actors or voice actors, whose numbers may be unlimited. If you have only one or two persons performing all production roles, you may select the student rate for your submission.

Each category requires a separate submission fee. (For example, if you wish to submit to both the Animation and Comedy categories, the fees would be $75 + $75, therefore $150 in total.)

The submission fee is waived in the first category for participants who have paid for Hackers On Planet Earth 2020 tickets, but they must request this waiver through the Discount Claim Form by midnight EST on July 27th in order to receive the fee waiver, as festival organizers must coordinate with HOPE organizers to confirm eligibility.

Paying ticket holders or fee exempt speakers at the Hackers On Planet Earth 2020 conference who would like to have the submission fee waived for their first entry must fill out the Discount Claim Form identifying for Festival Organizers the same email address which was used to register for their HOPE 2020 ticket. The form must be submitted by July 27th at midnight EDT to receive the discount code for the submission portal. This will allow Cyberpunk Now festival organizers sufficient time to coordinate with HOPE 2020 organizers to confirm that a HOPE 2020 ticket was indeed purchased by or granted to the entrant and to issue a discount code for the Cyberpunk Now submission portal to that same email address well in advance of the project submission deadline.

TEAMS

Participants will self-select their teams. All participants are encouraged to join the Team Recruiting channel on the festival’s Discord server to connect with other participants and form teams prior to the competition’s official start time.

There is no minimum or maximum team size. You can be one woman with a movie camera or an army making an animation.

Participants may contribute to more than one team, but should inform their team Coordinators that they are working on multiple projects.

ELECT A TEAM COORDINATOR

Each team must designate a Coordinator.

The Coordinator is the team’s primary point of contact with Festival Organizers for submission, prizes, and other requirements. 

When communicating with the teams outside of the Discord server, the Festival Organizers will contact the team Coordinators.

The Coordinator is generally the person who will be responsible for uploading the team’s project to the submission portal.

JUDGING

Judges will review submissions between July 30th and August 1st.

Projects will be evaluated with a primary basis in the power of their storytelling, inherent empathy for the cyberpunk genre and hacker culture, and artistic and intellectual merit relating to the categories into which they have been submitted. 

For example, humor will be key to winning in the comedy category, but credit may be deducted in judging for projects which have no relation to the cyberpunk genre or demonstrate a weak narrative style. Jokes about technology and societies that have gone awry are nothing without a well-told story around them.

Additional credit may be awarded in judging for projects which demonstrate exceptional creativity and originality.

Additional credit may be awarded in judging for projects which demonstrate exceptional presentation style in the form of cinematography, lighting, editing, effects, costumes, hair, makeup, and sound design. 

Additional credit may be awarded in judging for projects which feature exemplary performances by an actor or ensemble.

Additional credit may be awarded in judging for projects which illustrate realistic hacking. For the purposes of this credential, “hacking” is defined as the successful repurposing of a technology or system beyond the intent for which it was originally designed, built, or manufactured.

Additional credit may be awarded in judging for projects which expand and advance the cyberpunk genre.

SCREENING

All viable submissions will be posted online for public viewing during the Screening Period by Cyberpunk Now and remain online through the end of August as a group.

The Screening Period begins when the first submission is uploaded and ends on the last day of August 2020. 

Participants may not post or publicly screen their own projects separately prior to the end of the Screening Period, or allow others to post or screen them during this period without express written consent from Festival Organizers, it is an exclusive screening period for this festival. 

Participants may embed the videos posted by the festival on their public web pages during the Screening Period.

At the end of the Screening Period, the participants regain their full rights to post their projects on any platform or screen them in any venue they may choose.

At the end of the Screening Period, entrants may choose to leave their submissions published by Cyberpunk Now in place on the Cyberpunk Now YouTube channel. The choice to allow Cyberpunk Now to continue hosting the projects in its channel after the Screening Period is voluntary and entrants may opt-out at any time in the future.

Cyberpunk Now will retain the right, in perpetuity, to include up to 90-seconds excerpted from any submitted project in marketing materials promoting future Cyberpunk Now events and projects.

WINNERS AND AWARDS

To win a Challenge Category, a submission must be scored higher by the judges for that specific category than other projects in its category. 

In the event of a first pass tie in Challenge Category judging, the Challenge-specific judges will re-screen the tied submissions and vote for one winner each. If there is an even number of judges for that category and an even number of tied projects, to avoid a second tie, Festival Organizers will assign an additional judge to the category prior to the rescreening vote.

Challenge Winners and other special prizes will be announced on the morning of Sunday, August 2nd, 2020, in a special live stream presentation of the winning projects. 

To win the Grand Prize, a submission that has won in a Challenge Category must then be scored higher by all participating judges of all categories than any project from any category.

In the event of a first pass tie in Grand Prize judging, all participating judges will re-screen the tied submissions and vote for one winner each. If there is an even number of judges, to avoid a second tie for Grand Prize, an additional judge with domain expertise will be asked to participate in the final vote.

The Grand Prize-winning project, selected by the judges as an overall winner from all the challenge winning projects, and a separate award for “Most Cyberpunk,” will be announced separately from the Challenge Category winners screening, during the Closing Ceremonies of the Hackers on Planet Earth 2020 Conference later in the day.

Prizes will be distributed through communication with the Team Coordinators for the winning teams. Sponsors who have pledged prizes will most likely ship or transfer them directly to the winners.

Winners should not contact Sponsors directly unless they are told to do so by Festival Organizers.

Winners will be listed at cyberpunkfestival.com.

Winners will receive permission to display a special Cyberpunk Now Film Festival Award Winner graphic on their websites and in other self-promotion contexts. Branding guidelines for how the graphic may be displayed will be provided.

If during the term of the Competition or Screening Period an Entrant or individual participant shall be charged with the commission of any act which is an offense involving moral turpitude under federal, state or local laws, or should such Entrant, or individual participant, commit any act which would reasonably and objectively bring the Competition into disrepute, contempt, scandal or ridicule, at any time, then the Competition shall, at its sole discretion, be entitled to delete credit and/or billing required to be given to the Entrant, or individual participant. In such cases, entry fees are non-refundable.

CHALLENGE CATEGORIES

There are six Challenge Categories which will each have a different set of Required Challenge Elements. 

Each Challenge Category also has specific submission requirements. 

In order to qualify for awards and prizes in the competition, submissions must meet all applicable requirements and comply with all relevant competition rules and policies.

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THE CHALLENGE CATEGORIES ARE:

Animation

Comedy

Drama

Educational

Experimental

Found Footage

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A project may be submitted to more than one category for judging, but a separate submission fee must be paid for each category, and it must meet the specific requirements of any category into which it is entered for consideration by the judges.

If you are submitting for free because you have purchased a ticket to Hackers on Planet Earth 2020, your first submission is free, but if you wish to submit to more than one category, submitting your project in additional categories will require a submission fee for each additional category after the first.

SUBMISSION LENGTH REQUIREMENTS

Total Running Time minimums and maximums vary by category.

Total Running Time for all projects must include all credits, title cards, and the required 12-second Official Festival Slate segment.

For projects submitted in the Animation category, the minimum Total Running Time is 1 minute and the maximum Total Running Time is 5 minutes. 

For projects submitted in the Comedy and Drama categories, the minimum Total Running Time is 3 minutes and the maximum Total Running Time is 15 minutes. 

For projects submitted in the Educational and Found Footage categories, the minimum Total Running Time is 3 minutes and the maximum Total Running Time is 7 minutes.

For projects submitted in the Experimental category, the minimum Total Running Time is 1 minute and the maximum Total Running Time is 7 minutes.

In the interest of preserving audience sanity, the slates, title cards, and credits may not exceed 45 seconds for any project which runs at 3 minutes or under Total Running Time, may not exceed 60 seconds for any project under 5 minutes in Total Running Time, and may not exceed 120 seconds for any project with up to 15 minutes in Total Running Time.

REQUIRED CHALLENGE ELEMENTS

At the start of the competition at approximately 12 noon on July 25th, 2020, a set of Required Challenge Elements will be published on the festival website.

The Required Challenge Elements are meant to create a semblance of a level playing field for participants by limiting the time during which all teams are able to produce and finish their projects. This establishes a baseline for the competition, limiting the effect of many of the technological or professional advantages to which some of the participants may have access.

Required Elements may include things along the lines of a character who must be mentioned by name, a specific type of generic prop which must be held by a character for a certain number of seconds on screen, a line of dialogue, an overt reference to a specific historical event, or other such curveballs which are designed to make it extremely difficult if not impossible to begin production of a submission prior to their publication at the start of the competition.

Displaying a Required Challenge Element in the credits of a submitted project will not count sufficiently as using it in the project to fulfill the requirement.

ALLOWED PREPARATION

All recording and editing for submissions must take place during the competition’s valid production period, which is the period after the release of the Required Challenge Elements and before the Submissions Deadline. Some exemptions are detailed below. Other exemptions may be made at the sole discretion of the Festival Organizers.

COORDINATION

Prior to the start of the competition, entrants are encouraged to brainstorm story ideas, assemble and organize their production teams, find actors, connect with musicians, secure necessary equipment, and scout and secure potential locations

Any pre-production preparations should be made with the understanding that any plans entrants make prior to the start of the competition may need to be changed to comply with the Required Challenge Elements.

All cast and crew must be volunteers. Hiring talent to work on submissions is a clear violation of the rules and doing so will result in projects being classified as invalid for judging or awards.

PRE-RECORDED FOOTAGE

The sole exemption to the valid production period rule for when content may be recorded applies to Public Domain footage acquired from The Internet Archive. Use of Public Domain footage must be disclosed in a log, as detailed in the Category-Specific Requirements for the Found Footage challenge category.

ILLUSTRATIONS

You may use still drawings and illustrations created before the start of the competition, but you may not use previously created image sequences or animations. Image sequences must be generated during the valid production period.

SPECIAL EFFECTS

All effects work including the compositing or rendering of effects must take place during the valid production period.

Pre-recorded visual or audio effects elements from effects libraries, such as stock explosions or telephone sounds, may be used in submitted projects, but the compositing of these effects may not take place before the start of the competition. No stock elements may be in any way modified prior to the start of the competition. 

Entrants must have a valid license to use any non-public domain stock library elements they use in their submissions. Any elements from stock libraries used in the production of a project, whether those libraries or elements are licensed or public domain, must be clearly disclosed in the project’s credits.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographic still images taken prior to the start of the competition may be used in a submission provided that they are only seen in the background of compositions or are only briefly in the foreground of a composition. Briefly is defined as less than twelve (12) seconds per image and entrants may use no more than six (6) such pre-produced featured foreground still images in a submission. 

Entrants must have a valid license to use any non-public domain stock images they use in their submissions. Any images from stock libraries used in the production of a project, whether those libraries or elements are licensed or public domain, must be clearly disclosed in the project’s credits.

PRE-RECORDED MUSIC

Pre-recorded music can be used in the soundtracks of submissions, provided that appropriate licenses to use the music in an Internet video have been obtained. 

Music from a stock library can be used if there is an unlimited license to use the music in an Internet video. 

Public Domain music can be used without limitation. 

Any music published with a Creative Commons Attribution license may be used. The Creative Commons Sharealike and Creative Commons Non-Commercial licenses are not sufficient for use in the competition.

If you are working directly with a musician who has created original music but not made it publicly available as Public Domain or through a Creative Commons Attribution license, you may use their work, but you must have them sign a release form for the festival [examples]. This is also true if they are composing custom music for your submission.

Any music used in a project must be listed clearly in the credits.

DON’T MAKE SOMEONE ELSE’S STORY

While you are free to be inspired by previously published works, basing your submission’s story directly on the pre-existing intellectual property of others is not allowed. 

Prohibited use of preexisting intellectual property may include, for example, closely copying the plot of a published story or creating fan fiction about a character from a motion picture. 

You should be telling an original story with original characters, not relying on the intellectual property of others. There are many writers in the community who will be happy to collaborate if this is not where you feel your strengths lie.

Allowances may be made for satire and other instances of fair use. Contact the Festival Organizers in the Rules channel of the festival Discord server if you need a specific clarification in this area.

Participants agree to indemnify the festival for any damages arising from the participants’ misuse of intellectual property.

PAPERWORK

Entrants are advised to get a head start on the competition’s required paperwork, including securing talent releases from actors, location releases from property owners, filming permits from local governments, music releases from artists and producers, and so on.

Participants should upload the signed forms to the Files & Attachments section of their project page in the FilmFreeway submission portal.

CATEGORY-SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS

In addition to the Required Challenge Elements, the following special requirements apply to their respective submission categories.

ANIMATION

At this time the Animation category does not have any special requirements outside of its Total Running Time limits listed under Submission Length Requirements.

Required Challenge Elements for this category will be released at the beginning of the competition.

After rules compliance, Animation project judging emphasis will be weighted toward demonstration of the skillful command of illusion to inform, inspire, or entertain.

COMEDY

At this time the Comedy category does not have any special requirements outside of its Total Running Time limits listed under Submission Length Requirements. 

Required Challenge Elements for this category will be released at the beginning of the competition.

After rules compliance, Comedy project judging emphasis will be weighted toward their humor.

DRAMA

At this time the Drama category does not have any special requirements outside of its Total Running Time limits listed under Submission Length Requirements. 

Required Challenge Elements for this category will be released at the beginning of the competition.

After rules compliance, Drama project judging emphasis will be weighted toward their ability to resonate with the viewer on an emotional level.

EDUCATIONAL

Entrants submitting a project in the Educational challenge category must include a Statement of Purpose and Intent. The Statement of Purpose and Intent document should be a short essay of between 300 and 900 words. The Statement should summarize the project’s content, define the need for education in the area where the project focuses, and identify a target audience for the project.

Educational projects must conform to the Total Running Time limits listed under Submission Length Requirements. 

Required Challenge Elements for this category will be released at the beginning of the competition.

After rules compliance, Educational project judging emphasis will be weighted toward the merits of their educational content.

EXPERIMENTAL

At this time the Experimental category does not have any special requirements outside of its Total Running Time limits listed under Submission Length Requirements.

Required Challenge Elements for this category will be released at the beginning of the competition.

After rules compliance, the Experimental projects judging emphasis will be weighted toward originality and ingenuity.

FOUND FOOTAGE

The Found Footage category is primarily an editing challenge.

Projects submitted to the Found Footage category may only include public domain footage from The Internet Archive (Archive.org).

Found Footage project submissions must be accompanied by a plain text log file with time code references and links to the archive.org Details pages for all clips used in the project. 

If public domain audio clips are used, those used must also be noted in the log.

Example Footage Log

Participants should upload the required found footage logs to the Files & Attachments section of their project page in the FilmFreeway submission portal.

See also the Total Running Time limits listed under Submission Length Requirements. Additionally, the Required Challenge Elements for this category will be released at the beginning of the competition.

After rules compliance, the Found Footage projects judging emphasis will be weighted toward demonstrated creative and effective reuse of public domain content resources to complete the challenge.

SLATES AND CREDITS

All submissions must begin with the display of an Official Festival Slate sequence. 

The official festival slate sequence must appear at the beginning of all submissions. It must include 5 seconds of black followed by 7 seconds of the Cyberpunk Now Film Festival official slate graphic. The Official Slate Graphic should fill the screen and display the project title and team member names in the respective fields of the slate in a clear sans-serif font (such as Arial or Helvetica) with #f0f0f0 light grey text, cutting to an additional 3 seconds of black following the slate graphic, totaling 15 seconds of Official Slate sequence time at the beginning of the film. 

No special graphics, effects, or transitions may be applied to the official slate, it must be displayed plainly and clearly. 

The 15 seconds of the Official Slate count toward the Total Running Time of any submitted project and should be included and accounted for when calculating project length for submissions.

Opening credits are not required.

End credits are required and should list, in clearly legible type, all participants who worked on the project and any sources of additional material used, such as music or stock effects.

PRODUCTION COSTS AND LIABILITY

All production costs and legal liabilities associated with the production of festival submissions are solely the responsibility of the entrants. 

Festival Organizers are not responsible for the health and safety of participants, and any injuries sustained or diseases contracted while preparing a contest submission are the sole responsibility of the participants themselves. Festival Organizers assume no liability or responsibility in the event of accidental harm to or death befallen the participants.

Cyberpunk Now Festival Organizers encourage entrants to be creative with the resources they have, while putting safety first in their production activities. 

If any activities a participant has planned for the production of their submission carry any amount of unusual risk, participants are urged to secure some form of insurance and take all possible safety measures. 

Festival Organizers accept no responsibility for providing any insurance coverage for participants, and cannot be held responsible for damages, injuries, losses, or any other liabilities incurred in the independent media production activities of contest participants.

No liability or responsibility is assumed by Festival Organizers or their partners if a participant is unable to access the website, Discord server, or submission portal due to any form of technical difficulties.

By participating in the event, participants agree to hold Festival Organizers harmless from any and all claims, damages, or liabilities relating to their involvement in the event. Participants entering the competition are doing so at their own risk. The festival is not responsible for injuries, or exposure to illness, during the creation of content for this festival. 

CONTENT LIMITATIONS

Because submissions will be posted for screening using YouTube, all submissions should reasonably conform to YouTube’s posted Community Guidelines (https://www.youtube.com/about/policies/#community-guidelines).

YouTube’s Community Guidelines cover a wide range of issues including pornography, harmful or dangerous content, hateful content, gratuitously violent content, graphic shock content, copyright violations, privacy violations, and more. 

Entrants must comply with the YouTube Community Guidelines to the best of their ability when submitting a project for consideration in the competition.

Essentially, don’t submit a project for this competition that YouTube will not allow on their platform.

SPORTSMANSHIP

Participants are expected to conduct themselves with integrity and fair conduct throughout the competition. 

Show courtesy respect to others involved in the festival at all times. Unwarranted discrimination against or harassment of fellow participants, team members, festival staff, volunteers, mentors, judges, sponsors, or observers will not be tolerated.

The Discord server exists to promote collaboration. Be kind with your words and actions and do not disturb others who are working.

Respect festival and submission portal systems and do not attempt to overwhelm them or gain access to private areas of the festival websites. Tampering with festival systems may result in not only disqualification but also legal action.

DISQUALIFICATION

Any submission may be deemed inappropriate or in violation of competition rules at the sole discretion of Festival Organizers. 

Any project submitted without proper talent and intellectual property release forms may be disqualified from the competition at the discretion of Festival Organizers. Participants should upload the signed forms to the Files & Attachments section of their project page in the FilmFreeway submission portal.

Interfering with the production or submission of another team’s project is strictly prohibited and may result in disqualification at the discretion of Festival Organizers.

Participants who undertake actions or behaviors which may cause reputation damage to the event or its organizers or sponsors may be disqualified during the event or even stripped of titles and banned from further participation after the event has concluded at the discretion of Festival Organizers.

PARTICIPATION THRESHOLDS

A critical mass of ten (10) viable entries must be received for judging to take place and prizes to be awarded.

If an insufficient number of entries are received by the submission deadline, judging may be canceled or prize levels may be reduced at the discretion of festival organizers. In the event of such a decision being made, all competition entry fees will be refunded to the participants.

If any given Challenge Category receives fewer than five (5) submissions, that category’s submissions may be combined with the submissions of one or more other Challenge Categories for judging and awards at the discretion of the Festival Organizers.

FESTIVAL ORGANIZERS

Festival Organizers are Cyberpunk Inc. and its designated partners.