Back in the Day…

Back in the day…man, that makes us all sound so old. XD

Anyway, I want to talk a bit about some of the things that we used to do here at SimsFilmFest and maybe see if people want these things brought back. At the end of this post there is a quick poll on if we should bring back these aspects of the festival. Please let us know what you want to see. Thanks.

BATTLE OF THE BANDS – Battle of the Bands was an idea that came along to open SimsFilmFest up to those who don’t make machinima. It was a photography contest designed to exercise the creativity muscles. 

Contestants would create a band or performer and give them life. Requirements of the contest included designing tour posters, album art, magazine covers, and taking performance pictures. The contest took on a life of it’s own as many contestants started role playing their bands. Eventually we had magazines dedicated to each of the bands where we ran an interview and all of the promotional material that was put together. It was never required, but some people chose to put together music videos staring their band that would be entered in SimsFilmFest.

The downside of Battle of the Bands was there were complaints that it took on a life of it’s own and got more attention than that machinimas. If brought back, this would take place at a different time than the machinima festival where there is no competition for attention between the two events.

THE EXPOSER – The Exposer was a short lived tabloid magazine focusing on SimsFilmFest, that wasn’t supposed to be taken seriously. This particular issue had our own Gus Rockman locking rugby stars in his basement for interrogation in an attempt to find out who was behind The Exposer. Obviously, this was one of Gus’ favourite ideas – the satirical tabloid magazine not the rugby players (truth be told, I don’t know how he feels about rugby players) – and he would love for it to make a come back. 

Prior to the change of management at SimsFilmFest we tried to bring back this idea, but it didn’t go well. Those in charge of the idea weren’t all that committed to the idea and had trouble coming up with material. 

This is one of those things that I don’t think we got a lot of feedback on and it was short lived. The person behind it just kind of stopped doing it one day. We don’t know what happened to them. Maybe they ended up locked up in Gus’ basement…

FESTIVAL POSTERS – Festival posters used to be a big deal and they suddenly died out and we aren’t sure why. 

Originally we accepted submissions from the community. This was another way that we encouraged people who didn’t make machinima to participate in the festival. Anyone who wanted to had a chance to create a poster and submit it. They would be voted on by the community and the winner would be used to represent the festival for the season. We would make them into custom content that people could download for their games.

At some point, people just quit submitting posters and the staff started making them. The staff actually misses seeing what people come up with.

VENUE BUILDING – Building a SimsFilmFest venue was something that never really caught on, although a few people participated each season. Originally we wanted to do the same thing as the festival posters. We hoped that a lot of people would be interested in building a festival venue (or after party spot) and there would be voting for an “official venue or venues” each season. After all, there are a lot of talented builders out there. We never got enough submissions for venues so we showcased the venues we did get and encouraged people to use them.

DOWNLOADS/CUSTOM CONTENT – This was always a weird one, as we aren’t a custom content site. However, we did provide festival related things such as venues, SimsFilmFest gear for your sims to wear, and the festival and movie posters that were created each season. At one point we were even making in game festival awards for the festival winners.