FAQs
Q: Is the festival only open to BYU students?
A: All registered team members must be BYU, BYU-Idaho, or BYU-Hawaii students. All actors and musicians are welcome to participate.
Q: What kind of prizes are there?
A: Please visit our prizes page for all information about prizes.
Q: How many people can I work with on my piece?
A: Film teams have no set limit of crew members or actors so long as every required role in the team registration is filled. One person can fulfill more than one of a team's required roles.
Q: Can I participate on more than one team?
A: No student may be registered as a producer, director, screenwriter, or composer on more than one team. However, students may participate as actors or musical performers for more than one team, even if they're registered in one of the four primary team roles on a different team.
Q: How are the prizes awarded?
A: We have assembled a panel of judges that will receive anonymous entries and rate them according to our judging rubrics. We will tally scores from all the judges and award prizes to the highest-scoring entry in each category. The Audience Choice Award will be awarded according to a set of voting procedures open to the public or a limited viewing audience. Teams will be informed about the live voting procedures after the festival's launch.
Q: What are the festival dates?
A: The festival will run for ten days and kick off with a launch event at 3:00 PM on January 26th. Entries will be due no later than 5:00 PM on February 5th. The live screening will take place at 7:00 PM on February 16th.
Q: How can I participate as an actor, musical performer, or if I'm looking for other crew members?
A: To encourage collaboration between contest teams and other acting or musical talent, we've created a talent registry here. After entering your information on that page, your contact information will be made available to team captains looking to fill roles or recruit actors for their team. The free agent directory can be found here.
Q: What if I don't have a team, but I still wish to participate?
A: Participants without a team may sign up on the talent registry database and list their skills. This database will be used by team captains hoping to fill out their cast and crew. Just before the launch event, the Copyright Licensing Office will review the remaining free agents and form teams from all individuals still interested in participating.
Q: How much of a public domain work am I allowed to use?
A: When a copyrighted work enters the public domain, it loses all copyright protection. You can do whatever you like with a public domain work, including copying it in its entirety. You can use as much of the public domain work as you would like in your entry, provided you keep your entry under the required time durations. Keep in mind, a large portion of your score will be determined by how you adapt the public domain works you selected at the launch event.
Q: Can I use sound clips or film I already own?
A: You may only submit video or audio that is recorded during the duration of the contest dates.
Q: Can I use third-party material in my work?
A: No. Your work must be made up of all original material or public domain material provided to you by the Copyright Licensing Office. Please beware, musical recordings of public compositions are not necessarily in the public domain, and including a third-party audio recording of one of the public domain compositions not provided to you by the Copyright Licensing Office is a violation of contest rules and, most likely, copyright law.
Q: What type of music can I use in my film?
A: Your team's music composer should adapt your assigned public domain musical work and record the score to your film entry.
Q: What is the public domain?
A: Creative works enjoy copyright protections assigned by law. The authors of those creative works enjoy different exclusive rights over how the work may be used. The public domain is a term for works that have lost all copyright protection. The public may use those creative works in any way they like without breaking copyright law.