Students

2025 Student Challenge Rules

January 12, 2024

Overarching Rules

• All films must be no longer than three (3) minutes, including credits. If a film is longer than three minutes (even by one frame), it will be disqualified from winning Best Film, Best Editing and Best Sound Design.

• All creative material (script, foley, soundtrack, etc.) must be created by the production team (hereafter, PT) during the challenge's allotted time as per the IB Film Guide guidelines for the Collaborative Film Project assessment.

• PTs may include up to five members and the following roles: Director, Cinematographer, Sound Designer, Screenwriter, and Editor.

• PTs are allowed 20 minutes of Q&A with their teacher. No additional production support by a teacher or chaperone may be provided during the challenge. 

• Teachers and chaperones are allowed to act in MINOR supporting roles, as long as they follow the direction of the PT and do not provide input on their role, the script, or production.

• The time allotted for the challenge is from 8:30am on Thursday, January 23 to 8:00pm on Friday, January 24, 2025. Any films submitted after the 8pm deadline will be disqualified.

• Films must abide by the IB Film Guide rules of conduct (May 2023), taking into particular consideration the film’s target audience and environment. No cursing will be tolerated, resulting in the disqualification and the film not being shown Saturday. 

• Students must follow their school’s code of conduct throughout the Clash of the Titans film festival. Safety is the primary driver of all decisions. Should a teacher or chaperone determine a student is at risk, the authority of that teacher or chaperone supersedes the film production. Failure to adhere to teacher instructions may result in immediate disqualification.

• Any questions or decisions that arise and are not addressed on this page will be determined by the IB film teachers participating in the event; all decisions are final.

Props

• A common prop, will be assigned to all PTs and must be an integral part of the film’s plot. Any film in which the prop is not integral to the plot (as determined in agreement by all IB Film teachers) will not be considered for the Best Film award.

• Process for securing wardrobe and additional props:

  • On Thursday, January 23, a designated checkout window will be from 12:30 PM to 2:30 PM. 

  • Only two members from each PT will come to the props and costumes room with the provided Costumes & Props form filled in; they will sign the checkout form.

  • Each team will receive a specific container (box or bag) for their items.

  • On Friday, January 24, by 7:00 PM, all teams must return the same container with the props and the list to room 5004. 

  • During this return process, the same adult who supervised the checkout will verify the items and stamp the checklist.

  • If a team fails to return props or costumes on time, their film will be disqualified from the Best Film category.

Genres

1. Genres will be drawn by each PT on Wednesday, January 22.

2. The final film submitted by the PT must show genre tropes of either (or both) genres chosen.

3. Available genres will be placed in two buckets—each bucket containing all of the available genres.

4. Taking turns, each PT will draw a genre at random from each bucket (two genres in total per PT).

5. After a genre is drawn, it is returned to its bucket, allowing each PT to have an equal opportunity to draw any of the available genres. This means several teams might be working with the same genre(s).

6. The available genres are:

   1. 1. Action/Adventure

      2. Comedy

      3. Sci-Fi

      4. Drama

      5. Horror

      6. Romance

      7. Thriller/Suspense

      8. Coming of Age

      9. Crime

      10. Fish Out of Water

Locations

• Films must be shot within the secure confines of ASP’s campus or at the PT’s designated, licensed filming location in Paris. Shooting outside of these two locations will result in disqualification.

• Paris locations will be randomly drawn by each PT on Wednesday, January 22.

• Filming on campus may begin no earlier than 8:30am on Thursday, January 23. The final schedule will be issued in January and reviewed during the genre draw; all PTs must adhere to start and end times for each day of the competition, or they will be disqualified.

• Teams will have approximately four hours at their location on Friday, January 24.

• It is acceptable for the PT to move around in a radius of five (5) meters from the address specified in the permit at their own risk, as long as they do not interfere with another PT's location. Interference in another PT's location/shoot or movement beyond the radius is cause for immediate disqualification. Paris location licenses are strict: For example, PTs may not shoot inside Metro stations or parks. You may not enter buildings.

• Permits from the City of Paris are a courtesy to ASP and are governed by additional rules: While on location, you may not film violent scenes or use weapons or police costumes.

• Members of the PT must always remain in the line of sight of their chaperones, except for approved bathroom breaks. Should members of the PT leave their licensed location without permission from their chaperone, the PT will be disqualified. Costumes are to be worn on the bus or changed into once on location; members of the PT may not leave their designated location to change clothes.

•  PTs are responsible for all film equipment and personal belongings. At no time are chaperones or teachers to be tasked with minding these items.

Actors

• An actors’ casting order drawing will take place on Wednesday, January 22, during a ceremony in the Performing Arts Center at ASP. Each PT will draw a number from a bucket, designating their place in the casting order. The PT that draws the number “1” will have their first to cast their actor. The PT that draws “2” will be the second, and so on.

• Audition videos of actors from the ASP theater program will be made available via a secure online site to all schools in advance of the film festival. It is strongly encouraged that each PT ranks the order of preference for each actor who has auditioned in case your first choices are unavailable by the time it is your PT’s turn in the draft.

• On the day of casting, an event Organizer will visit each of the PTs in order of the drawing. PTs will then provide their ranked order of actors to the Organizer. If a team's first choice is unavailable, the Organizer will go to the next name on the PT's list. At no time will the event organizers inform the PTs which actors have not yet been chosen. This is designed to ensure students are not aware of which actors were chosen in which order. 

• Each PT’s drafted actor must be the protagonist of the film. The film can feature other actors in minor roles, but the film will be disqualified if the protagonist is not the PT’s drafted actor. (Minor actors can be PT members.) 

• Pre-Production and Production

• On Thursday, January 23, each PT will have a room allocated to them for the duration of the challenge.

• On Thursday, January 23, all teams must leave campus at 20:00. Any PTs working past this stop time will be eliminated from consideration for Best Film.

• Members of a PT are not to disrupt or enter another team’s production room.

• Production rooms are provided for collaboration purposes. Working after hours is forbidden, given the long and busy competition schedule.
  
  
  
  
  
  

Final Film File Format

• Each film must start with 5 seconds of black slate with the following information:

TEAM NAME

FILM TITLE

ROLES + PRODUCTION TEAM (first names only)

GENRE(S)

LOCATION

LEAD ACTOR (first name only)

• These five seconds do not count against the overall three minutes of the film length.

• The final film must be in a playable format (.MOV, .AVI).

Awards & Prizes

• The winners will be chosen by a jury of participating IB film teachers.

• All judging decisions are final. If questions or circumstances not addressed by these rules arise during the creation, submission, evaluation, or judging of the films, the film teachers participating in the film festival will make a final determination.

• Trophies will be given for the following categories:

  • 1. • Best Film

       • Best Directing

       • Best Screenplay

       • Best Cinematography

       • Best Editing

       • Best Sound Design

       • Best Actor

       • Best Use of Prop

       • People’s Choice–non-ASP films only

       • People's Choice--ASP

       • Laura Schupack Award, voted on by IB film program alumni

  • Our generous sponsor, Blackmagicdesign has provided additional prizes:

    1. • The school that wins Best Film will receive a Blackmagicdesign Pocket Cinema Camera 4K, valued at 995€

       • Best Director, Screenwriter, Cinematographer, Sound Designer, and Editor will receive DaVinci Resolve Studio, valued at 295€

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