20/10/2016
Making Movie & Audio Entries Easy
The Africa Architecture Awards 2017 is an online entry platform that displays all entries submitted on the website for public viewing and engagement in the format of film.
Based on feedback from the 2015 Awards, the transparency created through film submissions shared online, and the engagement that was stimulated with the audience, gave a clear indication that film is the most engaging and powerful means through which entrants can communicate their intentions and project outcomes.
Every project has enormous narrative behind it, with many practices collecting substantial digital assets in the process of a project’s timeline. Packaging these in a clear ‘beginning, middle, end’ script makes absolute sense, and encourages reflection on the process, challenges faced and overcome, as much as the end result.
Film offers a clear opportunity around sharing current best practices in marketing. It is an engaging and easily accessible medium for the creation of dialogue and, with available technologies extending to mobile devices, does not require a massive commitment of resources to achieve an appealing end result. Paired with social media, film therefore becomes a highly democratic form of market engagement.
Submitting your film.
Entries will only be accepted in the format of a film (except for audio files in the Critical Dialogue Category) and we encourage all entrants to explore the opportunity that digital brings to present architectural concepts in new and exciting ways using the tools outlined below.
There is a broad range of tools and methods to choose from to prepare entries for the awards. From a Quicktime movie exported from PowerPoint to drag and drop YouTube and Vimeo movie generators.
While the quality of presentation is important, please note that the Master Jury will be reviewing the architectural merits of each submission – not the cost or sophistication of the tool or movie used for submission.
All submissions may be no longer than 5 minutes in length but as short as you feel needed to put forward your work in the best possible way. Every submission requires its own short Project Synopsis of 50 words to be viewed along with your movie, as well as a written submission in the format of a PDF (max. 500 words).
All entries in 2017 will be displayed without the name of the entrant. These details will automatically display with every entry only once the shortlist winners have been announced in July 2017. This means that during the balance of 2017, every entrant will be showcased on the Awards website.
Please visit this page frequently as we will be updating it with new material and guides as and when they become available.
MOVIES
SLIDESHOWS PRESENTED AS MOVIES
PowerPoint, KeyNote and SlideShare (available on LinkedIn) allow you to prepare an overview of your project using traditional slides. Drawings, renderings and photographs can all be uploaded with commentary and titles into the presentation. Once you have completed your entry you can choose to export it as a movie and use that as your entry movie. Please note that PowerPoint, KeyNote and SlideShare presentations will not be accepted – only a slideshow exported as a movie is acceptable as an entry.
Click for a step by step guide from Microsoft on how to make movies from PowerPoint.
Click or an overview of how to make your PDF / Powerpoint into a Slide Share and to create the link to it for your entry.
YOUTUBE & VIMEO
Movies that have been uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo can be submitted as entries.To enter a YouTube or Vimeo movie, copy-and-paste the URL or link to the channel where your movie has been uploaded.
Entrants are encouraged to explore the tools available in YouTube and Vimeo for uploading drawings and images and to present the project overview as a movie with titles, soundtrack and a voiceover.
Click for a step by step guide of how to do this in You Tube and several other platforms.
FACEBOOK
Any movie that has been added to Facebook can be submitted as an entry. Simply copy-and-paste the URL link from the Facebook page into the entry form. Entrants are encouraged to explore Facebook's tools for creating movies from existing material. Slideshows with up to 7 images and titles can be submited as movie entries.