Introduction: I’m going to open discussion of some of the proposed WSFS rules changes in the Chengdu Worldcon’s Business Meeting agenda by setting the table in a series of topical posts. (Download the English-language version here and the Chinese-language version here.)
Yang Feng and Xia Tong want to add two independent film Hugo Awards categories, one for short form and another for long form:
It’s probably safe to assume that a “film” is the subset of dramatic presentations that is a visual recording and involves motion. In other words a motion picture. Do “science fiction or fantasy productions” encompass both fictional and documentary works? That seems likely, though it’s not said explicitly.
Whether Hugo Administrators can be expected to recognize the output of a “major” studio, streamer, etc. seems a good question since this is a worldwide award. Or they may simply pass through whatever the voters get behind, as has been known to happen in other categories.
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This doesn’t seem feasible. With global distribution for most of the candidates in 2022, it only took 67 nominations to make the dramatic presentation long form finalist list, and only 25 nominations for the dramatic presentation short form list. Given how independent films tend to be released, there are going to be relatively few of these seen by any notable percentage of the nominators and voters. If the cast and crew can be signed up to vote for their own movie, they likely can carry a nomination on their own regardless of the quality.
Come voting time unless free access is being granted by the producers, most voters won’t have seen these and likely in some cases won’t have legitimate ways to see all of these finalists.
Most voters are not going to know who funded any particular film and the award rulings could easily be an unnecessary drama fest on their own. Funding sources are likely to be either unverifiable or overly intrusive to prove out the case.
By these standards, many potential independent fan films/shows like Star Trek Continues would be ineligible.
If we’re going to cut out the list that can’t fund these, then we should be cutting government and quasi-goverment sources of funding as well such as BFI and TeleCanada to keep it fair.
Why are films between 45 and 61 minutes long excluded from consideration?
To see if we’re paying attention?
The wording is interesting and may have unintended consequences. I don’t think it will work the way they want. After all, what counts as a major in regards to funding? The film industry has its own idea of what is an independent film. ‘Moon’ which won the Hugo in 2010 is a good example of an just such an indie. As is Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” which won the Academy Award and was a Hugo finalist in 2018 . An indie can get a major distribution deal after the film is completed, so the funding of the film would not necessarily be from a ‘major’ studio or ‘major’ distributor even though it’s being distributed by one. There have been plenty of finalists in the past few years which are technically independent films.
And it feels discriminatory to me. A bit like they’re saying the two films above and the Short Form finalist “The Deep” are somehow less worthy than a major studio effort. This amendment would put them in the minor leagues, so to speak, and prevent them from competing in the major leagues which comes with a higher status.
If this is supposed to help fan made films get Hugos, I don’t think it works as worded. Fan made films would just get pushed out of this category by successful indies like the ones I mentioned above.
In addition to the issues others have mentioned, I’m not sure this would be as much of a boost to indy filmmakers as its proposers seem to suggest. I don’t think the Hugos are even a blip in the film industry! I’ve never seen a movie or show promoted as “Hugo winning”.
Films at 11.
While I applaud all efforts, however fruitless, to get every conceivable subset of SFF works its own Hugo, I can’t see a good way to globally define an “independent” film either.
However, now that we’re all directors with final cut, it would be good to have a simple new category inspired by historical tradition, like Best Fan Film. I’d prefer it defined as a nonprofessional audiovisual work of SFF presented at no cost… or am I too much of a purist:
Don’t dismiss this out of hand, send it to committee.
Let’s see if we can expand the Hugos to have dozens of categories, and better yet, bankrupt the committees wit the expense of having to produce lots of Hugo statuettes. Not to mention those 5-hour long Hugo ceremonies (with no bathroom breaks!).
Star Wars: A New Hope started out as an independent film. I would vote against starting this category. Maybe a category for amateur films.
@Andrew Porter
If we get enough categories, we can drop those gaudy statues and print up some dignified certificates on the convention chairman’s 8-year old inkjet printer.
Bill: Or if that’s not old enough I still have a 1990s Epson laser printer that hasn’t quit yet.
I could probably source an 80s daisy-wheel printer if need be.
Shaun Tan made it into BDP Short all on his own. And define “independent”.
Best Fan Film might be do-able since we all have streaming now (although some countries would block some topics — I can’t see LGBT topics allowed in Saudi Arabia, or Indonesia). But it would still need several years of workshopping.
There are way too many ill-thought out proposals that will do the opposite of what they say this year. And just too many in general. I hope the business meeting participants come prepared with a lot of extra pillows for their backsides.
@Lurkertype: I just hope this year’s business meeting does its job and kills all the poorly-thought-out proposals, or at minimum, either amends them into something at least workable or refers them to committee to report back next year. I do not want to be wasting a bunch of time in Glasgow voting down obviously doomed business passed on.
(Just on a technical level, it’s striking that this doesn’t include any conforming changes to the existing Dramatic Presentation categories.)
@Goobergunch: Kill ’em all, let Ghu sort ’em out.
Are they all this badly-worded in Chinese as well? I genuinely have no idea, but someone must be able to tell us.
While I have some sympathy for the motives behind this motion (are all the superhero films that have been short-listed for Hugos the past decade really worth it given many independent offerings being far better), I concur with views expressed above that this is unworkable.
Further, given the (low) standard of most Worldcon film programme streams (Brighton 1987 and Melbourne 2010 were all too rare exceptions), I’m not sure how cinematically savvy are many Worldcon regulars?
@Goobergunch – Totally agree.
I’m all for this, and have found a bunch of data from Festivals and such that shows there’s enough material to make for a legitimate category. I watch about 3K shorts a year nowadays, and about 1/4 of them are SFF-type and pretty much all of those would qualify in this category.
It would be better to spin it off as a film competition under the Worldcon umbrella. I see Comic-Cons doing that.
Honestly, making another ‘Not-a-Hugo’ would be a solid idea.
I mean…the underlying concept is not bad. This particular implementation, however, is bad, and I’m not sure it’s salvageable in its present form.
I am also generally opposed to new categories which have not been given a trial run as one of the up-to-the-committee optional Hugo categories, especially if they lack a sunset clause requiring re-evaluation after a test period.
Should any of the proposed new Hugos make it to Glasgow without a sunset clause, I fully intend to file, in accordance with Standing Rule 5.4, amendments to add such clauses.
(I may not actually move the amendments because if it is clear that it is the will of the Business Meeting to rapidly kill the underlying proposals, I’m not going to slow that down.)