Melbourne International Animation Festival 19-26 June 2011

2012 entry forms
and guidelines
(please read the guidelines)

international & Australian
submissions

Download pdf 348kb

submissions from schools
(individual student entrants, please use the entry form above)

Download pdf 332kb

deadline to ENTeR miaf 2012: 18 JANUaRY 2012

Please note... If you are going to enter the London International Animation Festival, you do not need to submit your film(s) to both festivals. When you enter MIAF, you will automatically be considered for LIAF.

The Melbourne International Animation Festival (MIAF) is one of the largest animation festivals of its kind in the world. It usually screens around 350-400 films each year in competitive, student, curated & retrospective programs. MIAF generates a smaller touring festival called the Australian International Animation Festival, is the submissions base for the UTS Sydney International Animation Festival and the London International Animation Festival, and also provides specific programming advice to the New Zealand Film Festival and the Brisbane International Film Festival. When you submit your film to MIAF, your film is automatically considered for each of these other festivals although these other events will send you separate and specific invitations if they wish to screen your film.

There is no fee to enter MIAF.

To be considered eligible for selection in MIAF12, your film should have been completed AFTER 1 January 2010.

The Festival Director reserves the right to grant exceptions to this criteria in exceptional circumstances.

Your film must arrive in a format that can be viewed by pre-selectors and the jury members.

Please supply a DVD (we prefer PAL / all regions) that can be played in a dvd player and viewed on a tv screen.

We cannot accept the following for pre-selection:
- internet downloads or files
- utube/website links
- computer files
- Quicktime files
- Flash files
- betacams
- digibetas
- miniDV
- film prints

DVDs are unreliable devices, so please test your copy thoroughly before submitting it. We will generally NOT contact entrants who provide an unplayable DVD, and the submission will be rejected. We suggest you provide two copies of your film, burnt from different computers in case one copy fails.

An Entry Form must accompany each entry and all required information supplied. We request at least two digital stills for every film that screens in the festival, and ask entrants to please provide these stills at the time of entry.

FOR FULL GUIDELINES, PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE APPROPRIATE ENTRY FORM.

MIAF Screening Material
> digital media and video technical specifications
(important info - please read folks)

If you are selected to participate in MIAF and cannot supply a 35mm print, you will be required to provide a screening copy meeting the specifications outlined below.

Video Specifications
The following are preferred digital video specifications for the delivery of content to be compiled for screening at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. MIAF cinema tapes will be compiled to the Standard Definition DV-PAL format.

SD-PAL Frame Sizes and Pixel Aspect Ratios
· SD-PAL video frame size is 720x576
· 4:3 SD-PAL Pixel Aspect Ratio is 1.0940
· 16:9 SD-PAL Pixel Aspect Ratio is 1.4587

SD-NTSC Frame Sizes and Pixel Aspect Ratios
· SD-NTSC video frame size is 720x480.
· 4:3 SD-NTSC Pixel Aspect Ratio is 0.9091.
· 16:9 SD-NTSC Pixel Aspect Ratio is 1.2121.
· NTSC videos will be converted to PAL.
· NTSC videos will not be resized when converted to PAL to avoid degradation.

Content delivery Notes
· 16:9 videos are preferred in the Full Height Anamorphic (FHA) format.
· The “16:9 Anamorphic” format (also known as 4:3 Letterboxed) should be avoided if possible.
· Videos with Square Pixels will be converted to PAL pixel aspect ratios.
· Content whose sub-titles that are outside of titles-safe margins will be resized.

Frame Rates
· The PAL video frame rate is 25fps.
· The NTSC frame rate of 29.97fps will be converted to PAL’s 25fps.
· Do NOT deliver 24fps videos - they may fail to play smoothly from a 25fps timeline.

Bit Rates
· Higher bit-rates means less video compression and better image quality.
· Avoid bit-rates below 6 Mbps for Standard Definition videos.

Audio Specifications
· 48 kHz Sampling Rate.
· Stereo.
· 128 kbps or above.
· Surround audio is not supported.

Preferred Video CODEC’s
· DV PAL/NTSC (4x3)
· DV PAL/NTSC Anamorphic (16x9)
· Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2
· Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2
· MPEG 2
· Apple ProRes 4:2:2
· HDV 1080i25 (50i)
· HDV 1080p25
· H.264
· Use high bit-rates for H.264 videos - especially with High Definition videos.
· The H.264 codec allows for low bit-rate & highly compressed videos which can be problematic in a compilation timeline.

Digital Tapes
· BETACAM
· DVCAM
· HDV (NOT the same as HD-CAM)

DVD’s
· Standard PAL/NTSC video DVD’s.
· Use the PAL DVD format if possible to minimise a loss in image quality arising from NTSC to PAL conversions.
· BluRay Discs are not supported.
· DV files, in the formats listed above, can be submitted on data-DVD’s.

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