The Magic Hammer

This week, Matt and I discuss fireworks, Disney, creepy Disney fans, and The Hammer.

I’m telling your mom if you don’t listen.

Matt’s Custom Arcade Conversion Part 4

Note: The text content from the original post somehow was saved along with the pictures, so I’m posting this part in its original form. Apologizes for any references to previous articles in this text that I might have missed when reconstructing the previous parts.

One of the biggest road blocks I had up to this point on the machine was how or what to do with the control panel. The pedestal for the original control panel was so odd I couldn’t decide on how to approach modifying it to put on the control I wanted. Knowing I’d have some time to work on it this weekend, I dived back into trying to figure out what to do. Well, no ideas ever came to me, at least no good ideas. By the time saturday rolled around, I decided to take a different approach. I decided to just make the main control panel by it’s self then that would force a decision on how to attach it to the arcade machine in the end. So that’s what I did today.

The whole afternoon started out with the detailed project plans below. They maybe a bit to technical to understand, but here they are none-the-less:

The day now gets a little exciting because I get to use the deadliest power tools in my garage. I always enjoy that; one because the saw dust in the air, the smell of newly cut lumber mixed with sweat, and raw sound a basic electrical motors tearing into planks of wood is a bit more manly than my average week of sitting in front of computer all day, and two, every time I successfully use the table saw for an afternoon with out injuring myself makes me feel as though I cheated death from yet another day.

After ripping two sheets of birch (on sale at Lowes, woo-hoo!) I get out the jigsaw and start to sweat again. Not from the heat or the effort, more in that the jigsaw can either be my friend or foe – it seems to have a mind of it’s own some times. The first cut usually sets the tone. Either I’ll be continuing to enjoy my weekend, or out buying lumber by the forklift load in matter of minutes.

Ahhhh! Success! The jigsaw decides to work in my favor today.

Not only does the jigsaw cooperate, but it manages to let me cut 2 pieces of wood at once – something that rarely, if ever, has worked out for me before.

Now to my slightly more detailed “blueprints” for the next step. Those measurements are overwhelming, aren’t they? If deciding how to mount this control panel was the most difficult part of this phase of construction, then designing the control panel layout was definitely the second most difficult part. I really, really wanted a 4 player layout. I also really, really wanted the final width of the machine to fit through the front door of the house. This gave me 32 inches of width to work with. After many many failed attempts of laying out a 4 player control panel, I gave up and settled for the 2 player panel with the trackball. But I did take the 4 player concept back to the drawing board and came up with a modular input idea to accommodate additional players. More on that in the future.

Even without much guidance from my plans, I still manage to get the layout pretty close to what I had in mind. At this point, the phrase “nobody move, don’t even breath!” comes to mind.

This just in from the “I wish I thought of this 15 minutes ago” department. After struggling to trace the push buttons in the proper position, it dawns on my that taking the plastic nut off of the pushbuttons would much easier to line up and trace than using the push buttons themselves.

Everything’s traced out. Now, all I have to do now is simply cut out each part precisely. No problem!

This sweet little hole saw make’s about 80% of the job pretty dang easy. I bought this hole saw about 6 years ago. The intention – to build an arcade control panel.

Nice, this control panel now has more holes than…something with…23 holes…or less… Didn’t think that line through.

I, by no accident, left the hardest to cut hole for last. After a pain staking amount of measuring and centering, I’m finally ready to trace and cut this thing. Nerves at all time high at this point. I managed to get through it just fine, forgot to take a picture in the excitement. As a side note; for those of you that haven’t seen me for a while, my hair is probably the longest it’s ever been. I had my face mere inches from the jigsaw blade intensely guiding the saw as it cut. Though I was concentrating on following the guide line, I did have the though of my hair getting caught up in the blade slide up and down in a blur and giving my an impromptu scalping. The further thought of “maybe I should stop for a moment and tie my hair back” came to mind, but I ignored it – things were going too well to stop. The scalping would be a small price to pay if it happened.

As important as the trackball cut was, this next cut is probably the most important. Just about every measurement could be fudged and the good old sander would make things right, but these next 3 jigsaw cuts were going to either make or break the plans for this control panel.

The first two came out perfect. One more and this control panel’s fate will be sealed…

Success!!! This maybe the best luck I’ve ever had in woodworking project, ever!

Here’s a couple of pictures to demonstrate why those cuts were fairly important to the project:

The whole time I was working on this control panel, I went back and forth on whether or not to leave the corners on the panel, or round them off. Leaving the corners would match the over all look of the machine, but rounding the corners would make adding the T-molding far more easy. After putting the panel relatively near the area that it would eventually be install, I decided to round corners. 1, because the corner on the left side player area sort jabbed by a bit will testing the placement, and 2, the corners could potential take out a testicle on taller players, and I just don’t want to deal with that. So even though the corners would probably fit the over all look better, comfort of the rounded edges won out.

After some serious sanding to prep the surface for patting and erase some of the areas where the jigsaw wasn’t 100% cooperative, I took the panel outside and sprayed on the first coat of primer. After some more sand a couple of primer coats, it’s on the lacquer. Ah, the pleasant fumes of lacquer – should be an interesting sunday.

So as the project draws closer to completion, I have to settle on name. The top three so far are:

Super Happy Fun Ultra Maga-cade
Xanacade
Arc Cader

Matt’s Custom Arcade Conversion Part 3

Now it’s time to really get into this project. I have my eyes set on that control panel. It’s odd shaped, it’s lacking many controls I definitely want, and it just plain hurts my eyes it’s so ugly.

So at the initial inspection, looks like it’s just a matter of finding the right sized Allen wrench:

Luckily years ago I bought this set of Allen Wrenches. As you can see here, I lost one sometime ago. I naturally assume that this is the size I’ll need:

As luck would have it, it’s not, I do have the exact size I need to start pulling these bolts out.

Wait a minute… WTF is this?!?

My old nemesis… the security Allen bolt with a security pin in it.

It seems no matter where I lived, worked, or otherwise worked on some sort of DYI project, the damned Allen both with a security pin in it has been there to impede my progress. And each time we encounter each other; I can never find that particular wrench in which to use with this damn security bolt and I end up seriously damaging the piece of I is working with trying to remove it.

But not this time.

This time I’m prepared. In my secret lair (aka, my garage) I’ve assembled a team of device in which to finally conquer my old nemesis.

So, Allen bolt with a security pin in it, meet,

Rotozip with a Grinding Wheel attachment:

With the flip of a switch, the whirl of the Rotozip motor fills my ears. With an ear drum shattered screech as it grinds, a shower of sparks with the heat of 1000 suns flies over the control panel. In matter of seconds, I reduce my nemesis Allen bolt with a security pin into:

A mere flat head bolt:

With minimal effort and a 99 cent, run of the mill, came with the book self kit, flat head screw driver, I remove the once menacing Allen bolt with the security pin:

I quickly hunt down the remainder of the security bolts, and make quick work of them as well. I set one aside to take a nice clean picture to commemorate my nearly 3 decade battle with my old nemesis:

The last thing holding the control panel down is the fugly “chrome” t-molding”. Uneventfully, I grab one end pull it all off in one piece:

I finally get to pry off that ugly control panel and take a look at the guts. The bottom of the panel is about at unimpressive as the top:

Ironically, I see that the joysticks are equipped with Cherry micro switches – not unlike the Cherry micro switches I’ll be using in my custom panel later.

Now that the panel’s off, I’m eager to see what’s underneath it all. And it’s a bit disappointing:

I do see a coin counter on the bottom of the column. Look like this machine had been played at least 122,277 times.  Or is it rolled over and actually 1,122,277? Who knows? That will remain one of the greatest mysterious of this cabinet:

During my assault on the security bolts, I get a laugh out of the ineffectiveness of the security bar across the coin door as it fell off and slipped right through the bar:

I snap quick pic of the “Knights of the Round” instructions before they’re gone, just for the heck of it:

With some impressive contorting on my part (if I do say so myself) I manage to remove the bolts holding on the coin door security bar and remove of the whole coin mechanism:

Then I tackle removing the Formica from the front of the podium – this sheet put up more or a fight than the panels on the top of the cabinet:

Nice I move to the back of the machine to pull the guts on the electronics:

Taking a closer look at the electrical system of the cabinet, I can’t help but wonder however arcade didn’t burn to the ground from shoty electrical work in the 80s.

Before I start, I head the warning label telling me to let all the equipment fully discharge before handling. After a little thought, I determine that nearly 20 years of discharge time is probably enough:

I step out of the garage to check out and enjoy the carnage so far:

Before I call it day, I take a lesson learned from my first attempt at building an arcade machine and raise the cabinet up off the floor to avoid any water that my come in from under the garage door if it rains:

So that’s that for Part 3. Wiping out an old nemesis and completely gutting a cabinet is a pretty fulfilling day.

But the fun is about to really kick in with Part 4, which focuses complete on the design and construction of the custom control panel.

Stay tuned.

Powerless

For the first time since we’ve moved into this house we’ve been without power for more 30 than minutes – that includes the hurricanes!!!
I never realized how much ambient noise the neighborhood ac units, pool pumps, etc made until I sat outside to wait out the power outage. It’s freaky quiet out here.

Matt’s Custom Arcade Conversion Part 2

It’s the weekend after getting my new old arcade cabinet and it’s time get right to it, start taking out the panels and see what’s inside thing. Gregg comes over to borrow some of my power tools to start customizing the control panel for his Dig Dug cabinet and I find that a pretty safe time to start messing with my cabinet’s guts – if something goes wrong, there’s another set of hands in the garage to dial 911.

I start by pulling the top back panel off to see how hard it’s going to be to get this monitor out. Despite the dust and frightening wiring, it looks like it’s going to be pretty simple – only four bolts holding the whole thing in:

While routing around trying to see how to loosen the bolts from the inside, I look down in the corner and find the old instruction manual for the Knights of the Round game – I carefully take it out to keep as a memento of this whole build process.

Next step is pull off the marquee panel. Surprisingly it looks quite clean and new inside. Barely any dust and the light and speakers are in relatively good condition. Too bad they both gotta go.

Now I carefully, very carefully, pry the strips that are holding the front panel glass to the front of the machine. It’s heavy, thick and in danger of dropping out of my hands any moment. With some degree of luck, I manage to get the glass off the front of the machine and set it aside safely, well protected for the rest of this project until it’s time to re-install it:

Meanwhile, while I thought I was safe with Gregg around to call for help incase I ended up dropping the monitor on my feet or pulling the whole cabinet down on top of me, I look over and see Gregg double fisting power tools; routing with the Rotozip in one hand, and running the shop vac with the other.

I go back to focusing on my machine. I found removing the bolts holding in the monitor pretty easy to remove. And with one good yank on the chassis, the whole thing pops up. For the first time I can see straight through the machine:

Now on to removing that ugly, unnecessary, and annoying black Formica. It pulls/breaks off with a bit of effort and to my surprise the original Vindicators artwork is largely intact.

I step back and soak in the awesomeness of the Vintage 80’s futuristic alien invasion artwork. I immediately get a chuckle out of the tank pilot holding a small handgun. I guess that’s incase the big honking gun on the tank doesn’t eliminate the target completely.

I scrape off the Vindicator artwork. That takes a little more effort than the Formica, but it all comes off eventually:

And that’s it for this day. The Formica and artwork took up most of the time. I hadn’t anticipated stripping the sides of the top portion of the cabinet twice, but nonetheless I’m now closer to creating my custom machine.

Stay tuned for Part 3 where I take on the control panel and finally conquer an old foe.

Matt’s Custom Arcade Conversion Part 1

About a year and half ago or so, I started the conversion of a broken down old forgotten arcade cabinet into my custom MAME machine.  I was recording my progress while NeoZAZ was in one of its design transitions and the posts didn’t make it to the blog. A few windows based computer crashes and hard drive placements later, I thought the old archives for the notes and pictures from these articles were long gone. Recently, I found a copy of the pictures at least on one of the surviving hard drives from my retired windows box. So for those that haven’t seen it or wondering whatever happen to it, here’s a the article again. The text is new; hopefully I can make it as entertaining the first go-round.

For years, actually too many to count, I’ve wanted to build a custom arcade machine. It all started when I stumbled on M.A.M.E. (Mulit-Arcade Machine Emulator). I was looking for maybe an on-line version of some classic arcade games, or perhaps and old CD-Rom with a dozen of games on it or so, but M.A.M.E offered far more than I was looking for.  After a little research, I found hundreds, hell maybe thousands of sites dedicate to M.A.M.E. and it’s integration and adaption into custom built and/or restored arcade cabinets with a barebones PC and keyboard emulator board at it’s heart.

I was sold, I knew one way or another, I was going to do this. I searched the sites, spent way too much time lurking around arcadecontrols.com, and bought way too many buttons, joysticks, and trackballs in which to start building my custom dream machine.

I jumped right into it. I built the frame for the cabinet; I even carved out the top of the control panel. Then some time passed. And by time, I may mean years. I may even mean, I moved house in the time that passed. Most specifically; the frame sat so long by the garage door of the old house the it soaked up so much water that it started to mold and rot and didn’t make to the new house.

So idea sat on the shelf for a while.

Fast forward X amount of years later and my friend Gregg happens to mention he had an idea to build an arcade machine.

I offered what little knowledge I had, mostly Internet links, and some of the many extra parts I had. With this, my interest in building my own machine was renewed. But that was about as far as it when, renewed but not much motivation behind it yet.

Then came Gregg’s visit to Craig’s list. That was where he found a Dig Dug cabinet in great shape for a few bucks. He called and told me about it, I congratulated him and let him know if he needed any help adapting it, I’d love to lend a hand. And that was about all I thought about in regards to building a cabinet – helping about a friend build his.

30 minutes later, Gregg called again. Turned out the owner of the Dig Dug cabinet had a second cabinet they had no use for and pretty much insisted Gregg take it along with the Dig Dug cabinet. Gregg was calling to tell me I could have if I wanted it. I took him up on the offer, and instantly started getting excited about the idea of working on an arcade machine again. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to start that project again. Instead of trying to build it from scratch, I could get a little creative and make what Gregg was about bring over work the way I wanted.

A little while later, Gregg brought over the cabinet. I helped him unload it, gave him some money to the gas we burned picking the cabinet up and dropping it off, then assessed what I had to work with.

It was, without a doubt, one of the most unique wooden arcade cabinets I’ve ever seen:

From just about every angle, it was just plain odd:

The marquee read “Knights of the Round”, but it definitely looked like a after factor addition to this particular machine:

A quick look at the control panel and it was clear that was going to go – pretty much as soon as possible:

Checking out the machine a little closer, there are some strange ribbed rubber covers on the sides that weren’t condoms:

One last look from behind. Not only is it odd looking, but it looks like and old 50’s sci-fi robot from this angle:

Now it’s nighttime, and time to go inside and start thinking about what on earth I’m going to do with this thing. But first I have to try to find out what this machine actually was originally. The marquee is obviously an addition, the monitor clearly once belong to a Ms. Pacman cabinet in a former life, and what the hell are those rubber things?

So I head over to KLOV.com and look at the “Knights of the Round” entry. From the example picture on its entry, I’m pretty sure that this wasn’t originally a “Knights of the Round” cabinet:

On one of the top back corners there’s a pic of Formica broken off, I can see at least a “V-I-N” showing through, so that’s where I head to in the KLOV entries.

I check out the first entry being with V-I-N. Low and behold, in it’s original form; I am the proud owner of an abandoned “Vindicator” cabinet.

That’s all for the first night of owning this cabinet. In Part 2, I start disassembling the machine and start moving to my goal of creating my custom arcade machine.

A Collection of Unique Star Wars Articles

Over quite a few years now, Dave, Quint and I have shared many oddball and unique Star Wars related articles. While cleaning up my bookmarks and emails this afternoon, I pulled a handful of that are worth checking out:

The 5 Reasons Luke Skywalker is a complete idiot

This article proves that when a religion is on the brink of eradication, they’ll take any followers to keep it going – even this bozo.

Read “The 5 Reasons Luke Skywalker is a complete idiot” here.

R2-D2 and Chewbacca: The Rebellion’s top Agents

A new way to look at the prequels; did R2-D2 and Chewbacca build the foundation for the success of the Rebellion decades earlier before anyone ever realized a rebellion would be necessary? Check this article out and decide for yourself.

Read “R2-D2 and Chewbacca: The Rebellion’s top Agents” here.

Star Wars Explained by someone that hasn’t seen it

Ever wonder what someone that’s never seen Star Wars thinks the saga is actually about? This video is a great example how the saga sounds to someone that’s only caught bits and pieces of it.

Watch “Star Wars Explained by some that hasn’t seen it” here.

Homemade Star Wars Costumes

A fun slide show of the some of the best and worst efforts at piecing together a homemade Star Wars costume.

See the Homemade Star Wars Costumes here.

The Unproduced Star Wars Toys Archive

Kenner had some big plans on expanding the Star Wars universe. This site host an amazing collection of prototypes, designs, sketches, and concepts of a slew of Star Wars toys that never made it to full production.

See the Unprodueced Star Wars Toys Archive here.

Recycling the Force

As impressive as some of the designs Kenner came up with that never made it into production, equally impressive was Kenner’s resourcefulness in recycling old toy designs into new Star Wars toys, then conversely, turning the Star Wars toys into even newer toys.

See “Recycling the Force” here.

7 Worst Decisions in the Orginal Star Wars Trilogy

This article lays out 7 events that could have easily brought the original trilogy to a screeching halt. Funny part easy, in any real world scenario, these things would have happened.

Read “7 Worst Decisions in the Original Star Wars Trilogy” here.

Star Wars Inspired Crimes

If you’re going to rob a place, a Star Wars costume might hide your identity pretty well. The problem is, make sure it’s one you can run away in and remove and hide quickly. Otherwise, you might end up some of these guys.

Read “Star Wars Inspired Crimes” here.

10 Star Wars Figures that Look Like Other Celebrities

Taking a 6-foot tall actor and shrinking them down to a 4 inch plastic action figure isn’t a perfect science. Sometime along the process, the results kinda miss the mark of their original target.

See the 10 Star Wars Figures that Look Like Other Celebrities here.

The X-Wing Rocket

A valiant attempt at bringing the X-wing to life, at least in model rocket form. Does it’s fly? Well, yes and no – depending on your point of view.

See the X-Wing Rocket here.

Wrong Number, Killsbury Doughboy

Apparently, we got a little talky this week on the podcast, because not only did we rant for almost an hour, our movie review is almost as long as the movie itself.

So, to spare you the bother of listening to the whole thing at once, I split it up into two episodes. Enjoy!

Episode 20a: Wrong Number
Episode 20b: Killsbury Doughboy

New TBP Movie 2 Trailer Posted!!!

The new trailer for the Trailer Parks Boys Movie 2: Countdown to Liquor Day is on-line. It looks awesome. Of course, I’d say that even if they showed a few stills and with a release date. But this one’s slightly more detailed than that. Check it out: Click for the Countdown to Liquor Day Trailer.

The Stella Artois Short Film Project on Perfection far from perfect

This is a “follow up / re-post / I’ve calmed down enough to try to make a valid point rather than an emotional rant” to my 2 prior postings on this subject. I’ve since removed the post, mainly because it doesn’t reflect what we try to do on this site nor did they fairly represent its spirit. However, both post did have valid points, and I still think they’re worth pointing out if only for my personal peace of mind. So, to re-explore these points and observations, I offer a slightly less venomous report on the Stella Artois Short Film Project voting system. Note; I did say “slightly less”.

This whole story starts with this; The NeoZAZ crew and cast spent a cloudy, mud soaked weekend filming an entry for the Stella Artois Short Film Project. The themes for the submissions were simply “Perfection” and “Sacrifice”. We choose “Perfection” and wrote the script around that theme titled “Perfect Ending”. Once the script was hammered out, props made and purchased, and I caught my flight from Orlando to Allentown, every got together and spent a Saturday shooting said script.  As usual, we had a lot a fun, learned a few things, and had a wrap party when we were done.

It’s important to note at this point that during film, several times we commented “There is no way we’re gonna win this thing” and we meant it. Given the serious tone of the contest and subjects, we still went a bit outside the box and stretched the interpolation of the theme with a not so serious approach. The script was definitely about perfection, that much is true, but out idea of perfection greatly differs (at least we think) from the idea the contest creators had in mind. Why this is important to note is this; this post is not an “Oh, poor me, my film won’t win blah blah blah” post. Like I said, we had no delusions we would win. But the voting mechanism for this contest is for poorly designed, problematic and haphazard that it’s unfair to all entrants, not just me.  It’s truly that bad that without any real hopes of winning this contest, nor even making it into the final ten, I still want to take the time to voice my opinion on this terrible system.

So back to the story; once “Perfect Ending” was shot, we edited the pieces together, fiddled with the sounds, added a few effects and titles, and threw in some music. Once it was rendered, it was submitted. This was just a couple days before the deadline. After all, I was still using Windows and Adobe products at the time and everything took 17 times longer that it should have. Anyway, it was posted.

The first day of voting began, I was ready to but in my vote, check out the competition, then most likely forgot about until voting was over to so how poorly we had actually done.  Well, none of those tasks were as easy as they sounded, not by a long shot.

Let’s start with actually going to the site and voting.  After signing in to the voting area you are greeted with a nice big Wed 2.0 style button that reads “Request Rating Assignment”. On my first visit, I thought it was odd that I had to jump right into voting, or “request” as it were, and not browse the films to 1) see the competition and 2) actually see that my film was added to the contest. Thought I did find later – much, much later – that there is button on the screen that is a slightly different shade of gray than the background labeled “continue” that will lead you to a browsing area. However, the entire context of the placement of the button is this:

“You must be at least 21 years of age. See the Official Rules for complete details. ‘Continue’”.

A bit misleading? Possibly. But really, this is the least frustrating of the complaints I have about this whole setup.

I click the “Request Rating Assignment” button and I am given a seemingly random film to rate. The film is not my taste. Sorry, it’s just not. I’d like to fast forward through it and move on, but I can’t because that feature is not enabled when viewing a film to rate. A nice gesture to ensure all films are viewed in there entirety, but it’s odd that the ability to mute the film and minimize the browser is still enabled to allow me, or anyone for that matter, to simply move on to something else for 10 minutes rather than actually watch the film. So once the ten minutes pass, I’m giving the standard 5 star selection to rate the film.

Enter issue number one. Here is the truth of the matter. There’s not going be a whole lot traffic and voters coming to this site that aren’t involved in this contest or the contestants in someway. Be it the film makers, actors, their friends, their family, co-workers, people that owe them favors, etc, the only visitors and registered users for this voting site are ones that have a horse in the race in someway shape or form. Sorry, but that’s the truth. Even if by some chance there was a random short film fan that stumbled upon this site that didn’t have a vested interest in the results of the contest, they are certainly not going to sit through the flaws and pitfalls of the voting system to watch each entrant through the rating mechanism. At best they would browse the films, and really, that’s not even happening here, let’s be honest. So, given that, is there going to be any filmmaker that’s forced to watch a rate film that isn’t there’s a 5-star rating even if it is an incredible entry? Ahhh, no. The 5-star vote is reserved for their film. Fact of the matter is, when it comes to contests with 50k on the line, 1-star is most likely going to the vote of choice for the competition. I’m not going to speak for anyone else and say that’s what everyone is doing, but I will go out a firm limb and say that’s the most likely scenario.

So now that my rating is recorded, I’m now presented with 3 choices. 1) Continue rating, 2) Browse Films or 3) share. At this point of the report, I choose “Browse Films” to, as earlier stated, check out the competition and see that our film is in the contest.

I’m lead to the browse film area. There are 35 films, displayed as thumbnails, on what’s labeled as “Page 1”. I don’t see “Perfect Ending” so I click “next page” to see if I can find if. The page is still labeled as “Page 1” though the thumbnails looked different. Again, I don’t see “Perfect Ending” so I click “Next”. Again, it still reads “Page 1”. I scan through the thumbnails and now having poured over them twice; I’m starting to recognize some of them. I click “Next”. At this point I’m suspicious that I’m seeing the same thumbnails over and over just in a different order. After about 10 screen shots and 10 clicks on “next” my suspicions are confirmed. I am indeed seeing the same 35 thumbnails each time I click next. This flash based browsing system is serious flawed. That’s really no surprise. Having worked with Flash and Actions Script 2 and 3 for a quite a few years, I know first hand the fancier you try to get with the two, the easier it is for the swf to fail. And randomingly displaying the order of the thumbnails is just complicated enough for the Flash app to quickly do things the near complete opposite of what you’d thought you scripted it to do.  So I understand how this problem could happen, having had several similar things much like this happen to me as well. What I don’t understand is how this problem got out of development and through testing with this problem. To have this issue exist and released into production at the time of launch is just downright irresponsible. So at this point I have no idea if “Perfect Ending” is in the contest for sure because it seems this browse area wasn’t tested or released with this glitch for whatever reason – I want to point out I don’t know either of those to be true, I’m offering that statement as the impression I had at the time I was I first in the browse area.

After giving up on tried to make the browse area show me anything other than first 35 entries, I went on to continue rating the films.

Again I’m given a random film to view. I get through it, vote, and on to the next. At about the 4th or 5th film, at this point I wasn’t taking notes so I don’t know the exact number, I’m given a duplicate of the film I just viewed. That seems odd, but I soldier through it to get to the next film. This issue will come again soon, as well as an offered explanation and resolution, but at this point in the story I don’t know either of those two points so I’ll save them for later.

I continue to rate films. That is until I get to through the 9th film randomly played for me. At the point I’m given a “Thank you” message that states that I have viewed the maximum amount of films I can rate in a day.

Now keep in mind at this point I have no idea how many entries there are thanks to the flawed browse system. There are 45 days to voting. At 9 films a day that’s a maximum of 405 films I can possibly few. Turns out that’s not an issue, but again at this point I have no idea. 405 films doesn’t seem like a stretch from a short film contest. Especially an on-line contest with no entry fee and a $50,000 prize. So in my mind, again at this point, if there are 406 or more entries, someone’s getting’ the shaft. However, these figures don’t take into account that I saw the same film twice in one session, in reality I only saw 8 films, and if this glitch were to continue (and I was to actually put that much time into this research) the over all total number would be greatly reduced.

But back to story. At this point, I really don’t care anymore. As I pointed out a few times now, I honestly don’t think “Perfect Ending” has any chance for various reasons at this point, and sitting through however many films there are to see films other than on the first page of the browser really isn’t appealing to me so I just forget it and move on. I’d rather spend the time and energy on our next project than waste on this poke of garbage or a voting system.

Fast-forward a few weeks later to the recording of Episode 18 of the NeoZAZ podcast “The Cutting Room Floor”. 2 of the stars of “Perfect Ending” Chris Irons and Dave Fox are joining us and we discuss the filming of “Perfect Ending”. During the recording I’m asked how does one vote for our film in this contest. In which my response is “Good luck” and I elaborate with a summary of what I’ve experienced to far in the fiasco.

After the recording is done, I re-consider trying to get a vote in for “Perfect Ending”. After all, we had 10 people give up their entire Saturday to stand in a wet, muddy field to get this done, the least I could do was spend a little more time getting a vote in for what everyone put time and effort into getting done for us. So I head back to the Stella Artois Short Film Contest rating area.

Again, still not seeing the less than obvious “continue” button, I start right out with the “Request Rating Assignment” button. Again, I’m shown given a random film that I have little or no interest in and wait for it to end so I can browse. The film finally ends and I can browse. I notice immediately that the browsing area is finally fixed. No more random order of the thumbnails, and clicking to the next page actually takes me to the next page!  So there it is – Page 3, top row, second from the right – the stretched out messed up pixel ratio thumbnail for “Perfect Ending”. Not the thumbnail I would have preferred, but at least it’s there.  So click on it and to my surprise it actually looks pretty good. Having seen the messed up thumbnail I complete expected the film to be playing in wrong aspect ratio with who knows what other compression problems. But I was wrong, it all looks pretty good.

So back to rating. Again, I’m given some random films to watch. This time I manage to actually see nine different films in this session with out any repeats. Though having only watched 8 films prior to this, I have the feeling I may have seen one of these films before in my first session, though I didn’t note any of the films I watched at this point so I’m not sure that’s accurate.

The maximum film-viewing limit is reached for this session. I have to wait 24 hours to try again. The timing of this renewed interest in voting for these films ends up being pretty good, it’s the start of the 4th of July weekend, so I ask quite a few friends to register and take some time to try to vote to “Perfect Ending”. Who knows, maybe we’ll get insanely lucky and “Perfect Ending” will happen to be one of the random films they watch. Yeah, right. Turns out, I’ll soon wish I hadn’t asked for help, the numbers and data I got from everyone only managed to further frustrate and infuriate me in regards to this rating system.

In 3 days with 3 session or 9 views each, I view 27 films. None of which are “Perfect Ending”. Now, I’ve since been informed that this system is setup to not show me the film I submitted with my account. That’s all well and good, and a fair choice I suppose. Not having read the rules down to the last letter and somehow missing that point is a nice big check mark in the ignorance column on my part and I can live with that. But, now having read the rules thoroughly, I don’t see anything that states in 27 viewing I’d only see 24 films. If you haven’t guess what I mean by that, I’ll explain. In each of the 3 views over that holiday weekend, I had a repeat in each and every viewing.  But that was just my account. Surely that can’t be the case for everyone I recruited that weekend. Can it?

Well, not entirely. But for all intent and purposed, damn close enough.

Over a 3-day period, my friends and myself viewed 167 films. Here’s the breakdown:

Those 167 films were comprised of only 93 titles.
There are 141 films submitted to the contest.
We collectively did not see 48 of those films. That is a full 3rd, 33% of the films not viewed by anyone in this test.

As a side note, not counting myself due to account restrictions, no one saw “Perfect Ending” in any of these sessions.

Now that may seem like sour grapes on my part, and writing almost feels like it. I say almost, because I few of us have continued the test.

I’m proud to say that the total number of films not viewed of “48” has greatly reduced over the past 2 weeks. The number is now “45”. And additional estimate 90 additional views (not all totals were available, this number does of margin of error +/- 6) only 3 additional titles have been views, the rest have been titles we’ve viewed before.

Now my favorite part of the rating system (my favorite part of the Browsing system is yet to come). Apart from seeing duplicates in one session, I’ve managed to see duplicates, triplicates, and yes even a quadruplicate title over multiple sessions.

Let me recap on the system as I’ve experienced so far and my thoughts on it. First, I see the point of the random assignment of the videos. It exist, best I can tell, to keep from hordes of minions of film makers to single out one video and slam it with 5 star rating day in and day out. This system won’t stop the most ambitious contest from finding away to still do that, essentially, but it a fair attempt I suppose. I supposed I understand banning the entrant’s film from their account voting wise. Again, it keep that one guaranteed 5 star rating from being applied to that film, but that can easily be negated by asking a few friends to register and vote (Oh, that’s assuming there ever see your film, and from all statistics that appears not to be the cast for about 33% of the entrants). I have no explanation of the 9-viewing rule. Sorry, it doesn’t make sense to me. It would it I were to never see any of those 9 films again until I’ve viewed all 141 films first, but we are about to see that’s not the case.

My account alone, since the time I decided to start recording the films I’ve viewed, has been randomly given 8 films twice over multiple 24 hour periods, 3 titles 4 times over multiple 24 hours periods, and 1 film 4 times over multiple 24 hour periods. If the effort has been made to ensure that the film tied to the entrants account won’t be shown, why isn’t it taken a logical step further and track which films have been viewed in order to prevent duplicates. Or was that then plan and his is another example of not thoroughly testing the system? I’d hope not, but who knows? For the record, this doesn’t take in to consideration seeing the same film 2 in one session, which incidentally has happened to me personally 11 times so far.

Almost interesting side note on that last statement. I’ve been informed after one of the previous post that the away around that particular glitch is to refresh my web browser. Sure enough, that’s true. When I see a duplicate, I refresh the web browser and bingo, I’ve given a different title. But consider what I just wrote. I was told that – I didn’t read it on the site it’s self, nor have I found that somewhat important piece of information on the site it’s self yet. It might be there, but I haven’t found it. What it took to find a way around that glitch was a profanity laced spewing of anger so filled with anger for someone to point that out. So, I guess those post weren’t a total wash after all. Point is, how many voters don’t know about that work around?  In turn, how many films are being duplicated across the board thanks to this glitch? Furthermore, and most importantly to ask; why does this glitch continue unfixed? Where was the testing, and why does it continue while it is seemingly known about? Another irresponsible oversight? In my opinion yes, but that’s my opinion right or wrong.

That’s about all I’m going to say about voting. It’s flawed. Severely flawed. Quite a disappointment actually. Ironic, really – one of the 2 themes for the contest being “Perfection” when this voting system is just about as far from perfect as it could be and still be remotely functional. Actually, I’ll say one last thing about the rating system; as I write this, I’m going through the ratings again. I’m on #5 of 9 viewings, and I’ve seen all 5 so far. I haven’t added these to the numbers I listed above, but I did get a chuckle out that fact and thought it was worth sharing.

Now shifting back to the browsing section. As mentioned earlier in this article, after viewing a film in the browse area, one of the buttons to pop up on the screen is “share this film”. When you click this button a screen pops up with the link to copy, complete with the id code of the film. So what’s the problem? Regardless of the code, and they are different for each film, the link leads you to the first page of the browse area. Each link does. Not to the specific film you copied the link for, not even the page that film is on, strictly to the first page of the browsers. So the link if useless, a waist of time.

Now on to my favorite part of the browsing section. The part that find somewhat insulting the entrants, particularly the ones that aren’t getting the same amount of exposure as some of the other thanks to what seems to be a flawed randomizer function. In one of my previous posts, I had planned to somehow, if possible, promote the films I haven’t seen. We already know the “share this film” link if useless, so I figured maybe with a the director’s name, and the title of the film, I may be able to find a link through Google I could share. Maybe not for all of them, but any ones I could, I would. Ha. Fat chance once again.  When you view a film through the rating system, the following information is displayed:
Title
Submitter
Theme
Length
Description
Cast
Writer
Producer

When you view a film through the Browse area the following information is displayed:
…

That’s the best way I could think of to illustrate “nothing”, because nothing is shown. Not even the title, which one would think is the bare minimum the contest would share. That, as I said before, is kind of insulting. The people that put time, effort, and talent into these submissions get not acknowledgement in the browse area. Not even the title of their film. Wow. Sure, for the most part the title and the credits list all that information. But with the compression and small screen size, quite a few of these films credits are left unreadable. And watching them full screen just makes it larger and unreadable. And this isn’t even one of my complaints on the flaws of the system, I do see the reasoning behind compression and screen size, so I’m okay with this. It’s just not insult to injury without any of that information listed in the browse area.

Am I saying, “No one has ever seen ‘Perfect Ending’ on this site?” No, I’m not. Nor am I saying that no one has ever seen the 40 + films my friends and I haven’t seen. What I am saying is that this system seriously flawed. Both the rating system and browsing system. I think I’ve made more than clear what flaws I think exist. And as far the question of why I wrote and posted this article? That’s a pretty simple answer; there is no contact page, form, or email on this site to ask these questions. There is a street mailing address for on the rules page, but that’s it. Not what I’d consider the most efficient form of communication for something like this. But what do I know? As I stated before I had no delusions we would win but I’m also not in the position to speak for anyone else so I’ve only my opinion and research to work from. Bottom line, I think that with this system the best film is not going to be picked. I’ve seen too many flaws to tell me otherwise. And above all the irony of the “Perfection” theme always causes me a slightly chuckle when suffering through one of these glitches. I will admit however, they nailed “Sacrifice” perfectly.

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