Rules and Regulations

Please pay close attention to ALL the rules and regulations, including those on copyright, and technical specifications

Copyright
Technical
Specifications
FAQ

Deadline

Submissions must be completed by Friday July 4 July 10, 2020 at 11:59 pm EDT. (Extended Deadline)

Eligibility

This is a juried competition open to all students who have produced computer-generated imagery (including but not limited to computer animation, motion graphics, visualization, research work, visual effects, virtual reality experiences, video game trailers, etc.) while attending college in the NYC metropolitan area during the 2019-2020 academic year. Submitted pieces must not have been produced before May 2019, nor should they have been entered into a previous MetroCAF.

For the purposes of this competition, a school is considered to be within the NYC metropolitan area if it is located within a 160-mile radius of Times Square in Manhattan.

Eligibility Radius

Submission Categories

There are three categories for MetroCAF 2020 submissions, based on the number of people involved in creating the work:

  1. Individual work: the entire piece was written, designed, modeled, rigged, animated, etc., by only one person.
  2. Small Group: the piece was written, designed, modeled, rigged, animated, etc., by two or three people.
  3. Large Group: the piece was written, designed, modeled, rigged, animated, etc., by four or more people.

Please note that voice cast or live action actors who were not involved in the technical aspects of a piece’s creation do NOT need to be included in counting the number of people involved in creating a piece. A piece that was written, modeled, animated, etc., by just one person but utilized three voice or live actors can be submitted as an Individual work. However, a piece that was written, modeled, animated, etc., by just one person, but utilized another person as sound editor or foley artist would have to be submitted in one of the group categories.

If a piece is submitted as an Individual work and is found to be the work of more than one person, or as a Small Group and it is discovered that four or more people were involved in its creation, the submission will be disqualified.

Screening & Jury version

Prepare two versions of your submission:

  1. A screening copy. This is the full version, including credits. This version should be in HD: 1080p (1920×1080) preferred, 720p acceptable.
  2. A jury version. For this version, remove (cut off or black out) the credits. If your full version includes a title, you should leave the title as is but remove all names of contributors and any reference to your school from both the beginning and the end of the piece. The format for this version should be 720p (1280×720).
    If your work is longer than five minutes, please select a five minute segment you want the jury to view and include this as the jury version.

See technical specifications for details on acceptable formats.

Stills

You also need to submit a digital still image that represents your work. Be sure to include a brief caption (5-10 words) for the image. This image may be used for publications and pre-festival publicity. It is not juried. Digital still images must be submitted in single layer TIFF or TARGA format at 1920 x 1080 pixels with no compression.