Video Submission Requirements

• You must be a verified member of the BentoVid Discord server in order to participate in RICE.
  You become verified by agreeing to the #rules-and-info. If you can send messages in more than one channel, you're verified.

• Submissions must be at least 30 seconds and no longer than 5 minutes and 30 seconds in length.
  This is a hard limit. Any video that does not fit it in either direction will be rejected.

• You can submit up to 2 videos.

• Collaborations between 2 editors are allowed.
  The collaboration counts as 1 video submission for each editor listed. If a video credits more than 2 editors, it will be rejected.

• All video types and sources are accepted.
  It can be live action, animated, or other. As long as you edited it, you can enter it.

• Videos should not contain any elements that may identify the copyright holder of the original sources.
  Submissions should not contain subtitles, company logos, TV watermarks, etc., unless they were added by you.

• Videos must also follow the content restrictions and know of the technical specifications.

  • No porn, realistic gore, general 16+ rating.
  • h264 MP4 is the only format guaranteed to stream properly, submissions over 250MB will be re-compressed, and the awards show will be shown in a particular way that may alter your video.

Content Restrictions

RICE content restrictions are stronger than the general server rules. Content that may be posted to #vid-share may not be allowed in RICE.
As RICE is a feedback event, we want all participants to be able and willing to watch and comment on all videos.

• No porn.
  1. No bare genitals on screen.
  2. Sexual arousal of the viewer should not be the intended effect of coital scenes.
• No detailed/realistic gore.

  The gore rule is enforced EXACTLY as it is written. Context is NOT taken into account.
  If your content falls under the exemptions, it is exempt from the rule.

  1. If you can see organs, such as intestines, guts, brains, eyes popping out, etc., this is considered “detailed.”
     If the art style is life-like or the video source appears so (such as live action or well rendered 3D models), it is “realistic.”
  2. No visibly detached body parts (on any type of creature). An arm cannot fly through the air, a head cannot be detached from a body.
  3. Exemptions to the above:
     • Hidden or censored open wounds (such as covered by clothes)
     • The blood is a color other than black or red
     • There is no blood
     • The scene or action takes place in silhouette
• No obscene/harassing lyrics.
  1. No lyrics mostly concerned with intercourse and/or sexual acts (kissing is ok).
  2. No racial epithets, racial slurs, or hate speech of any kind in lyrics.
  3. Cussing is okay, as long as those words comprise less than approximately 30% of the overall content/words.
  4. Songs with lyrics that do not follow these rules must be cut or otherwise censor the words that do not comply.
• No videos with malicious intent.
  1. No entry should harass a person or group, online or offline, even if the names are censored.
  2. No entry should be made with the intent to harm (e.g. "bending the rules" or using upsetting content specifically to injure, shock, and/or upset people).
  3. If you can assume many people will want to avoid watching your video because of its subject matter, do not submit it to RICE.

Technical Considerations

• Submissions must be in mp4 format.
  h264 or x264. Other codecs will not be rejected, but they will not stream properly on the platform we use to view and comment on videos (Kollaborate).
  Most people stream videos to judge and give feedback. Your reviews may suffer if people must download your video to view it.

• Subtitles and captions
  Kollaborate only allows separate SRT files to be paired with videos. If your captions or subtitles cannot be saved to SRT, either burn them into your file (hard-sub) or offer an alternate file for download.
  Most people stream videos to judge and give feedback. Take this into account when making your choice.

• Submissions should be below 250MB.
  If your video is not under this, it will be re-compressed and the original file will be deleted.

  • Limiting your filesize is a courtesy to others. You can use tools like AMVtool, Handbrake, Adobe Media Encoder, etc., to help limit filesize.
  • Please don't hesitate to ask in #editing-help if you'd like assistance in encoding your files.

• The finalist and award shows are pre-rendered with the following settings:
  This only applies to the finalists and awards shows. During the actual event, your videos remain in their natural state.

  • 23.976 fps
    Submissions not at the framerate will be played at this framerate and may stutter.
  • 1920x1080p
    Submissions that are larger than this will be downscaled.
    Submissions smaller than this will be scaled up to fit as much as possible without cropping.
  • All videos have lower thirds added to them
    The graphics are 155px high and remain on the video through its entire run.
    Submissions with text will be shrunk so the graphic does not cover it.
    Other considerations must be specifically requested in the submission form.

Discussion Rules

In addition to the Server Rules,

• Please use the Kollaborate comments for anything you want the editor see, especially in-depth critiques.
  They are exported to TXT files at the end of the event.

• Do not reveal which video(s) you edited.

• Do not guess who edited which video.

• When reviewing videos, do not emphasize video quality related to compression.
  We asked for videos under a certain size and many people aren't experienced with compressing to specific file sizes.
  Video quality may be lower than usual because of this.
  Don't discount an otherwise good video due to compression issues.

• When creating an event, you must state the "theme" in the description or title.
  Anyone is allowed to schedule/host voice chats (VCs) with any theme. Want to host a viewing where no one is allowed to talk? A VC where only positive things are allowed to be said? How about a VC that is a roundtable of feedback?
  You can do it, just make sure you state what it is about before you start.
   
  All VCs must still follow our rules, which includes any criticism-geared VCs.
  Read our guide on how to give feedback here.

• Refrain from playful jabs or joke insults.
  What you say affects more than the person you're talking to.
  Even if you think the those jokes are okay between you and the person you're joking with, it can (and often does) give the wrong impression for people who are not in on the joke, are not close to you, and/or are new to the event. Even if your joke may have been fine at another time, during RICE it may be interpreted incorrectly due to the stressful nature of the event. This goes for both voice chats and text chats.

• You may reveal and/or upload your video publicly ONLY once the RICE award stream ends.
  Inside the RICE-specific Discord channels, there will be a special thread where you can reveal once the final round of voting has completed.
  However, you should not reveal or post the video ANYWHERE ELSE until the stream has ended.
  The exact date of the award stream varies, but is typically within the 2nd week of March.