"Make the Cut" Top 25 — is Adobe serious??

[Judge Wolf]

Have you seen the Top 25 "Finalists" of the contest at Adobe - Make the Cut ?

No offense to the finalists, but other than maybe 4 or 5 which are decent, the majority are amateurish garbage. Notice that so far most of the videos have more "dislikes" than "likes" (and I don't believe that can be attributed to disgruntled "losers" like me; I am happy to give credit where credit is earned.)

It seems pretty clear that Adobe and/or the "judges" did not watch all the entries ... maybe they watched "enough" to find 25 that they felt were good enough. It's not even a matter of taste ... I know (from seeing colleague's entries as well as Youtube posts etc.) that there are dozens of much much better cuts, which any idiot would immediately prefer to this pile.

It would be one thing if Adobe said "we can only accept x submissions" but they made rules, which stated that all entries would be viewed, and there is simply no way that this happened.

And if this were a "submit a funny photo" contest or something ... excusable ... but editing a music video means people spent DAYS, or WEEKS of work to make this happen. It's just very insulting.

As a professional editor of 20 years ... I'm flabbergasted and disgusted.

(Here is my entry for the curious: Imagine Dragons - Believer - YouTube )

[Peru Bob]

I probably would have chosen it as a top 25.

[Judge Wolf]

Thanks!

[Judge Wolf]

Maybe I'm being overly obsessive, but I've seen a lot of great videos that didn't make it, so I've made this sub for everyone to post their cuts -- as well as any they've seen and liked ... and let reddit decide the 'real top 25' ...

https://www.reddit.com/r/makethecut25/

I'm adding all the ones I've seen on YouTube that I thought were worthwhile. It would be nice to have a one-stop repository for future generations

[RoninEdits]

OFFICIAL RULES:

FINALIST JUDGING: All submitted Entries will be judged by a panel of expert judges (“Judges”) selected by Sponsor in its sole discretion to select up to twenty five (25) Finalists, based on the following judging criteria: Originality & Creativity (40%); Use of Adobe Premiere Pro (35%); and Overall Appeal of Video (25%).

those are very vague definitions. "originality" alone could explain some of the odd/bad choices that made it to the top 25, as they had to be original (different, not necessarily good) to stand out. 35% for use of adobe premiere pro is also problematic. that's over 1/3 the score just for using some feature or fx inside premiere. so we are left with "creativity" and/or "appeal" as possible editing skill points, but those could just as easily be influenced by plugins, color grade, etc. so its possible the actual editing skill score was a very, very small percentage of an editing contest, which was actually a vfx/plugin contest. it looks like another cross-marketing gimic, and not a real video editing contest.

[herr_monkey]

I can feel your pain, i have no problem that i´m not in the Top 25. But the moment where a friend told me that they removed my edit from their facebook page was a real downer. Maybe some adobe intern can explain this to me, why is my edit blocked and all the others are still there. As I said no problem that i loose, but it feels unfair that i can´t share my work with others. This is very disrespectful Adobe.

[FACT_TV]

ADOBE PREMIERE PRO 25th ANNIVERSARY “MAKE THE CUT” CONTEST

OFFICIAL RULES

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY.
A PURCHASE WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR CHANCE OF WINNING.

There is a reason why they used the word "chance" because at the end of the day it was going to be a crap shoot.