Masterpieces of Brickfilming

The Masterpieces of Brickfilming (MoB) Film Festival was a brickfilming contest hosted by Jason "prof1515" Mount on the Brickfilms.com forums between 2006 and 2007. The aim of the contest was to create a brickfilm featuring fully-developed stories and characters. It had a much longer running time than the average brickfilm contest at 15 months, and it is the longest successful brickfilm contest.

Notably, the entry Hastings by "Night Owl" completely swept the award categories of the contest.

History
Jason "prof1515" Mount was known in the brickfilming community for posting lengthy, formal reviews of brickfilms, modeled after professional reviews and with a harsher critical eye than the average commenter. He valued storytelling and wished to create a contest aimed at encouraging films featuring complete stories, with an emphasis on character and story development rather than an emphasis on animation. His contest idea was also partially in response to the Twenty-four Hour Animation Contest, as he was not a fan of the general concept or the resulting films of the speed-based contest and so wished to create a contest with as little restriction as possible on the filmmaker.

The Masterpieces of Brickfilming Film Festival, usually referred to simply as Masterpieces of Brickfilming (or as MoB), was announced on September 26, 2006. Its stated purpose was "to showcase films that feature fully-developed stories, well-rounded characters, quality voice acting, and all-around excellence in filmmaking". Copyright infringement was not allowed, and the contest had no lower or upper time limit. Entries were required to be posted online for the first time between December 26 and 30, 2007, giving brickfilmers 15 months to create an entry. Mount requested that those intending to enter inform him by December 26, 2006, and required them to notify him by September 26, 2007 if they still intended to enter.

The contest had 5 award categories: Best Film, Director's Award, Actor's Award, Screenwriter's Award, and Cinematographer's Award. Best Film had a prize of $100, and all of the other categories had prizes of $50. Though Mount received registered interest from 33 people, by the deadline the contest only received 3 entries. Mount proposed the possibility of extending the deadline by another year, but this did not go ahead. The contest had a panel of three judges: Marc Beurteaux, Brendan Henry, and Mount himself. Their identities were not publicly disclosed so as to ensure objectivity. Results were announced on January 13, 2008, and all categories were won by "Night Owl"'s film Hastings. The Actor's Award went to Henrik "zepper" Perrson for his role as Athelred in Hastings. The other two entries to the contest were Divine Interventions II by Arend Hintze and Troubleshooter by Alexander "Dead-Eye" Injac. Mount considered running a second edition of MoB with a deadline of December 2009, but the contest did not run again.

Some other notable brickfilms that were at some point intended for Masterpieces of Brickfilming are Pirates! by Doug Vandegrift, Picturesque by Jonathan Vaughan, and Kensington by Gregory Moore and Garry Moore.