FIRST Song Parody Contest Playlist and moving foward

[TheMilkman01]

After the second year of the FIRST Song Parody Contest and the deadline, November 1st, right around the corner, I've noticed some changes since last year.

1. Teams were generally less enthusiastic about it this year, whether that be expressed in comments on Chief Delphi, FRC Reddit, or simply the 75% drop in total submission quantity.

2. Of the 2016 Song Parody Submission, 16 (17 if you count the team that submitted two parodies) were by teams that did not participate in last year's competition. That means 67% of the submissions this year were assumedly by teams without previous experience making parodies.

3. Only 8 teams that participated in 2015 returned to the contest this year. That's roughly an 8% retention rate.

All this is to say what I'm sure a lot of you Chief Delphians already felt: these parody contests are a nice sentiment in theory but hardly sustainable or engrossing long term. While I appreciate what FIRST is trying to do with emphasizing creativity, video production, and recognizing the people who accomplish that, I do not believe this is the best way to go about it. So what's the solution?

Gradual Steps.

Song Parodies are extremely hard to pull off without them being cringe-inducing. I've made five of them, and despite how much I've been able to improve, it's still difficult not to produce an awkward version of a song, whether in quality or content. In FIRST, experienced film and audio production people, let alone singers, are few and far between. To start here was a huge leap.

But it's happened, and now we need to move forward. Let's throw some ideas out there and hopefully get FIRST's attention. Some of my ideas for implementing better video contests in FIRST include recounting a display of gracious professionalism, recounting a time your team was creative in solving a problem, defining what FIRST is in one sentence, creating a comedy sketch about FIRST, or even just robot reveal videos. Anything that brings it back to the style of #makeitloud from 2013 seems progressive to me.

But this is just my opinion, what are your thoughts on the FIRST Song Parody Contest and what FIRST should implement moving forward?

[GeeTwo]

I recall seeing last year's contest announcement, but not this year's. FIRST Rhapsody set the bar so high, I'm not surprised that few were willing to enter last year. This year, I suspect even fewer were aware of the contest.

[Cory]

I will be happy if these die a quick and silent death.

[wgardner]

As stated above, song parodies are hard. The music and singing might be the hardest part.

I wonder if a different type of parody could be easier and more enjoyable. For example, the Holy Grail parody in the FIRST Stronghold kickoff video. Nobody needs to sing or play instruments. And goofy costumes are part of the FIRST culture already.

So, what about a "FIRST favorite movie scene parody" competition??

[ghostmachine360]

Originally Posted by Cory

I will be happy if these die a quick and silent death.

Thank you. They're the worst.



I'm not going to lie: I have my FIRST headphones on full blast during playback of any parodies at competition.

[Greg Hainsworth]

we have members who want to do this - recognition or not - because its fun for them.

If its not fun, why do it at all...

[jordangrant]

OP, you definitely jumped the gun pulling numbers a whole 24 hours before the deadline.

Now that I've watched all the parodies, I personally think the overall quality has greatly increased from last year, and Cory's ears will be safe this year. As you guys have said, making a parody is hard, and I think teams are getting used to navigating through developing the idea, moulding the lyrics, recording properly, making a good video - and seeing great examples they can draw inspiration from.

Honestly, the girls and guys who can REALLY sing brought out their A-game this time, so I'm optimistic about the competition moving forward.

[Cothron Theiss]

To be honest, I think some of the issue is a lack of promotion. I think many people have seen or heard of the FIRST Rhapsody, but other than that, the list the OP linked is the first I've seen of the official submission or repository for all of the teams' submissions. Also, what the others have said about parodies being difficult is spot on. We FIRSTers are often a diverse and talented group of people, but I doubt many teams have the resources to accomplish a quality parody.

[TheMilkman01]

Originally Posted by Greg Hainsworth

we have members who want to do this - recognition or not - because its fun for them.

If its not fun, why do it at all...

It is fun. I feel the way FIRST incorporated it, however, could have been implemented a lot better. For instance, the 3:30 time limit is practical, but it hinders creativity greatly. 3:30 is the average song length, and most songs you'd want to do a parody of IMO are slightly longer than that. Just an example, I understand their reasoning for it.

Originally Posted by jordangrant

OP, you definitely jumped the gun pulling numbers a whole 24 hours before the deadline.

Now that I've watched all the parodies, I personally think the overall quality has greatly increased from last year, and Cory's ears will be safe this year. As you guys have said, making a parody is hard, and I think teams are getting used to navigating through developing the idea, moulding the lyrics, recording properly, making a good video - and seeing great examples they can draw inspiration from.

Honestly, the girls and guys who can REALLY sing brought out their A-game this time, so I'm optimistic about the competition moving forward.

True, I did jump the gun quite a bit. The number of entries doubled overnight . While I haven't been able to watch them all yet, I'm hopeful. I do think it's indisputable, however, that majority of the FIRST population is becoming tired of parodies, and it's not something that can be sustainable in the long term.

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

To be honest, I think one of the issues is a lack of promotion. I think many people have seen or heard of the FIRST Rhapsody, but other than that, the list the OP linked is the first I've seen of the official submission or repository for all of the teams' submissions. Also, what the others have said about parodies being difficult is spot on. We FIRSTers are often a diverse and talented group of people, but I doubt many teams have the resources to accomplish a quality parody.

I don't have the numbers to back it up, but I'm fairly sure this year got fewer tweets, posts, and general promotion as last year. They rarely announce things like this at events or give any hint of its existence other than online. When it is offline, it's because the contest has already been completed. To be fair, though, it is a difficult task to promote in the offseason. Regardless, an entity as powerful as FIRST really should know how to handle promotion better.

[SpaceBiz]

1) After also having watched all of the videos, I think the overall quality went up from last year. Many teams that don't get an honorable mention this year would have easily gotten one last year. (assuming the same number of honorable mentions)

2) Our video isn't outstanding, but I had fun making it. I know everyone involved had a good time making it. We set out to make a FIRST parody music video with a video that wasn't overly cringey, and I would say we did just that. We learned a lot, and I think we can use the things we learned to make a better video next year if we so chose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgdjMcc25t4

3) I have been desensitized to cringe after watching all of last year's and this year's submissions.

4) I don’t see how teams making objectively lower quality music videos is different from teams making objectively lower quality robots. The product, the robot or in this case the video, is not what it’s about. It’s about the experience gained from trying to create the best product you can with the resources and experience you have.

HOWEVER

5) In general, these videos are a terrible way to “Make it Loud".

If a random high schooler watches a FIRST parody, what impression does it give them? What about a middle schooler? Adult?

Whatever you think the answer to that question is, I bet you would agree other types of videos do a better job of giving non-FIRST people a positive impression about FIRST. Isn’t that the ultimate goal of Making it Loud?

I think this is the main reason FIRST should consider putting a larger emphasis on promoting other team produced media instead of the music videos. Reveal vids, season recaps, weekly updates, competition videos, and more. These can more easily be done at a higher level, and they don’t almost always induce cringe.

[thedude019]

I like the concept of taking a song with a ton of words and then making it all robotics related. That's why our "We Didn't Start the Fire" parody worked out so well. But I didn't even see any form of promotion for the contest this year. We had some ideas for it being "The End of Worlds"

[Ringo5tarr]

I saw stuff like "FRC Rhapsody" and the other one, "We're gonna build a robot", which are the two that I consider actual parodies that are good, (I don't think "First can change the world" is actually parodying anything) to be good not because they advertised FIRST to the rest of the world, but it was a product of love for FIRST and all of the things that it had built up as their own inside jokes, people watch them and laugh at all the inside jokes and get sucked in by the references that are going by so fast that you con't even pick them up by the time they've past, but then the majority of parodies are A.) SLOW, allowing you to think Oh god, so much cringe. B.) not really using references, the songs ended up about being about FIRST in general, and usually in a way that doesn't let people say things like WATER GAME, and TOTES MA GOATS. C.) somehow, these people who (some of which) are going for an award that is based upon a video, don't know how to edit a video or manage audio.

If my team wasn't already making a parody, I would've tossed in my own video, it would probably be a parody of REMs "It's the end of the world as we know it" but instead we get a top cringe "Uptown Girl" parody, RIP.