Author: Katarh Mest

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ENTM Scenic Cycle: Call for Photographers and Judges

The Experiment

Hi everyone! Katarh Mest here, as usual, your friendly cycle-formerly-known-as-Tumblr host, and now the website administrator for our site.

We’ve got two months to kill until Shadowbringers, and a couple months ago we tossed around the idea of a model-free version of ENTM in our Screenshot Fun channel on the Discord. Some folks aren’t so great at taking shots of their characters, but put out absolutely stunning photographic images. So why shouldn’t we allow them a chance to show off too?

And thus, Scenic Cycle was born.

Here’s the plan

  • 10 Photographers
  • 3-4 Permanent Judges, in pure “jury panel” format
  • Weekly Rounds
  • Anonymous judging each round, with no community judging involved
  • No Eliminations (however if you miss two rounds, you are assumed to have quit the competition and will no longer be judged)
  • No character models inside the shot (NPCs may be used but should not be the subject and probably not that close up at all)
  • Gpose only, no Reshade or Mods (how do you even mod the environment…?)
  • Must have the FFXIV copyright information in the corner (no cropping or third party apps allowed)

I’m also going to do things a bit differently in terms of the “audition.”

ENTRIES FOR THIS CYCLE ARE FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE!

Timeline

I can just hear Rongi now: Kat, you’re crazy! But here me out: We’ve got about two months until Shadowbringers, and a lot of our models like to hem and haw and wait until the last minute to get an audition in. This is, above all, an experimental cycle. Photographers, SPEED is going to be the name of the game. I need to know you can get a shot in within our weekly deadlines and not delay us. And unlike a character shot, it’s pretty difficult to take a bad landscape shot.

  • May 4th at 10:00 PM EDT – Entries open.
  • May 11th: Photographers announced, round themes send to judges and cast
  • May 17th: Round 1 shots due (will be posted the next day)
  • May 25th: Round 2 shots due
  • June 1st: Round 3
  • June 8th: Round 4
  • June 15th: Round 5
  • June 22: Round 6

This cycle will be a six week commitment. Please do not enter if you won’t be able to participate for the entire contest! I will be running this again, don’t worry! Failure to get a shot in before the weekly deadline will result in a ranking of last place for the week. Missing two shots will result in your being removed from the competition for the remainder of the cycle.

Weekly winners will be announced by character after anonymous judging is completed. Overall cycle winner will be announced on or around June 23rd.

How To Audition

  1. Join our Discord if you haven’t already (click on this link to join!)
  2. Find Katarh Mest under the Admins and send her a DM with the following: Your Character Name, Your Server, and a landscape screenshot
  3. The Entry Round theme is: Stormblood Reflections! Using the Echo filter only. This shot must also be landscape orientation (wider than it is tall), with roll angle of 100. (NO DUTCH ANGLE. NO.) It must be in a Stormblood zone. If your shot does not follow these rules, I’ll return the shot and tell you to redo it. 😛
  4. Alternately, send that same information in an email to eorzeasntm at gmail dot com. (You do not have to join our Discord to participate, but it’s a lot more fun when you do. Photographers will have their own dedicated chat room.)
  5. Your entry is accepted when I reply back with a Verified Audition number.
  6. Once I have my 10 photographers, the entries will be closed. I will follow up with an announcement here.

And about those Judges

I am looking for at least 3-4 folks willing to act as judges. Your responsibility each week will be to rank the photographs in a Google Poll, using golf scoring (with 1 as the strongest/highest and 10 as the weakest) and provide at least one line of commentary per photo, each week. Judging is not limited to first come first serve 😛 But please get back to me ASAP if you are interested.

If you are one of the Top 4 of any previous ENTM cycle, or you have been a judge for us previously, or you are one of our community partners from Hydalaen International, and you have some talent with photography and feel like you’d be a good judge for this crazy contest, please DM Katarh Mest with your character name, server, and a one sentence explanation of why you would be a good fit. (E.g. I won a different landscape contest, I took an art class in college, or I just really like landscape shots and I curate them in a blog.)

Let’s do this!

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ENTM on A Stage Reborn LIVE!

https://www.astagereborn.com/news/a-stage-reborn-live-episode-2-talent-worth-1000-words/

Rongi Pongi: Excited to announce that Katarh, Misia, and myself will be special guests on A Stage Reborn’s livestream tomorrow (May 5th) at 6pm Pacific Time! We will be recording LIVE from our HQ on Lamia, so come join us if youre free and listen in!

ENTM HQ is located in the basement of Katarh’s private house on Lamia server: Plot 8, 6th Ward, The Goblet. This is an RP house and is open access, so feel free to visit any time!

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May 2019 Monthly Challenge

Hi folks! Welcome to ENTM’s shiny new website, and welcome to our first official Monthly Challenge outside of Tumblr!

The rules for monthly challenges aren’t changing, just where we post the announcements. You do not need to have any social media account to participate in our monthly challenges. You also do not need to have ever competed in an ENTM cycle! Monthly challenges are the only ENTM contest that has a tangible prize so we throw this wide open to the whole FFXIV screen shot community. New people are always welcome.

May Monthly Challenge: Gilgamesh

Schan Starfall, the April challenge winner, loves the character of Gilgamesh – and she especially loves his quotes! For the May challenge, take a shot inspired by any part of Greg’s zany in-game dialogue. (Gamer Escape has the full script of many of the Hildibrand quests, if you need some refreshers.)

Will you perform a summoning after a requisite beating, or will you fight like men – or ladies – or ladies dressed like men?!

Entries will be accepted until May 23 2019.

The Rules

ENTM contests are open to the general screenshot community. You do not have to have participated in any ENTM contest before. You must, however, be a member of our Discord community to see the winner’s announcement. ENTM monthly contest screenshots must be “vanilla” – no mods, no Reshade, and no post processing allowed. You must include the FFXIV copyright notice on the shot to allow us to post on our website for voting. Please submit one (1) original screenshot for this contest, not used in any other contest before or posted on social media. Also please include the character name for voting. No other restrictions apply beyond these and the challenge theme as described above. Do not taunt happy fun ball.