Anime Mid Atlantic 12 AMV contest: FINALISTS!

[Squancho]

ONLINE ENTRIES ONLY!

Please read thoroughly!

Submission deadline - Friday, May 11, 2012 11:59 PM EST
There will be NO EXTENSION beyond this date!
All entries MUST be submitted no later then this.
Any entry arriving later will not be considered, so make sure to get them in ASAP!!!
** If you know your entry will be a day or two late, you must contact me BEFORE the deadline passes. **


Contact the AMV Coordinator: deuceloosely4711@gmail.com for more information.


Yes, this is also where to send your entries.
Please use Sendspace, YouSendIt, Mediafire or any reputable upload site and send the download link to this email address.

AMV Categories

There will be six categories this year.
Drama
Romance
Action
Comedy
UpBeat / Dance
Most Annoying
(You love it and revile it all at once. It's a category for those videos that don't really fit in anywhere. Just as the title implies, your mission is to make the most annoying video possible. The music can be grating, the video can be riddled with errors, repetitive, inappropriate to the song, etc. Imagination and tact are good tools to have when constructing one of these. It isn't as easy as you think to be intentionally bad. See last year's category finalists for examples.)

The audience will vote for the top videos in each category as well as Viewers Choice.
Other special awards include:
Best in Show (our judging panel's award for best overall video)
Coordinator's Choice
Con Chair's Award

Once the deadline passes and we have all our entries, the AMV staff will screen them all to determine the field of finalists.

The screening will utilize a fairly strict scoring system.
Your entry must pass a quality check (sound clarity and video quality, mainly).
Then it will be judged on several technical factors, although entertainment value is extremely important.
No one on the screening panel will be shown or told the name / identity of any of the submissions' editors.
Once all the numbers are in, the math will be done and the highest-scoring entries will pass on to the finals (posted one week before the convention).


Submission Form

You must include a separate form for each AMV that you submit.
It must accompany the download link in the email you send.
The form should be nothing more then a normal .txt file that contains the following information:

- Full legal name
- Nickname / Studio name (if applicable)
- Mailing address
- Telephone number (including area code)
- Email address
- Title of AMV
- Song title(s) and artist(s)
- Name of source video footage
- Category

You must include ALL of that information before your video will be considered for the contest. If you are unsure about any of the source information (anime, song titles, etc) please look it up, as it is all crucial information.

Please name your files in this format:
video: “category - your name – video title.avi”
info: “category - your name – video title.txt”


Submission Format

All submissions must meet the following standards:
- 720 x 480 resolution
- 29.97 fps -OR- 23.976 fps with 3:2 pulldown
- Non-Interlaced video (Progressive scan)
- 48000 Hz audio (two-channel stereo)
The following formats will be accepted, provided that they meet the above standards:

Video (in order of preference):
- MPEG 2
- MPEG 1
- HuffYUV avi
- Uncompressed avi
- Divx avi
- Xvid avi
- mp4 (encoded to x264 ONLY...NO Quicktime)
Audio:
- Uncompressed wav (PCM)
- MPEG audio (mp3, mp2, etc.)


AMV Rules

0) This should go without saying, but plagiarism will NOT be tolerated! Any attempt to submit the work belonging to anyone other than yourself will result in you being BLACKLISTED from the Anime Mid Atlantic AMV contest now and in the future.

1) All entries *MUST* conform to the formats listed above.

2) NO BUMPERS or CREDITS will be permitted! We will provide title screens to introduce each entry for the finals.

3) A maximum of three submissions per person, one per category, is allowed.

4) Entries must be at least 1 minute in length and not to exceed 5m30s running time. They must contain at least 75% Japanese animation. Live action is allowed as long as your video remains mostly anime / video game. If you do use video game sources, make sure they are Japanese-produced.

5a) Submissions should be no more than 6 months old or close to it.
5b) Anti-trolling rules are in effect. Do not enter a video if it has won three major awards (best of category, viewers choice, best in show). If you enter several contests and your video wins its third award after the Anime Mid Atlantic submission deadline has passed, it will NOT count against you.

6) ** IMPORTANT! ** This contest will be viewed by a general audience (all-ages) so try and maintain a PG-rating. Absolutely NO sexual content, excessive violence, or profanity will be permitted. Anything that is questionable will be shown to both the judging panel and con chair for further review. The bottom line: con chair has the FINAL WORD!

7) Your video will be returned to you for alteration or disqualified if there are any logos, watermarks, or fan-produced subtitles - CHECK YOUR WORK before submitting! You ARE allowed to produce your own subtitles.

8) All entries must be accompanied by a completely filled-out submission form. (see above) We can't stress this enough!

9) All submitted materials become the property of Anime Mid Atlantic and are non-returnable.

10) Submissions with significant audio or visual degradation will not be accepted.
(PROTIP: do not make AMVs with downloaded video or poor-sounding audio.)

11) Prizes will be presented during a formal award show yet to be scheduled (although I'm pushing for Saturday night). If the contestant is not attending the convention or must leave before the award show, their awards will be mailed out after the convention courtesy of Anime Mid Atlantic. Please allow 4-6 weeks maximum for delivery.

12) DVD copies of the contest will not be available due to legal concerns.

13) Anime Mid Atlantic is not responsible for lost, stolen, misdirected, or damaged entries, prizes, etc.

14) We reserve the right to reject any video for any reason. Rules are subject to change. If any major changes are necessary to make your entry suitable for screening, we will contact you as soon as possible.

15) All members of the Anime Mid Atlantic AMV Staff and judging panel are prohibited from entering this contest. They may still submit their videos to be shown during the non-competitive exhibition.

If you have any questions, email deuceloosely4711@gmail.com for more details.

Bring us your best and tell your friends who edit AMVs that we're up and running.

One more thing...expect PONIES!

Now...GO!

[Scintilla]

ALSO please attach the following to the info (for "legal reasons")...
"By submitting a video to the Anime Mid Atlantic 12 AMV Contest, I am representing that this video does not violate anyone's rights and that I own all copyrights in this video or have authorization to upload it."

It's become such a tradition for me to laugh at the similar clause in Anime Expo's AMV contest rules every year, that it's somewhat bizarre to see another contest I've actually heard of suddenly adopting one as well.


(Even AX toned down that clause this year so that the entrants are not outright attesting that they DO have the rights, but instead just agreeing that the con has no liability if anybody sues.)

[SammySamaProductions]

YAY! Waiting for the thread to post ^_^ You'll have entries from me for sure and expect a really annoying one this year ;P

[drewaconclusion]

You'll have entries from me for sure and expect a really annoying one this year ;P

I'm sure the audience will just love you for it.

[BasharOfTheAges]

ALSO please attach the following to the info (for "legal reasons")...
"By submitting a video to the Anime Mid Atlantic 12 AMV Contest, I am representing that this video does not violate anyone's rights and that I own all copyrights in this video or have authorization to upload it."

It's become such a tradition for me to laugh at the similar clause in Anime Expo's AMV contest rules every year, that it's somewhat bizarre to see another contest I've actually heard of suddenly adopting one as well.


(Even AX toned down that clause this year so that the entrants are not outright attesting that they DO have the rights, but instead just agreeing that the con has no liability if anybody sues.)

Not to mention, requiring someone to sign an affidavit or otherwise affirm falsely like this will hold no weight legally, and will only serve to really piss off the presiding judge if you ever dared to bring such statements into a court room. Let the record clearly show (by this very thread's posts as evidence of public knowledge), any such affirmation is knowingly false to the community at large - there is no plausible deniability. If anything, it puts you at more legal risk.

[Squancho]

I guess so.
*shrug*
The court will strike that statement from the record.

[SammySamaProductions]

6) ** IMPORTANT! ** This contest will be viewed by a general audience (all-ages) so try and maintain a PG-rating. Absolutely NO sexual content, excessive violence, or profanity will be permitted. Anything that is questionable will be shown to both the judging panel and con chair for further review. The bottom line: con chair has the FINAL WORD!

okay I just wanted to make sure before I finished this up and sent it to you. It says No sexual content, does that apply to video footage as well as audio? hypothetically if the song mentions sex would that be a no no? Just wanted to know exactly what that applied to. The song isn't risque but does a a mention or two...

[Squancho]

6) ** IMPORTANT! ** This contest will be viewed by a general audience (all-ages) so try and maintain a PG-rating. Absolutely NO sexual content, excessive violence, or profanity will be permitted. Anything that is questionable will be shown to both the judging panel and con chair for further review. The bottom line: con chair has the FINAL WORD!

okay I just wanted to make sure before I finished this up and sent it to you. It says No sexual content, does that apply to video footage as well as audio? hypothetically if the song mentions sex would that be a no no? Just wanted to know exactly what that applied to. The song isn't risque but does a a mention or two...

No hentai.
Mentioning sex is okay but not in any explicit manner (as in specific, graphic terms).
If you think a word or phrase is objectionable, just bleep it out somehow.

[SammySamaProductions]

k good, I think with some clever audio editing I should be safe.

Is this the last year before the next battle of the greats contest? -that is if that is still going to continue- I was just curious to see if I'd done my math right and I quite enjoyed the Battle of the Greats the other year. It was great to see the best of the best again ^_^

[Squancho]

If we do it again, it would be next year.
It seems doubtful that a second contest will happen, though, given time and budget constraints.
Perhaps a showcase of some kind?
I'll have to think about it...in about a year.