The Anime Boston prescreenings

[Songbird21]

(Edited to reflect some responses)

Am I the only one who thinks the prescreenings are a bad idea? I think AB should use a panel of 5 or 6 judges instead. People who will make sure they are impartial and will take their task seriously. I've heard some upsetting stories about the prescreenings. Like if people don't like an anime or song they ignore the vid playing. My sister even told me she heard from a friend that went to one of the prescreenings that one person was trying to get their friend's vid into the contest so they marked all the other vids down on purpose in that catagory, just to get their friend in.

I also would like the judging of the contest to be done by a panel of judges. Your average audience member doesn't know much about the technical side of AMVs. They only know they like anime X and song Y and if they founf the vid entertaining. It would be cool if there was still an "Audience choice" award but everything else should be an impartial judging panel.

Yes this is partially spurned by my Inuyasha vid not getting in (Honestly everyone I showed it to is utterly shocked) but I've truthfully been thinking about it since last year.

Also, can anyone who was at the prescreenings tell me what they thought of my Inuyasha vid set to ET by Katy Perry? It was in romance. I'm just wondering why it didn't make it in.

[l33tmeatwad]

If you have a group of judges, you could end up with other complains about them being bias to certain styles/anime/songs/etc. There is no error free way to select finalists. All I can say is keep trying your hardest, even some of the best editors don't get their videos into every contest they enter into.

[Radical_Yue]

While I don't agree with everything you've said I will agree that judging videos while drunk or skipping videos based on source is fucked up.

For one, I'd feel offended if I found out that the people judging whether or not my video made it into the contest felt the need to get wasted just so they "could make it through."

Also, it's unfair to the contestants. I'm all for making it a party, but level headed opinions should be what the voting is based off of, not getting so messed up you don't even remember any of the videos by the end of it.

As for source discrimination, this is something the contest coordinator needs to take control of. Someone needs to say "You're not judging these videos based on what you like. It's based on what is the best of the best and nothing more." It's rather simple.

But then again, maybe I'm just biased from taking part in competent judging?

That being said, I've never entered Anime Boston before and now I'm pretty sure I'll never enter it in the future.

[aesling]

What Yue said. Sometimes your video just won't make it into a con, no matter how awesome you and your friends thought it was. However, getting completely smashed for a pre-screening is lame, stupid, and unprofessional. You guys should be utterly ashamed of yourselves.

[BasharOfTheAges]

I'd express all views over on the one people present at said event would actually read: http://forums.animeboston.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14690

[Ileia]

Before you guys condemn the whole thing, you might like to know that the rumors have been greatly exaggerated:

http://forums.animeboston.com/viewtopic ... 31#p224431


Edit: Damn, Bashar beat me >_>

[Warlike Swans]

Contests at Anime Conventions are events aimed at entertaining the audiences, and voting makes the audience more invested in the event. Even if audiences don't choose fairly, I still think it's better for them to have an event they can actually participate in.

I think the biggest flaw with prescreening is that the attention spans of prescreeners can't possibly hold steady over the course of hours, but I can't say I have a solution to mitigate that. I don't think prescreeners always do an ideal job, but I wouldn't be capable of keeping a rein on my attention span for the duration of a prescreening either.

[Songbird21]

I think the biggest flaw with prescreening is that the attention spans of prescreeners can't possibly hold steady over the course of hours, but I can't say I have a solution to mitigate that. I don't think prescreeners always do an ideal job, but I wouldn't be capable of keeping a rein on my attention span for the duration of a prescreening either.

Hmm. Perhaps hold the prescreenings over the course of 2 days? Or maybe having a half hour break in between?

The following is copied from the AB forums.

1.) In spite of how I play up the prescreenings as a get wasted off your ass party, the fact of the matter is that it is not nearly as wild as I play it up to be. Occasionally people do overdo it, but if that happens I toss their ballot. This year only one person got drunk, and he wasn't even a prescreener. Just a roommate of a couple of the prescreeners who showed up unannounced. In spite of everything we say, we actually do take our jobs seriously.

Ah. I see. I was misinformed then. Sorry about that.

There are a lot of prescreeners. 27 this year in fact. Even if one person does deliberately try and torpedo a video by giving it a zero, or giving every single video a zero except for one favorite a zero, just the sheer numbers alone cancel it out. They would have to get just about everyone to vote with them to affect the outcome.

Hmm. I see your point.

Being told you win because you chose a popular anime or song is simply an occupational hazard of making anime music videos and entering them into contests. If you are not prepared for that criticism, then you really should not be entering contests. Take the lesson of Tom the Fish as an example.

I'm not saying it's something that devistates my world but it's just frustrating. Tom was kind of a jerk though (At least from the examples of his behavior I've seen) That was where a lot of his criticism came from.

Lastly, I go through this every year. No one is ever guaranteed to make the contest. Some years you make it, some you don't. That's just the way it is. You have made the contest in prior years and won. Take pride in that fact.

I do, but like I said it wasn’t just this year that made me think about this. It’s been in my head for a couple of years in fact.

I hope you don’t take my letter as an attack. It’s just the result of some concerns I had about the prescreenings. My vid not making it in this year was just the thing that made me finally voice my concerns. This contest is my one big thing every year. It’s one of the few points of my existence I take pride in so when I don’t make it in it’s devastating to me. I have a very easily bruised ego. Mostly because I don’t see much in myself. I hope you’re not made at me. *hug*

[Shin-AMV]

For all the contests I've entered, I've found that whether it ends up being a larger sampling size of prescreeners, a panel of judges, or just one judge there is going to be some level of disagreement on what should have been a finalist or other strange anomalies.

From what I've seen from past years of the AB finalist lists they've managed to put on a good show and keep it pretty competitive overall, and for the majority of the categories this year it seems the level of competition was pretty steep not just in terms of quantity but also quality just based on familiar names of people saying they qualified or didn't qualify.

[Vlad G Pohnert]

Why is it that every con contest must use the same system i.e. panel of Judges, etc... I have my opinions, but still repect how the contest is chosen to run so long as it's reasonably fair (and that is subjective too)...

In the end, there are so many contests out there that everyone has a choice to enter those they feel asre judged to thier standards or opinions

Vlad