MisterFurious wrote:
It may seem like it's fair to "give other creators a chance" against a video that has previously won elsewhere, but isn't the whole point of competition to see who is really "the best," not "the best of what hasn't won yet"? I mean, are we in elementary school, where everyone is supposed to get a shot at being on the dodge ball team?
But how many wins is enough to justify newer videos getting knocked out for 4 year old winning videos?
If I remember correctly, one year, there was this one Fate Stay Night AMV that made it into the action category and it was a winner as it was a winner in other cons 4 years prior. Doesn't that hurt the competition a little bit as well? Not only does it hurt the competition, but it also tells the creator of the newer AMVs that "AX only wants winning videos, why bother sending at all?"
Also, to add to this, the "best" of the "best" is very opinionated. I was told that some of my AMVs were the best they have seen...while others said that they were crap and unwatchable.
So the whole "the best of what hasn't won yet" seems kind of an insult. Are you saying that if a video hasn't won something, it doesn't even deserve to be in a "best" overall title, regardless if it's in a category of winners or against videos that haven't won yet?
Speaking for myself, winning at a contest where other entries were DQ'ed that were probably better than mine would be bittersweet at best. I want to have the opportunity to win fair and square against the best that can be seen in that contest. If any other creators are looking forward to an empty victory like that just for the sake of winning, then they're probably expecting a free ride from government programs, too (but I digress - see my rant about the entitlement mentality on my Facebook page).
This is also kinda subjective... Every rule has its flaws. Sure, it may be the "best", but it's only a matter of opinion of the judges. Everyone's video is under the opinion of what the judges think are the "best." If one truly wants to be "fair and square", why not just let the audience pick from the entire mass of entries as the best ones? But that's impossible, isn't it? It'll tire the audience out. No matter what, nothing can really be "fair and square."
Allowing winning video also hurts the competition and the audience, as I'll get to that in a minute.
How do these rules hurt the audience, you ask? It is hard for members of our community to believe, but there is still a large portion of convention attendees that don't bother with going to the full contest on night one, because they only care about the winners. Two years ago, when the awards ceremony was turned into a re-screen, there was a lot of complaining on other non-AMV message boards about how AX "forced" attendees to watch all the nominees because, "I only wanted to see the winners." At Otakon, DQ'ed videos are screened in blocks with all the other entries that didn't make the finals. Needless to say, these are far less attended than the finalist screening, so not only does the creator "lose" because of winning, but the audience that goes to the contest to see the best videos at the con actually are not, because the ones that won previously are not allowed in.
I don't get how one can lose because of winning. They've already won and more than likely, their videos were shown time and time again at other conventions, even possibly conventions in the same state where people have already seen it more than once already. Truth be told, I think the ones who don't get in at all due to those winning AMVs pushing them back are the ones that lose, not the other way around.
I can't tell you how many times (no offense to Shin, as I do love this AMV) I've seen Safety Dance. I can only stand seeing that AMV so many times before getting bored of it. And that goes for the audience as well.
The one year I went to Anime LA, Fanime and AX in the same year...I saw the same AMV get in at all three times. By the second time, I was bored out of my mind of it. More than likely, if I can go to these same cons, so can audience. And if they go to one AMV contest, what makes you think they do not go to others? And I also know there are fanatic con-goers who go to other cons as well, in different states. How do you think they feel to pay a plane ticket to see the same lineup again and again in not one state, but several?
This year at AX, more than half the audience seats in the first AMV showing were empty. My guess is that the audience got bored with the selected AMVs before they were even shown, and that's sad.
Even Otakon's trolling rule is imperfect at best, because the cut-off date is the entry deadline. This leaves the field wide open to videos that have won at cons that take place after their deadline (including AX), meaning that Otakon is "the best of what hasn't won anything before <insert entry deadline here>." I realize that the purpose of this is so that creators have a chance to submit something else if their video is DQ'ed, but IMHO, if there is to be a real trolling rule, creators have to accept the possibility that if their video wins an award at some other, smaller convention, they may get left out of AX without a chance to re-submit. That will give them an incentive to submit to AX first, which is what I think is the real objective here.
The creator knows what kind of cons they're submitting to. If they want their videos to be at a big-name convention and contest, they can hold off on submitting to smaller conventions, or send their older winning videos to those conventions instead. After all, this is what Akross does and I don't see anyone having a problem with it.