The AWA 2014 Professional Awards Video Review Thread

[Rider4Z]

I've seen those on deviantart. good stuff.

Ok, I went through the finalists one more time and I made a few adjustments. My votes are now final. I'm a little sad that I have to choose between a lot of these. me gusta very much. I also loooooove the anonymity of this contest.

Spoiler :

[Scintilla]

I'm going to say that I have no idea how well the nominees for Best Storytelling stack up against each other as far as the VAT-specific criteria of the category are concerned, because I haven't seen the video sources underlying over half of them, so I don't know how original the stories being told are.

But I do know what I like.

[jingoro]

I'm going to say that I have no idea how well the nominees for Best Storytelling stack up against each other as far as the VAT-specific criteria of the category are concerned, because I haven't seen the video sources underlying over half of them, so I don't know how original the stories being told are.

But I do know what I like.

That's all we could ever ask. Thank you.

[The Wired Knight]

I'm going to say that I have no idea how well the nominees for Best Storytelling stack up against each other as far as the VAT-specific criteria of the category are concerned, because I haven't seen the video sources underlying over half of them, so I don't know how original the stories being told are.

But I do know what I like.

That's all we could ever ask. Thank you.

Clearly you haven't tried voting by Ouji Board yet.

[CrackTheSky]

What was with the Best of Show finalists? Most of the categories were pretty straightforward for me but there was nothing there that deserved Best in Show, IMO. Oh well, now we wait.

[MaboroshiStudio]

What was with the Best of Show finalists? Most of the categories were pretty straightforward for me but there was nothing there that deserved Best in Show, IMO. Oh well, now we wait.

yeah BIS was rather mixed for me as well... nothing really stood out this year.

[Cyanna]

In addition to the winner reveals, I'm really looking forward to the editor reveals.

There were two videos in particular that I took a stab at guessing the editor based on their previous work. One of my guesses hasn't poked their face in the threads to leave a comment (as far as I know) so I don't know if they even participated. But the other...

Grah! I need to know if I'm right!

[jingoro]

All voting is now closed.

I want to encourage everyone to start building some hype! The nominations are public knowledge... if you're nominated, brag about it now that you can openly admit which videos are yours. Let people know to come cheer during the awards show. Request your entries during our request blocks, yes we WILL show them, even though the awards show hasn't happened yet. We want your help building the excitement so that everyone knows Grand Panel is the place to be come 3:30 PM on Saturday. Be creative!

I cannot wait! This is going to be a great year! It's our 15th VAT, and AWA's 20th year!

Thank you, everyone,
-Jingoro

[drewaconclusion]

I noticed a sudden drop in reviews this year - doubt that will change though even after voting is closed. As to winners, very few of my picks actually made it into the finals list so I had to pick all new winners for a lot of them O_o

I just kind of kept forgetting to post mine. I typed these up as I was watching the videos.

Spoiler :

#006 - I found this rather enjoyable.
#015 - The lip sync works surprisingly well.
#018 - This kept a nice mood to it.
#033 - No comment
#034 - I loved the fake studio bumpers. Since this was for a musical, I was hoping to see some lip sync in there; that could also just be me thinking how I'd go about doing this combination though.
#041 - No comment
#042 - The pace of the footage felt too slow for the song.
#043 - Well, I didn't find the dirty film look bothersome like so many others here did. However, I would've opted for a different damaged film look. The rotoscoped elements looked far too crisp in contrast to the original footage quality; especially since the Azumanga Daioh footage looks like a rather rough upscale. Also, the TF2 footage feels sorely out of place. All that said, the concept was creative.
#048 - The image quality was pretty rough and there wasn't really any sync.
#051 - Alias ALL the edges!
#062 - I found the camera motion to be rather distracting.
#064 - Must've been edited by the same person as 062. The camera motion's more tolerable here, but the overlays feel more in the way. This one's the more enjoyable of the two videos.
#066 - Welcome to the AMV Advertising System...
#068 - Bet I can guess who made this.
#069 - Excellent scene selection, but I wasn't crazy about the lip sync.
#070/071 - I think I get what you were trying to do, but I think you would be better served by not overlaying on top of live action/anime footage and instead animating the whole scene with pixel art.
#072 - I'm not really fond of having text in a video just for the sake of having text. That said, I did enjoy the video overall. I laughed at the multiply scene (not sure that I was supposed to).
#073 - This video makes me want to quickly fade away.
#074 - How does no one notice a guy running around naked with a chainsaw inside of an apartment building?
#075 - I wasn't too into it when the video was starting, but by the end I really enjoyed it. Nice escalation in tension.
#084 - This wasn't unenjoyable, but it's hard not to compare it Driftroot's The Kingdom of L.F.S. The lip sync was a bit rough around the edges.
#085 - ef footage? Check. Lots of footage of the sky? Check. Lots of spinning shots? Check. High volume of random couples? Check. Yep, it's a generic dance amv.
#086 - This would probably have more meaning to me if I knew anything about the show. The sequence at 0:23 made me think of the “... Doesn't Change Facial Expression” meme.
#088 - I didn't find this funny, but the choices for facial expressions were great.
#089 - What the heck was with the intro and random kyubey's?
#091 - Strange, but highly amusing.
#095 - Good source pairing. Quite a bit of lip flap going on here, which made me unsure if the ending was actually supposed to be lip synced.
#098 - I laughed when the video first came on, thinking of where the source pairing could go. However, it didn't go where I was hoping and felt anti-climatic. Had you followed the rise in tension in the song instead of just following along the plot of Shiki, I think this would have been dynamite.
#099 - Cute video. Masking could use some polishing, but definitely a cute video.
#100 - Follow up to last year's candyshop video?
#101 - Well, here's the obligatory multi-source, live-action apocalyptic/dystopian video for this year.
#105 - No comment
#106 - No comment
#107 - I would've voted this for Best in Show had there been a .gif of ngsilver dancing from his KoS video. Actually, I'll nominate this for Best in Show for shits and giggles.
#108 - This was different.
#109 - The song cuts were really noticeable. Starts off as a psychedelic mood piece and just devolves into generic FLCL action; like the editor just didn't know where the hell they wanted the video to go.
#110 - Cute, but there's a distinct lack of sync.
#111 - This song seems to suit the happy-go-lucky to violent tonal changes the show has.
#112 - This must've been made by someone Russian. Either that or the editor couldn't make up their mind whether they wanted to make a comedy or an action and instead half-assed it in both directions.
#113 - Such literal lyric sync there.
#114 - Cute little romance video.
#115 - Nice to see the finished version.
#116 - You'd think this was a direct continuation of 115.
#117 - Nope.
#118 - Such nipples, very bright, wow
#119 - I was wondering from the get go how Attack on Titan was going to be involved in this. I was pleasantly surprised. Don't know if this was intended as an homage to the original Godzilla or not. Really wish this had been fleshed out to be a bit longer of a video; it ended too abruptly.
#120 - The only good thing about this video is the image quality. Also, One Direction and Frozen? Someone's trying real hard to pander to the tweenies.
#121 - Takes too long to get going, and then goes nowhere.
#122 - Tonally spot on, but lacking a lot of sync.
#123 - Gee, who knew all that footage was in Futurama?
#124 - I think I know who did this since they said they were going to be doing a Fallout Boy video some months back and this reeks of their style.
#125 - Those glasses in the intro...
#126 - So many eye transitions. It's like a love letter to Shin.
#127 - MAMA SAID Y U NO USE BLURAY?
#128 - The footage and editing don't keep the pace of the song once the song picks up tempo.
#129 - Anyone else notice during the video wall parts that each of the sub-images aren't lined up with the others? So someone hand duplicated each one instead of using something like the replicate effect.
#130 - Felt like a run of the mill Princess Tutu video.
#131 - If this video swims as good as it engages emotions and interest, then it'd be sleeping with the fishes.
#132 - Definitely got the look and feel of a generic political candidate ad down pretty well. The lip sync could use some rework though.
#133 - Similarly to 084, I have a hard time not comparing this video to one of kireblue's.
#134 - This is a little rough around the edges, but is still pretty good. I enjoyed it.
#135 - The polygonal masks weren't lined up and didn't look good at all. The splitscreen cuts didn't do anything for me either.
#136 - This started off pretty good. However, the two different shows don't really mesh well (in particular the mechs and tech of Code Geass) and it kind of lost me as a result.
#137 - …
#142 - A severely missed opportunity here. The footage doesn't live up to the content of the song. Feels like a generic dance/upbeat video.

[MycathatesyouAMV]

Since we can, I made 109 and 112.