Dan- the last Honorable Mention was Nappy's second entry, "Can't Stop the Rock"
Vancore- I'm pretty certain that he's right about the winners- I was there for the announcement and presentation of the last 4 awards (Drama, Best in Show, Best Tech, and Best Original Concept). I missed the Staff, Action, and Theme awards. Admittedly, to my knowledge there has been no official announcement outside of the rather ghetto way the awards were handed out at the convention, so we can't totally put any questions about it to rest.
Three of the honorable mentions were recommended by the judges that did the pre-final judging, and they were basically used to reward videos that were deserving of recognition but had been unfairly (in our opinions) denied the chance to be seen by the 'larger' audience (see the end of this post on that...) by being excluded from the actual contest (two of them we still don't know why they were cut, one was cut due to being the editor's secondary entry). The last was apparently awarded by the final judges. It was also hinted to us when we asked whether or not we could make Honorable Mention recommendations that there was a good chance the finalists that were not actually awarded anything would be given HM's as well- which I'm actually rather pissed did not happen, as some
excellent videos went otherwise unrecognized.
Metro- You know, I was wondring about that... at one point in the prescreening I actually went up and check with Julius and Quu as to whether you had two or three entries in the contest, and they only had two listed. I need to watch
Everyday when I get back home- there
was a Macross Plus video in the pre-screening, but I can't remember what music it was set to (I remember it in particular because the ending had a decent bit in common with my own Eden 12/24).
Glory was another one of our favorites... IIRC, it was one of the videos strongly in contention for the final 3 in Drama- but there were just so many excellent Drama vids...
Midnight/MITTERNACHT are the same thing (Mitternacht is German for 'Midnight').
Tom- Your videos were shown at the pre-screening, but I know at least the Hello Kitty video was not put into the contest due to having won at Anime Boston. I'm not sure about the other one- I remember there being another entry from you, but I don't remember exactly what it was
suberunker- Yes, that would likely have been your Utena video we're talking about. All of us loved it, and were rather put out that it (like trythil's "Always") was not in the actual contest. It was however shown during the AMV Iron Chef, and got a very good reaction from the audience.
[rant]
As Dan said, the contest was not without what we would call 'issues'. As was previously noted, the video that won "Best in Show" (I'm pretty damn sure it was MITTERNACHT, but even if it was Phenomenon) was not even one of the pre-final judging recommendations for "Best in Show". Nothing at
all against MITTERNACHT- it's a damn good video- but the pre-final judges were quite certain and set in the three that were recommended for Best of Show. We were under the impression that the Guests of Honor that did the final judging would not only be given the tape of the videos that were in the final three of each category but also the list of recommendations (complete with their rankings from the pre-judging). Basically, what I think all of us were concerned would happen when we heard how the final judging would happen came true- the final judges in many cases threw out the pre-judging recommendations, in some cases quite spectacularly (i.e., Best of Show). Based on how things came out, it appears that the judges may have just been given a tape with all the finalist videos on it and told what the awards they had to choose were, and not even given the listing of what videos were supposed to be up for what awards- which would just really suck for a couple of the videos.
Of one particular concern was that I believe two of the three finals judges were Japanese Guests of Honor (I know at least one was from talking with her). To some extent, I think this was the case due to the way the awards worked out- The video that won Best in Show against the recommendations of the pre-judging was in a language (German) that likely none of the judges were really familiar with, and at least one and I think two of the winning videos were instrumentals. I especially think that the Japanese GoHs would have a realy hard time judging the Theme category well- as, well, what we consider nostalgic for the 80's would differ from what they would consider '80's'. I can't fault the finals judges though, all told. I'm sure they did their best. I just think that the whole concept of having a small number of Guests of Honor who may not be particularly in tune with AMVs is not a good idea. If the judges were, say, celebrity AMVers (for example, I would have been quite happy if EK or Brett Weaver had been judges) or video professionals, or at least directors.
I very seriously think things overall were not handled the best this year at all - on the non-technical side of things. I believe Quu and SailorDeath did a very good job of running the technical side of things and dealing with the few small problems that cropped up. But on the planning and execution of a number of the things, I think there were a
lot of problems.
First off, the primary contest showing was held at 9:00 AM on Saturday. I'm used to seeing rooms
packed for AMV contests at conventions. When the showing started (only 5 minutes or so late), the room couldn't have been more than 1/5 full. Contrast this with the pre-screening showing the night before starting at 7:00 PM in one of the panel rooms, where the room was
packed, with people sitting on almost every available non-aisle floor space and standing severeal layers deep i nthe back of the room, many of whom stayed until after mid-night. I honestly think more people saw the first 3-4 hours of the pre-screening than saw the first half of the actual contest showing. The scheduling just truly and honestly sucked. Most of my friends that were at the con missed it because they (like a large number of the con-goers) simply weren't up and about that early.
Second, rules and blanked eliminations need to be applied evenly across the board and without exceptions. There were some good videos that were cut because of having not followed the rules (the 'no title card' rules on being the biggest one people didn't pay attention to) and several excluded due to the trolling rules. However, several were
not taken out of the contest in spite of violations of these, which meant several other excellent videos that had not violated any rules at all got excluded.
Finally, all of the final judging had problems. It really felt like it was all thrown together at the last minute. Those of us who ended up doing the pre-judging were given very little direction as to what we should be judging and how we should be doing it- for a while there was even some confusion amongst us as to what the overall categories were. Add onto that what I would consider apparent problems with the true final judging, and the whole thing just went all to hell.
Given all of this,
especially what seems to have happened with the final judging, I very strongly believe that
ALL of the finalist videos Dan listed should be given Honorable Mentions. While I don't believe it would be fair to try and change the results, I very strongly believe that a few of the editors got very much screwed in the end, and that they at least deserve some form of official recognition for their efforts.
[/rant]
(just an aside note: I do not count myself among those who got screwed over. Well, OK- I did get screwed over or more accurately rather badly pwned- but that was because Nappy made such a damn good video.

His video(s) just rocked and blew the other comedy entries away.)