Kayura wrote:The judge of the contest and his helper were also entered in the contest. They won in every category, go figure. Including an overwhelming landslide victory in the comedy category. There was a lot of controversy surrounding this contest. There was even mention of someone stealing a video and entering it with a new title screen.
Entrants were forced to attend or be disqualified. The Claymore video was awesome and wasn't allowed to compete, because it most likely would have won. Hopefully next year there won't be the same judges.
I flew to Las Vegas for Labor Day weekend... I stayed at Bally's (fully comped, thankyouverymuch) and took the monorail to the convention. Shall I say, Anime Vegas was very underwhelming, and this is despite that 3-4 of my favorite English dub actors were there. No game room. Smallish dealer's room. Maid cafe was OK, though. However, reading about this makes me just go -- WOW. The kicker? On-site registration for all three days -- the only badge available -- was $60. I truly can't justify that price for such a small convention. Otakon I can understand. Anime Vegas? No, especially considering Anime Vegas was being held at the hotel next door to the convention center, and not the convention center itself.
I entered my Otakon video in the contest. The whole entering thing was a mess, too. Since there was no official entry form, I put a text file with all the pertinent information about my video on the CD, as well as a hard copy on paper sent with my CD. The coordinator then asks me to e-mail him a text file of the info. I kindly suggested that he use the information I had provided him on the CD, in the hard copy, and in a previous e-mail I sent him. Then he e-mails me back, INSISTING that I "should put all that info in a text file and everything with all the info that's enclosed on the website that has the rules with it or else the video will be disqualified." Really not wanting to argue with him further, I did what he told me, adding that "this arguing over this requirement for a text file attachment is quite silly if you ask me." Ugggggh.
I did get to see my video shown at Anime Vegas, and it got a very nicely favorable reaction from the crowd. It disheartens me to hear that the coordinators entered their own videos and unsurprisingly won in their categories. It disheartened me even more that almost every video entered (in my category at least) looked like complete and utter ass -- I mean, worse than the worst YouTue quality.
I guess I have to chalk this one up to experience and dealing with AMV coordinators that have less than a clue as to how such a contest should be run.... (Speaking of which, I *never* *did* get my prize from Fan Expo Canada from 2005 for my Spriggan video....)