TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby Rider4Z » Wed Jul 08, 2009 10:01 am

Radical_Yue wrote:Even if it comes down to numbers, I don't see why two well edited videos would get cut :/
The only thing I can see is a bias towards the sources which were used, Dragon Ball Z and Digimon. Other than that, they were fun videos, the concept was solid and I refuse to repeat the tech side again in this post.

whatever the reason they didn't make the finals, i'm certain it wasn't because of the series. Digimon made the AmTV finals in 07 (hagaren).

DBZ is obviously a tougher anime to pull into the finals. i don't know the reason, but castor knows the risk of entering the Z just as much as i do. and i plan on entering one myself for next year, altho i understand my slim chance of getting it in. dragonball z DEMANDS originality... so will see....

i'm still waiting castor :x
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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby Pwolf » Wed Jul 08, 2009 11:05 am

MisterFurious wrote:This is a stretch, but have you considered condensing it? Shortening a 7:30 video to 7:00 would require a less than 7% speed increase, hardly noticeable (particularly by the general audience voting for it) if you adjust the pitch on the song. I used a similar technique to get "Signal to Noise" under the seven-minute limit, just for AX.


I tried to cut it but cuting out 30 seconds is way too much without ruining the entire thing. as for changing the speed? no way, that's worse then cutting it IMO.

xstylus wrote:
Pwolf wrote:A video in an AMV contest should be technically sound as well as well edited. Since AMV contests don't have awards for the technical stuff, one should expect that the pre-judging would weed out the videos that don't meet a certain standard. The fact that the AMV coordinator(s) allowed videos with obvious technical and editing errors tells me that they do not care about the standards or the presentation of the video.


Okay, I know you've judged/ran an AMV competition before, and that comment tells me that the quality and number of submissions each of your categories received is drastically different than ours.


I'll take that as sarcasm since I have not judged or ran a contest before. I want to so I can hopefully change how these things are run. I don't care if 3 videos out 10 in the drama category are the only good ones, if there are only 3 videos that I can say are both good and technically sound, then I would only show 3.

xstylus wrote:Bottom line, where ya'll at? Where's all these killer submissions I hear being entered at AWA, Otakon, and elsewhere? The contest is running nearly trouble free now, so what more must be done? (Methinks the "troll" rules of other cons play a part, but not this much.)

I recommend that the lot of you stop complaining and start editing. Us judges aren't idiots, and we know a well made vid when we see it. What you saw was the best we got. If you're unhappy with it, then you're unhappy with yourselves.

As Steve Jobs says, "Real artists ship." Kudos to the artists who did, and a pox on those who are complaining.


Troy, as mentioned before, I had a video for AX I intended to submit but the coordinator wouldn't allow it. It's not my fault I cannot submit "killer" submissions. If the contest is having such a hard time with quality submissions, then it needs to lighten up on it's rules in the future.

outlawed wrote:I'm going to guess one of the continuing factors on the "decisions" from recent years was the "Wedding Rings is not an AMV" fiasco?


That was indeed one of the reasons...


Overall, my major gripe here is that I feel like editors are getting way too lazy and amv contests are looking more and more like amateur slide shows. If the contest coordinators would step up to the plate and require stricter technical guidelines, we would have a better looking show. If you have to cut half your entries, then do it. It would force people to fix their shit. I'm tired of sitting at a contest and watching these obvious errors show up on screen, it's embarrassing to be honest.


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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby The Wired Knight » Wed Jul 08, 2009 11:15 am

To some extent I agree with PWOLF. Though opinion of AMVs varies glaring technical difficultires or editing mistakes are practically insulting to the contest. Comedy a few years ago at AX I remember had a video in it that still had bloody subtitles left in. That should be grounds for immediate disssqualification. I understand that if you have a small number of entries then it is tougher to disqualify things however in certain cases I think exceptions need to be made.

Troy is right that Michael has done an astounding job fixing AX's AMV contest. It runs smoother and is a hell of a lot better than it used to be. However it is still having a nightmare of a time being a draw to other editors for submissions. While I do agree that bias against AX is certainly a factor here I also think AX needs to tighten its standards for AMV submissions in addition to readjusting its catagories to better suit current catagories. I've considered not sending a few of my videos simply because it doesn't fit well in any of the pre-existin ones.

As far as Pro goes, in lieu of 8 entires I think it's time to completely reevaulate the necessity of this catagory. I've always found the audience voting on it to be flawed anywya per the previous discussion. You might get more entires now that the details have ben revealed but we're talking people taht will enter only because they feel they have a better shot at getting in in lieu of the small amount of competition. This will most likely put that catagory i neven worse light. Upbeat is a better catagory, sure it's not rewarding technical like AMTV was meant to, but considering how the voting goes and the small number of entries is it really wise to create such a small catagory with such a predictable outcome due to narrow criteria?
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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby milkmandan » Wed Jul 08, 2009 11:35 am

Radical_Yue wrote:These are two videos that didn't have any technical flaws with the exception of a couple bad ARs that were in Haragen's...and Haragen entered into pro...and considering how many entries there were...how the fuck did he get cut when his entry was amazing compared to some of the others? I mean really?

i am pretty sure this isn't the reason but sometimes videos get cut due to song use or footage used. (eg. cutting AMVs with Evanescence songs, in light of getting sued).
Sometimes the Guests of Honors at an cons are very picky about these types of things, and if their management/representation is picky they can shut down us down for it. As we all know, AX has the MOST ties with industry than any other convention in north america. I wouldn't be surprised if we had to cut videos out in hopes to not piss off our sponsors.
In the end, Anime Expo is still an Anime Convention, not an AMV convention, we cater to Anime and our Guests of Honors first, not AMVs.
Again this most likely isn't the reason but I'd like to throw that out there.
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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby Castor Troy » Wed Jul 08, 2009 11:45 am

Rider4Z wrote:
Radical_Yue wrote:Even if it comes down to numbers, I don't see why two well edited videos would get cut :/
The only thing I can see is a bias towards the sources which were used, Dragon Ball Z and Digimon. Other than that, they were fun videos, the concept was solid and I refuse to repeat the tech side again in this post.

whatever the reason they didn't make the finals, i'm certain it wasn't because of the series. Digimon made the AmTV finals in 07 (hagaren).

DBZ is obviously a tougher anime to pull into the finals. i don't know the reason, but castor knows the risk of entering the Z just as much as i do. and i plan on entering one myself for next year, altho i understand my slim chance of getting it in. dragonball z DEMANDS originality... so will see....

i'm still waiting castor :x


I obviously knew the risk of entering an "old school" DBZ video in the effects laden world we live in today. This was the kind of video I would have made in 1999 when I first started making videos. Since I really didn't have much to enter this year with work and VG5, it was pretty much all I can send. I really wanted to see if I could make the contest finals at cons without resorting to effects, like I usually do. I was REALLY surprised that it made the acen finals, so it gave me a bit of confidence that I could have made it into AX and Otakon, which sadly didn't happen. I wasn't going to AX anyways, so it really wasn't a huge loss for me.

I obviously haven't seen the AX contest this year and don't really plan on watching many of the videos except the winners, so I can't really say if my DBZ video deserved to be there or not.
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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby milkmandan » Wed Jul 08, 2009 11:51 am

Castor Troy wrote:I obviously haven't seen the AX contest this year and don't really plan on watching many of the videos except the winners, so I can't really say if my DBZ video deserved to be there or not.

i wouldn't just watch the winners, we can all agree DN Rhap isn't exactly drama, or at least initial reactions did not make it so.

I would watch the winners and maybe the runner-ups, if that information was announced.
I always like to hear who the runner ups are. with my vote i'll be able to see how far my vote was from the popular vote. no award or true recognition needs to be given, just a thought.
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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby XStylus » Wed Jul 08, 2009 12:07 pm

Radical_Yue wrote:Hell, if anything, do me a personal favor, any way you can tell me why just these two videos got cut? It can't be that hard :/


I can't speak to that (and I don't know anyway). I can only speak for my own personal judging. If you're asking how I judged a particular video, that's something I will only disclose to the original creator in private (and if I can remember).

Again though, I'm only one judge. Just because I give a good (or bad) score doesn't mean others will. On the other hand, that applies to you too. Just because you think a particular video is the best thing since Engel doesn't mean others will feel the same way.

If you're trying to fish out whether the judge panel has bias, again, can't help you. I will freely admit that I do harbor some bias against certain sources, but it's not impossible for such vids to get a good score from me. For example, I hate One Piece, but I totally dug "Good Ship Lifestyle".
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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby XStylus » Wed Jul 08, 2009 12:12 pm

Pwolf wrote:Troy, as mentioned before, I had a video for AX I intended to submit but the coordinator wouldn't allow it. It's not my fault I cannot submit "killer" submissions. If the contest is having such a hard time with quality submissions, then it needs to lighten up on it's rules in the future.
outlawed wrote:I'm going to guess one of the continuing factors on the "decisions" from recent years was the "Wedding Rings is not an AMV" fiasco?

That was indeed one of the reasons...


That was back in 2006 or 2007, wasn't it? That was under James. There's new people running the show, FYI.
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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby XStylus » Wed Jul 08, 2009 12:15 pm

milkmandan wrote:i am pretty sure this isn't the reason but sometimes videos get cut due to song use or footage used. (eg. cutting AMVs with Evanescence songs, in light of getting sued).
Sometimes the Guests of Honors at an cons are very picky about these types of things, and if their management/representation is picky they can shut down us down for it. As we all know, AX has the MOST ties with industry than any other convention in north america. I wouldn't be surprised if we had to cut videos out in hopes to not piss off our sponsors.
In the end, Anime Expo is still an Anime Convention, not an AMV convention, we cater to Anime and our Guests of Honors first, not AMVs.
Again this most likely isn't the reason but I'd like to throw that out there.


None of those points were a factor this year.
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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby Pwolf » Wed Jul 08, 2009 12:41 pm

xstylus wrote:That was back in 2006 or 2007, wasn't it? That was under James. There's new people running the show, FYI.


I know, I stopped entering when James was still doing it. he did one more year after that and I decided to wait and see how the new people did. I heard good things about last year's contest so I wanted to enter this year, i couldn't.


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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby outlawed » Wed Jul 08, 2009 12:43 pm

xstylus wrote:That was back in 2006 or 2007, wasn't it? That was under James. There's new people running the show, in case you hadn't heard.


At least as far back as 2006. I can't remember the exact year but I think it is fair to consider that falling within "recent years". As for who ran the event during that time period or now is only partially relevant. You must consider the viewpoint of someone looking at the whole gamut of AX for the last 10 years during the online AMV era. On the whole there has always been a high level of drama. Some self inflicted by AX contest coordinators and some inflicted by entrants, and on several occasions inflicted by the general AMV community itself.

When dealing with AMV contest entrants it often helps to thing of things in terms of customer service procedures. It could take many months to win over the creators to your side but only seconds to lose them forever. That's simply the reality. This is exacerbated even more when you consider the AMV scene 2005-current has a lot of creators who are friends or interconnected through online communities/activities or know each other IRL.

Also keep in mind that it has been popular to hate on the AX con as a whole for many people dating back to near the end of the VHS-era fansub scene when AX started "getting too fucking big" (I heard that exact phrase used in 1998). AX is definitely the biggest con now and thinking in those terms people automatically assume you're the biggest so you should be the best period and never have problems (which is laughable).

Joke an mmo buddy of mine he applied to a particular guild situation once: The bigger a .... gets up in this mutha fucka the more they want to see you fail =p. It's hard for me to describe but from 1999-2009 I've seen AX AMV contests go through a microscope. I think over the years the AX stigma has built up and creators just plain don't trust the con itself because they have the perception that the AX con has the most to lose should any legal situation arise. All the legal mumbo jumbo for entrants which happened at one point and the "legal permissions" or whatever it was for getting stuff to show at the AMV creation panel just made a lot of people say fuck it they aren't one of us so they're against us (thus let's disassociate ourselves from them).

I think it should be noted that AX appears to be reaching out to AMV creators somewhat through their current AMV staff's efforts. It's just they have a lot of baggage to reverse. No one cares if they are new staff running the show they are waiting to see what can they do for them now and most of those they need to convince don't have any "thanks for X in the past" experiences so it's all the harder to woo them.

ACen's contests were definitely not held in good regard within the AMV community for a time period in the 2000s. I think there was a lot of luck involved that didn't make things crash & burn for Sailordeath and later myself when I joined. Even disregarding all the effort and work that was put in if there was enough other factors I think it could have just deep-sixed everything. Sometimes timing is everything. AX AMV contest may have failed to achieve the success it should have because it may in fact be missing the biggest things they should target. I don't have enough data here to work with but I think some of the problems with judging complaints may have less to do with the judges and more to do with the judging processes. The amazingly one-sided talk about how Death Note Rhapsody was mis-categorized seems to indicate a fundamental breakdown or loophole in the process.

Also keep in mind that if your main judging panel isn't experienced or "in-line" with current creators and the scene there is always a worry that the community might perceive judging out of line or uninformed. This is hard to work and something I often worry about as despite being a creator myself I am definitely not in-line with the current AMV scene.
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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby Vlad G Pohnert » Wed Jul 08, 2009 3:54 pm

Well, I did submit a video after a while of not doing so to AX as I felt that there is someone finally who cares a lot and is doing everything they can for the AMV contest and that is all one can ask these days....

As for the convention, it seems AX is not the only one that must fight to have the contest shown in a proper room, time slot, etc... Hell, I know of a lot of cons that must fight for that (I know even Acen has "challenges" in that area according to several people - same in some respect can be said about AWA and a ton of others). Not all con Exec are always fully supportive of AMV contests as one would hope for.

Lets face it, AX does get crowed of 6000+ to watch the contest, that alone is awesome for a creator too and no other con except for possibly Otakon has crowds that large!

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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby Tearx » Wed Jul 08, 2009 4:27 pm

I feel there is a bit of a negative tone towards the people behind the scenes at AX.

Vlad G Pohnert wrote: I felt that there is someone finally who cares a lot and is doing everything they can for the AMV contest and that is all one can ask these days....

Totally agree.

I have only gone to AX for the past 2 years, and each time I have gone to the AMV showings & had a wonderful experience. Everything seemed to go perfectly, it is true that some videos were just :down: this year, but that is not in the hands of the judges, but in the hands of the creators! Big thanks to everyone who helped the event run so smoothly , I have big respect for all of you. Now I think its time for the creators to pull together and put on a great show next year. yaah?
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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby outlawed » Wed Jul 08, 2009 4:41 pm

Vlad G Pohnert wrote:Well, I did submit a video after a while of not doing so to AX as I felt that there is someone finally who cares a lot and is doing everything they can for the AMV contest and that is all one can ask these days....


Here Here! I hope he's not turned off by some of the initial response here. I think if folks just calm down a bit and some discourse happens then things can move forward positively.

I know even Acen has "challenges" in that area according to several people - same in some respect can be said about AWA and a ton of others

Lets face it, AX does get crowed of 6000+ to watch the contest, that alone is awesome for a creator too and no other con except for possibly Otakon has crowds that large!


I agree. I think the thing is that spurred on my previous post is those are the things I see causing the breakdown and ultimately neither side has been willing to publicly hammer a fix out. I really just see this as a PR thing. If you get enough connected editors to back it and evangelize it people will start submitting again. The problem is once that happens it has got to run smooth from the creator POV with regards to judging. If that happens though they're basically golden.

It's actually funny if you compare ACen contest and AX contest. In recent years the ACen contests seem to be regarded as good ones with the creators yet we really don't have the ability to show the actual contest to a significant % of the attendance pool. On the flipside AX contest can show to way more people in one sitting but the management of the contest has a bad PR image with editors from past incidents. I say ACen contest won't be seen by a large % of the attendance pool because my reality and experience says Sunday events have very little attendance and that's usually when we have got some main programming time in recent years. Maybe that's part of the problem. With the ability of internet exposure perhaps the audience factor is unappreciated by some prospective entrants. Hence the focus is on how do they judge and what categories are there. I have seen requests for different categories from a few posters in this thread already.

I support other contest coordinators. I hope no one is misunderstanding that. Historically speaking I have made several cracks about some of the infamous issues of AX over the years but that is about those issues and frankly because without AX and all that drama things would be a lot more boring. I still support those coordinators efforts but I'm not going to stop myself from having a few laughs at the same time. Just wouldn't feel right!
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Re: TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

Postby Vlad G Pohnert » Wed Jul 08, 2009 5:54 pm

Well, I even flew down to AX this year for a few reasons, one of them being the AMV contest. I told that to Michael as I do indeed have respect for what he has done and the fact that it was in Main in from to such a HUGE crowed! I always wanted to see how 6000 fans react to AMVs. Actually I was very shocked how the place filled in.. Hell, even the 2nd showing was packed and not everyone could go in... I even like how he does the contest and reads out the credits in between the videos as it gives it a personal touch and make it unique to AX! AX Fans still LOVE AMVs and that is a very important factor!

After running contest and AMV rooms I find the fans are the same all over and generally love AMVs... I am totally convinced the AMV contests can have as much people come to see it as Cosplay, however Cosplay has traditionally always had the best times slot, rooms and day while AMV contest where shuffled around it... I bet even at Acen that would be true if given the right chance... Problem is although there are many supports in the cons, there are those that just don't see it the same way as cosplay, or for liability reasons only put up with it because there are enough fans who want it...

Hell, if given the chance, I would indeed run an AMV room at AX as it would be packed all the time!

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