I had a good time, enjoyed my time in the AMV room this weekend. No one asked but here's what I thought of what I was able to catch:
Anime Central's 2009 Music Video Contest: Saw the first half of this on Friday morning, had to leave to go to a different panel on time, but was able to catch the 2nd half on Saturday night. Great stuff, only 1 video in the entire show that I didn't enjoy. Excellent choices and a great presentation. I wasn't able to attend on Sunday so I don't know who won, hopefully it had a good turnout.
Awesomecore: Walked into this late on Friday and didn't understand exactly what I was watching on the screen but I guess that's the point, isn't it. Need to hunt some of these down (anywhere I could get a list?) to make sure I didn't just imagine it all.
How to Create AMVs: So here's the #1 panel at the entire convention that I wanted to attend. Since I last came to ACEN 5 years ago (where I attended an AMV q&a session) I've been broke and penniless and cursed by broken computers and other frustrations, putting my quest to start making AMVs on indefinite hiatus. But behold, 2009 has been kind to me and I'm ready to get started. Maybe this panel could help inspire me, or at least help me avoid any foolish mistakes early on?
15 minutes passed and it still hadn't begun. What happened? The hosts of Awesomecore (surely on this board, probably in this thread too -- sorry, I'm a lurker and don't know anyone here) did their best to jump in and rescue it and to answer questions from the audience, but I was left with the feeling that there was supposed to be more to it this time. Maybe not a step-by-step demonstration on the screen, but... well, maybe that was what I was hoping for. Instead it was kind of a retread of what I remember from 5 years ago, which was "Log onto a-m-v.org and look for the guides," which is helpful in itself but overall I didn't get much out of this panel. Sorry.
Koop and Adam's Top 10 Indie Vids: This was a really enjoyable hour. Just fun to sit and listen to panelists talk about AMVs they like, especially when they're off the beaten path like those 10 (or 12, whatever). This is the sort of thing I've been waiting for for a long time. I did my best to write them down but I may have missed some. Oh well.
Iron Editor: This wasn't a big priority of mine to catch and I only dropped in to kill an hour before going to the Studio Ghibli panel (which I left after less than a minute after seeing how crowded it was -- why run this in the smallest room possible?) but this turned out to be one of the most fun hours of the con for me. It felt like a big party. The hosts were great and it was great to sit and just take it all in with so many other people at once. I wasn't able to stay until the very end but if I'm able to make it again next year, this will probably be a must-see for me.