Project Editor Exit Survey

[pacotacoshell]

Question #1: If you could have one major change in this contest (anything is fair game), what would it be? If you could keep any one thing about this contest the same, what would it be?
- CHANGE THE COORDINATOR FOR GOD'S SAKE. Just kidding. 32 man is kinda lame, it'd be better to bring back the 64 man tourney. Keep the one week long editing. Anything more is just too much. To quote one of your tips from last year:
Time management skills. Acquire them! Realize when you have time to edit and plan your submission accordingly. If you know that you only have 2 real days to commit to editing, then don't plan a 5 day effects extravaganza for your video.

If people can't finish a complete video in a week, then they shouldn't be in this contest. If you know you're working 40 hours+ at work then don't freaking join.

Question #2: From here on out, I will be letting the contestants and viewers to submit themes that will be used in future OrgEditor contests. Therefore, if you could have any theme(s) added to our contest, what would it(they) be? Keep in mind that themes should be capable of being done within a week's time and themes involving more than one person is not always the best idea. You may submit as many ideas as you want, but I reserve the right to "trim" certain themes or alter them slightly to be more editor-friendly.
- Good. Your themes were losing spunk Code (no offense). ;____; Okay, themes. These are just off the top of my head but here we go:

Crossover! (totally doable, maybe put this at a later round so the contestants are whittled down to the best) Seeing as this is really popular right now, I think it's fitting. You don't need to go all Umika on us, something simpler like Shin's SnS/Bleach crossover would be awesome. And it'd be even cooler if we see some crossovers that aren't depressing!

Weapons! Showcase your favorite weapon in a video. We'll probably see a billion swords but I think there'll be a good few that are unique.

OTPs! Either me or siny requested this last year but it needs to be done.

Sports! Pretty self-explanatory.

The 12 Olympian Gods from Greek mythology! Showcase one or more of one God's traits in a video. Super broad, but it can pull out some good concepts out of people if they think about it (hopefully). Link to gods: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Olympians

Music videos! Recreate an official music video using the same song in anime form. This can end up bad if people are lazy as hell concept-wise, but just imagine if they can recreate something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkbTp3-zBG IT WOULD BE AMAZING.

Genre-swap! Make a video that showcases an anime in a different genre than what it normally is. For example an action video with Toradora, a happy video with Mirai Nikki, or a horror story with Hanasaku Iroha. The primest of examples:

The 5 senses! Make a video that appeals to one of the five senses.

Audio overlays! Use the voices from anime as an integral part of your video.

Question #3: Do you feel as though the judging critera is fair, or should there be a re-write?
- Dunno.

Question #4: Did you feel as though you had (a) enough time to edit (b) too much time to edit (c) not near enough time to edit.
- I didn't edit but Jesus, a week is long enough. If people can't edit a 2 minute video in a whole week, then they need to work on their IC skills.

Question #5: How would you feel if deadlines were only on weekends and due during the daytime (around Noon-1PM).
- Just gonna say yes, it'd be fine. >__>

Question #6: Is there anything you'd like to see added/removed from the subforum?
- Bring back the tips! Dunno if that was in the rules/info thread but I liked those.

Question #7: Would you prefer that judging remains blind, or perhaps open up the gates and allow contestants to upload their entries to a-m-v.org once finished?
- Maybe and no. I really didn't mind the blind judging last year, it was fun. JUST GET GOOD JUDGES THIS TIME CODE. >____>

Question #8: The following changes are being seriously considered for season 4. What are your opinions on these changes?

+ (Rule Addition) Utilization of any material from a previous AMVs without the owner's consent is a disqualifying offense.
- Good.

+ (Formatting Change) Changing the style from a 32 person tournament to a 64 person tournament, and utilizing a two-group system similar to "The Quickening", with the same elimination/theme standards as previous contests, just split in two. This will provide editors with a larger break (since only one group will edit at a time until the semifinals), and provide with more AMVs for the general public to watch/enjoy.
- I don't really understand how this works. One group edits for a week then the next group edits the next week for the same round? I don't really think time was a problem this year. There weren't many drops and the people that did shouldn't have joined in the first place. Wasting contestant slots (especially since it's 32) for a month-long contest is pretty rude.

[lloyd9988]

Question #1: If you could have one major change in this contest (anything is fair game), what would it be? If you could keep any one thing about this contest the same, what would it be?

I was going to send this privately but I think it might be a better idea to see what everyone says

How about just having a point system where everyone gets points for editing, no one gets eliminated and the ones with the most points at the end of the contest wins??

That way, editing becomes more of an investment rather than a competition because if you want to only edit in certain rounds, then you can. If you want to win the competition, then you need to edit every challenge given and, if you can pull off some time away for a week to take a break and still think its possible to win, then you can. Also, editors can choose when they want to edit and when they don't, so the issue of time doesn't become an issue anymore. Of course, judging will be harder and I don't think comments would really be allowed unless they posted their video in the announcements thread in the end. But I think it might be better because at least you'll get editors editing to themes that they might like and avoid themes they don't really like.

The only problem is that the essence of competition might be lost unless the judging was strictly enforced, like getting points from the judges was earned and not just freely handed out because they felt sorry for a competitor. So, someone has to make an amazing video with a strong concept that adheres to the theme specified to get plenty of points from the judges.

Anyway, those are just my two cents.

[lloyd9988]

Question #2: From here on out, I will be letting the contestants and viewers to submit themes that will be used in future OrgEditor contests. Therefore, if you could have any theme(s) added to our contest, what would it(they) be? Keep in mind that themes should be capable of being done within a week's time and themes involving more than one person is not always the best idea. You may submit as many ideas as you want, but I reserve the right to "trim" certain themes or alter them slightly to be more editor-friendly.

Oh! I didn't see this question! :3

No Effects Theme And I mean like NO EFFECTS. Not a fade in and fade out! Not a change in the the speed of the clip. Not even a zoom-in or zoom-out! Just pure clips put right on the time-line and dropped on the timeline and the editor's challenge is to make the video interesting.

[Eake4]

Spoiler :

Question #1: If you could have one major change in this contest (anything is fair game), what would it be? If you could keep any one thing about this contest the same, what would it be?
Answer: A break inbetween editing time period (1-2weeks)

Question #2: From here on out, I will be letting the contestants and viewers to submit themes that will be used in future OrgEditor contests. Therefore, if you could have any theme(s) added to our contest, what would it(they) be? Keep in mind that themes should be capable of being done within a week's time and themes involving more than one person is not always the best idea. You may submit as many ideas as you want, but I reserve the right to "trim" certain themes or alter them slightly to be more editor-friendly.

Theme: Editor's perception of death.

Question #3: Do you feel as though the judging critera is fair, or should there be a re-write?

Answer: Judging most objectively is the best response I can give, hopefully they don't judge by what relates to them the most (unless specified by theme) but rather judge on each individual aspect (visual, audio, effort, etc). Each judge should also provide feedback on technical aspects and thematic aspects of the video.

Question #4: Did you feel as though you had (a) enough time to edit (b) too much time to edit (c) not near enough time to edit.

Not near enough time to edit (I am a special case however because I'm in my final years of highschool where tons of exams start and also because my parents limit my editing time due to necessity of study)

Question #5: How would you feel if deadlines were only on weekends and due during the daytime (around Noon-1PM).

If the deadline for each editor is the same there should be no problems.

Question #6: Is there anything you'd like to see added/removed from the subforum?

N/A

Question #7: Would you prefer that judging remains blind, or perhaps open up the gates and allow contestants to upload their entries to a-m-v.org once finished?

Judging blind.

Question #8: The following changes are being seriously considered for season 4. What are your opinions on these changes?

+ (Rule Addition) Utilization of any material from a previous AMVs without the owner's consent is a disqualifying offense.
Opinion: This should already be a rule unless stated by theme otherwise.

+ (Formatting Change) Changing the style from a 32 person tournament to a 64 person tournament, and utilizing a two-group system similar to "The Quickening", with the same elimination/theme standards as previous contests, just split in two. This will provide editors with a larger break (since only one group will edit at a time until the semifinals), and provide with more AMVs for the general public to watch/enjoy.
Opinion: This wouldn't provide for an accurate runner-up (infact only the winner would be accurate) but still a very good method of splitting.

[Ileia]

I don't normally make a wordy forum post....but when I do...

How about just having a point system where everyone gets points for editing, no one gets eliminated and the ones with the most points at the end of the contest wins??

While you'd think this would work in theory, the competition aspect is a crucial part of what makes this contest what it is, everyone wants to be the one to win and their chances to do so reset each round. We can pretend it's all "I just want to have fun!", but editors soon forget how much fun they had when they feel that they shouldn't have been eliminated. The first edition of POE tried cumulative scoring. People were not pleased and by the end of it, "there was basically no reason to edit" because of the strong lead that the person at the top had. You'd just end up repeating something along those lines. The people with higher scores would be the ones more motivated to edit and more likely to, simply because their chances of winning are higher....and they'd be the ones still in the competition if there had been eliminations anyway. I actually really like how the scoring is done currently. Round by round, everyone's chances are level, and editors who've done well previously get a tiny lil bump up (but nothing that would push them far ahead if they really dropped the ball in one round).


As for the rest of the survey, I only have a couple questions to address.

First, yes, keep the judging blind. After all the arguing about bias this year, you do not want to open that door, Code. Trust me. >_>

Secondly, yes, ban using footage from other people's AMVs without their permission (with exceptions for videos that are utilizing small parts to parody or showcase those videos in some manner, for example, showing a character in your own AMV watching a few seconds of a previously-made AMV). You'd think this would be a given outside of King of Spayn videos, but apparently not. I've heard the argument about how (unless it's heavily effects'd) it's just the footage and the original editor doesn't own that and, sure, I can sorta get behind that, but let's not forget what this specific contest is. It's timed. That's a HUGE part of how it works. Procuring source, processing it (which may possibly include cleaning the footage in some manner), and finding the footage you want to use is factored into that week of editing. You're shaving so much time off that work by just using AMVs where someone has already done the scene selection for you. You can use the same scenes of people throwing wine from Spice and Wolf, of course! But you did NOT go through two seasons of that show to find that one random-ass scene. Yeah, you can use dancing Vash! But you did NOT go to Brad's apartment to borrow his Trigun DVD, then spend a while trying to clean it up because the footage looks like hot ass. Someone else did that, outside of this contest, outside of the time frame that everyone is editing within.


Lastly, what's with extensions and breaks? If you give an extension on one round, that's SO not fair to the people who were eliminated previously due to the same reasons you're given leeway to the current competitors! I repeat: timed contest! Stuff might come up to make it more difficult to get your editing done. This is how it works! It's why you have a whole week! Everyone is quick to hop on the "Oh, well, I had real life stuff to deal with". Guess what? Every person competing has a real life! Would it suck to have people drop? Oh yeah, it would. You know what sucks more? Someone having to drop or get eliminated in a previous round due to "real life" interfering...only to have the people in the next round get a little helping hand when they have "real life" pop up. In order to present a fair contest, you have to keep the rounds consistent.

[Shin-AMV]

Spoiler :

Question #1: If you could have one major change in this contest (anything is fair game), what would it be? If you could keep any one thing about this contest the same, what would it be?
- CHANGE THE COORDINATOR FOR GOD'S SAKE. Just kidding. 32 man is kinda lame, it'd be better to bring back the 64 man tourney. Keep the one week long editing. Anything more is just too much. To quote one of your tips from last year:
Time management skills. Acquire them! Realize when you have time to edit and plan your submission accordingly. If you know that you only have 2 real days to commit to editing, then don't plan a 5 day effects extravaganza for your video.

If people can't finish a complete video in a week, then they shouldn't be in this contest. If you know you're working 40 hours+ at work then don't freaking join.

Question #2: From here on out, I will be letting the contestants and viewers to submit themes that will be used in future OrgEditor contests. Therefore, if you could have any theme(s) added to our contest, what would it(they) be? Keep in mind that themes should be capable of being done within a week's time and themes involving more than one person is not always the best idea. You may submit as many ideas as you want, but I reserve the right to "trim" certain themes or alter them slightly to be more editor-friendly.
- Good. Your themes were losing spunk Code (no offense). ;____; Okay, themes. These are just off the top of my head but here we go:

Crossover! (totally doable, maybe put this at a later round so the contestants are whittled down to the best) Seeing as this is really popular right now, I think it's fitting. You don't need to go all Umika on us, something simpler like Shin's SnS/Bleach crossover would be awesome. And it'd be even cooler if we see some crossovers that aren't depressing!

Weapons! Showcase your favorite weapon in a video. We'll probably see a billion swords but I think there'll be a good few that are unique.

OTPs! Either me or siny requested this last year but it needs to be done.

Sports! Pretty self-explanatory.

The 12 Olympian Gods from Greek mythology! Showcase one or more of one God's traits in a video. Super broad, but it can pull out some good concepts out of people if they think about it (hopefully). Link to gods: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Olympians

Music videos! Recreate an official music video using the same song in anime form. This can end up bad if people are lazy as hell concept-wise, but just imagine if they can recreate something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkbTp3-zBG IT WOULD BE AMAZING.

Genre-swap! Make a video that showcases an anime in a different genre than what it normally is. For example an action video with Toradora, a happy video with Mirai Nikki, or a horror story with Hanasaku Iroha. The primest of examples:

The 5 senses! Make a video that appeals to one of the five senses.

Audio overlays! Use the voices from anime as an integral part of your video.

Question #3: Do you feel as though the judging critera is fair, or should there be a re-write?
- Dunno.

Question #4: Did you feel as though you had (a) enough time to edit (b) too much time to edit (c) not near enough time to edit.
- I didn't edit but Jesus, a week is long enough. If people can't edit a 2 minute video in a whole week, then they need to work on their IC skills.

Question #5: How would you feel if deadlines were only on weekends and due during the daytime (around Noon-1PM).
- Just gonna say yes, it'd be fine. >__>

Question #6: Is there anything you'd like to see added/removed from the subforum?
- Bring back the tips! Dunno if that was in the rules/info thread but I liked those.

Question #7: Would you prefer that judging remains blind, or perhaps open up the gates and allow contestants to upload their entries to a-m-v.org once finished?
- Maybe and no. I really didn't mind the blind judging last year, it was fun. JUST GET GOOD JUDGES THIS TIME CODE. >____>

Question #8: The following changes are being seriously considered for season 4. What are your opinions on these changes?

+ (Rule Addition) Utilization of any material from a previous AMVs without the owner's consent is a disqualifying offense.
- Good.

+ (Formatting Change) Changing the style from a 32 person tournament to a 64 person tournament, and utilizing a two-group system similar to "The Quickening", with the same elimination/theme standards as previous contests, just split in two. This will provide editors with a larger break (since only one group will edit at a time until the semifinals), and provide with more AMVs for the general public to watch/enjoy.
- I don't really understand how this works. One group edits for a week then the next group edits the next week for the same round? I don't really think time was a problem this year. There weren't many drops and the people that did shouldn't have joined in the first place. Wasting contestant slots (especially since it's 32) for a month-long contest is pretty rude.

Just listen to this guy. He knows whats up.

[Kisanzi]

Question #1: If you could have one major change in this contest (anything is fair game), what would it be? If you could keep any one thing about this contest the same, what would it be?

One extra day to rest for one. Also, maybe a few less eliminations. Maybe narrow the contestants down a bit less each round building to a final four in the last round rather than 3. More videos, more possibilities for awesome.

Question #2: From here on out, I will be letting the contestants and viewers to submit themes that will be used in future OrgEditor contests. Therefore, if you could have any theme(s) added to our contest, what would it(they) be? Keep in mind that themes should be capable of being done within a week's time and themes involving more than one person is not always the best idea. You may submit as many ideas as you want, but I reserve the right to "trim" certain themes or alter them slightly to be more editor-friendly.

I'm more of a fan of having a couple more "editor friendly" open ended themes that just limit editing/source criteria rather than creativity. While the Persona round was neat in theory, that was incredibly difficult for me to work on for the first few days when the ideas just weren't coming. So it would be nice to still have those deep thinky rounds, but a couple of less abstract thinking rounds in there wouldn't hurt either.

Also, keep a remake round in there, those are great fun. Just ease up a bit on the creatively change the video aspect!

Question #3: Do you feel as though the judging criteria is fair, or should there be a re-write?

Maybe a revamped and more defined point system? Some judges seemed to put their thoughts into certain scores while other judges put them into different sections. I mean having separate scores for concept and theme? They kinda blend together to me for a contest like this. (Since the concept directly correlates with the theme, then if the concept doesn't fit the theme, can one still score highly in concept?) And shouldn't overall just be the final average of the other individual scores? Just a clearer re-branding/definition of the scoring categories would be nice versus seeing judges docking the crap out of the broad larger scale scores, like overall, because there's no where else to dock the scores for a video that they really don't like?

Question #4: Did you feel as though you had (a) enough time to edit (b) too much time to edit (c) not near enough time to edit.

A week is enough time.

Question #5: How would you feel if deadlines were only on weekends and due during the daytime (around Noon-1PM).

For me personally, I work weekdays. So having a round start on Friday sucked since I usually need a day or two to brainstorm and prepare footage before I can edit, leaving me with nothing but work days to use. Which is fine, but I have a bad habit of editing for like 8-10 hours straight and doing that on a weekend is fine, but on consecutive work nights is murder. Having the rounds start on the beginning of each week would be great for a standard M-F employed person. (And yes, I don't think this contest should be limited to just people who don't work or have ample free time due to a part-time work schedule. The 40+ hours people can be just as dedicated. )

Question #6: Is there anything you'd like to see added/removed from the subforum?

N/A

Question #7: Would you prefer that judging remains blind, or perhaps open up the gates and allow contestants to upload their entries to a-m-v.org once finished?

Blind is good stuff. It's more fun to see people react to videos more when they have no idea who made them.

Question #8: The following changes are being seriously considered for season 4. What are your opinions on these changes?

+ (Rule Addition) Utilization of any material from a previous AMVs without the owner's consent is a disqualifying offense.

Agreed.

+ (Formatting Change) Changing the style from a 32 person tournament to a 64 person tournament, and utilizing a two-group system similar to "The Quickening", with the same elimination/theme standards as previous contests, just split in two. This will provide editors with a larger break (since only one group will edit at a time until the semifinals), and provide with more AMVs for the general public to watch/enjoy.

Change is always fun if you can get enough people for the idea.

Question #9: Put anything not mentioned above that you want to talk about here.

More support for the contestants please! It's hard putting aside 50-100+ hours of people's lives to participate in these contests with breakneck deadlines. So a little more consideration for the contestants would be nice to see. I don't mean you should love every video that is made, but just give some encouragement and thanks to the competitors from each round who are editing themselves into the ground. (Which I admit to doing in one round where I got incredibly sick after finishing my vid .) It's fine to voice your support or criticism of the vids individually, but please acknowledge and respect the time and energy people are putting into these things under the circumstances before bluntly stating to all 32 contestants that the entire contest was disappointing and that all the videos are blah. The crowd doesn't boo the Olympians because they aren't breaking all the world records each year, right? That's because they know that the athletes aren't there to shatter records, but are trying to prove to themselves and others what they are made of and what they have to offer as a competitor. I will personally admit that I didn't enjoy every single video made this season, and maybe I had favorites that I liked from previous years, but I give a huge thank you and congratulations to all of my fellow contestants who participated and I'll look forward to the next competition with no preconceptions about what kind of videos to expect!

[Ileia]

The Olympics comment reminded me of

All I gotta say to the majority of editors in this thing is, "kaaammaaaaaaannnnnn guys." This is like tuning in to watch the Olympics only to find that half of the countries were too lazy to show up, and those that did show haven't trained all year and were going to start the day before their event.

Now let's see some quality stuff here and stop submitting the last minute afterthought vids. Thankyouplease.

It's a lot easier to have appreciation for the competitors when you have a better understanding of what they're going through each week.

[Kisanzi]

The Olympics comment reminded me of

All I gotta say to the majority of editors in this thing is, "kaaammaaaaaaannnnnn guys." This is like tuning in to watch the Olympics only to find that half of the countries were too lazy to show up, and those that did show haven't trained all year and were going to start the day before their event.

Now let's see some quality stuff here and stop submitting the last minute afterthought vids. Thankyouplease.

It's a lot easier to have appreciation for the competitors when you have a better understanding of what they're going through each week.

Oh snap! I remember that! I agree that it is easier to relate once participating. But I remember directing those comments more toward the fact that there were videos being submitted with 30-50 second runtimes and such.

Also take note of others things I said during that contest:

Sooo...Watched all the vids for round 2 and........

...it's a vast improvement from round one! This is exactly what I want to see from this tournament. It's good to see the majority of videos have a fair amount of effort and/or thought put into them. 300% improvement on editing quality and viewer satisfaction here. Any qualms I had with the first round have been cleared up. Now I hope the momentum continues into round 3.

I realize the challenge in collaboration and a time constraint, but this round is probably my least favorite round next to the first round. 4 out of the 5 videos took slow and safe stances on the editing choice and yielded some "ok", but very basic and random, videos. As a viewer, I would've liked to have seen the editors have more fun with the editing like in the previous 2 rounds, but I realize the safer choices may have been made due to collaborative restraints. ...But still, kudos to all the editors for working with such an awkward theme for an individually scored editing competition and rising to the challenge.

So contrary to if you were trying to make me eat my words or not, it's ok to voice your opinion constructively like I said in my comments in the exit survey. But I just wanted to see more people acknowledge and consider the editors plight and post their support (as is bolded in my statements from orgeditor 2011) rather than just voicing cold-hearted disappointment. But seriously, hopefully you weren't posting this to try and belittle me since this thread isn't really the place for that discussion, but I stand by my words. As a fan I wanted to see a bit more longevity to the videos and tried to go about it in a way that tried to motivate rather than flat out insult. It differs in context a bit more than posting "I am disappointed in you all. I expected way better. This contest was just all bad." at the end of the contest for all to see. But thanks for the walk down memory lane!

[Ileia]

I'm just saying that it's a commitment that goes unappreciated really easily