ANIMATION Music Video Contest?

[Rider4Z]

Hey guys, I'm the current coordinator for Anime Conji(scheduled for April)'s AMV contest, and it is my hope to turn it into a contest that allows ALL types of animation, not just those that fall under the strict definition that is "anime". This would include, but is not limited to, Disney, My Little Pony, Avatar/Korra, Cartoon Network originals, Tex Avery, Looney Tunes, Dreamworks, etc. What it would NOT include is sources that use animation/CGI as an additive for a live-action based film, such as James Cameron's Avatar or The Last Airbender. Movies that are cross-over animation and live-action, i.e. Space Jam or Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, would all depend on the percentage of animation used in the music video.

I've been asked by my boss to get some feedback on this topic so it can be presented to the head of our department before a decision is made one way or another. I'd like to hear all ends of the spectrum on this. Is this something you would love to participate in? Is this something you see potentially causing damage in one aspect or another?

Please let me hear your thoughts, whatever they are. All opinions are welcome.

[ngsilver]

I would love more contests being open to footage other then anime. Some of my favorite entries every year at Youmacon since I made it open to non-anime sources have been such videos. Allowing extra sources often leads to new and different views on how to make videos and helps add some extra variety to entries. I have had some complaints in the past, though very few people, and in the end I believe the overall enjoyment and quality of the contest has increased since I made the change.

So yeah, I'm for it.

[BakaOppai]

It shouldn't be a problem, I've been in contests that have the same rules and they work out fine

[Rider4Z]

Ok cool cool so far.

There's got to be more opinions out there, right?

[BasharOfTheAges]

Any reason to not just allow anything?

[Vlad G Pohnert]

Well, technically some cons try to stay away from that just based on the legal issues..

Not saying you should or other con's don't do it (AWA Does for instance), but Disney might one day not like to see Music videos with their footage in it for example. Anime Companies tend to be more forgiving.. Sometime this scares away execs into not sanctioning it I noticed at a few cons (Like one that I know of...)

Vlad

[Rider4Z]

Hey all, I would love some more opinions about this subject. I need to show my uppers what regular editors have to say about an open animation contest.

btw, I'm purposefully not responding to any of you directly because I'm not here to debate. You may debate amongst yourselves (which would be awesome), but I am here to strictly observe because my opinion isn't what's important, yours is

[Kireblue]

personally, I think that its a nice idea to have other types of animation represented in contests, but it comes with a few hardships. Next year, I'm actually thinking of doing this at contest that I run (MomoCon), so I'll try to share a few things that I realized.

The AMV community has become accustomed to entering contests that have "anime only" rules. So suddenly allowing a plethora of different animation into a contest that is already capable of being a stand alone event will almost certainly cause backlash. So the obvious choice would be to split the contest into 2 branches: Anime (AMVs) and everything else (PMVs, etc). But this solution actually has it's own problems. The other video editing communities don't have sites like this one or AMVnews to serve as a central hub. They generally use youtube and many different fairly small forums that are scattered and unconnected. So getting the word out to them that your contest exists will probably be a difficult task. Also, since most conventions only allow anime, the "non anime" communities don't actually have a lot of experience in entering them. And thus, many of them haven't gotten accustomed to improving their editing skills in a competitive manner. So not only will you probably have less entries for the "non Anime" branch of the contest, the entries will probably be of lower quality (on average). Because of this, I don't think that they could compete in the "Category/ Finalist" format that many AMV contests use. My idea for doing this at MomoCon is to use a "Film Festival" format that don't require you to submit to a category. Instead, awards titles are made up after all the entries are received, and are given out at the judges discretion (Best Concept, Most Artistic, Most Nostalgic).

Anyway, I hope this info is useful to you. And good luck trying to start this up

[Hagaren Viper]

I like this idea, since Conji's AMV contest is still new, this could be an interesting way to make it stand out a bit from other contests. I have a new non-anime videos I've had planed for a while, so something like this would definitely give me a reason to get off my butt and do them. I feel like Disney would definitely be the thing to be careful about, though it sounds like it works for AWA?

To be clear, would stop motion animation count? Wallace and Gromit, Fantastic Mr.Fox etc

[Rider4Z]

Stop motion is definitely a tough one.... my first thought is i want to say yes to claymation such as Wallace and Grommit, and Chicken Run. I also want to say yes to stop motion puppeteering such as Fantastic Mr. Fox and Nightmare Before Christmas. Because both are considered types of animation in the industry, being nominated for animation oscars proves that.

I worry tho that this would open the door stuff like THIS. While really great stuff, this is going in a direction i wasn't intending on.