Otafest 2014 AMV Contest - With Winners

[Vlad G Pohnert]

WINNERS:

Here are the Winners. Attendance was Fantastic this year and everyone enjoyed the contest! I'll be contacting winners this week to confirm, addresses to get the prizes out.

Vlad

HONORABLE MENTION AWARDS

"Saddest Princess" Award
Two-Sided Mirror by Camichan19

"ABS-olute destiny" Award
Iwatobi Weather service by Nekokitkat

"Bugs Bunny Seal of Approval" Award
The Basketball Which Kuroko Jams by Nicolio1313

"This Video has a Darkside" Award
THIS VIDEO WAS (NOT) ENTERED INTO DRAMA by Sephiroth

"Best Use of Sidekicks in a Video" Award
50 Ways For Your Partner To Die by Tsu

"Most Addictive Romace Video" Award
Cockaine by Sugasugashi Studio

The "Best Misheard Lyrics" Award
Bop It by Copycat_Revolver

"Best Face Off" Award
AMV(&humor) by Shin-Ei Gumi (BasharOfTheAges)

JUDGES' AWARDS

Judges' 3rd Place
Pandora by Sugasugashi Studio

Judges' 2nd Place
A Way by Shin-Ei Gumi (BasharOfTheAges)

Judges' 1st Place (Best in Show)
Anime 101 by VivifxAMV

AUDIENCE AWARDS

Audience Favorite - 3rd Place
The Optimists by Otaku Lounge Productions (Rider4Z)

Audience Favorite - 2nd Place
YTMND AMV: Fad Entertainment System by drewaconclusion

Audience Favorite - 1st Place
Anime 101 by VivifxAMV


___________________________________________

UPDATE - May 2, 2014

Here is the list of Finalists.. It was a VERY tough contest this year. I'm only listing the Creator/Studio names here... Will list playlist after the contest.

The Contest will take place Friday Night starting at 7:30 pm (seating at 7:00 pm).. The Non-Finalists will be played in the AMV Room (and it holds 375 people!) on Sunday from about 10:45 am - 1:30 pm.. and the Winners will be announced and shown prior to closing ceremonies at 4:30 pm on Sunday as well

Aeon Studios
Amaterasu & PieandBeer
BakaOppai (2x)
BecauseImBored1
Camichan19 (2x)
Copycat_Revolver (2x)
CornDog VidVids (Ileia)
drewaconclusion
Emma Browning (2x)
MycathatesyouAMV
Nekokitkat (2x)
Nick de jong
Nicolio1313 (2x)
Otaku Lounge Productions (Rider4Z) (2x)
PixelBlended Studios (Shin and Xophilarus)
PixelBlended Studios (Shin)
Pixelblended Studios (Xophilarus)
Sephiroth
Shin-Ei Gumi (BasharOfTheAges) (2x)
SOGESNAKE
Sugasugashi Studio (2x)
Tsu
Tsunderbird Studios (PieandBeer)
VivifxAMV
ZonaAMV

________________________________

Hi All,

Time once again to announce Otafest's AMV Contest. I'll be running it again this year and look forward to all your entries! deadline is Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Otafest also runs a dedicated AMV room so we will have a spot where we will play non finalists (time permitting).

Rules for the Contest can be found HERE, but I've also reprinted them here for convenience...

Vlad G Pohnert
Otafest 2014 AMV Coordinator


___________________________________

OVERVIEW

Otafest’s AMV Contest is open to everyone who wants to submit an AMV video into competition provided that it’s their own work and conforms to all the rules as listed below. You do not need to be present at the event to enter, but attendance is always encouraged when possible.

Please ensure to read all the rules carefully before submitting this year there have been some changes and additions made to the contest.

As the contest will be two hours in length, all accepted entries will be judged by a panel of judges to determine the finalists. All videos will be judged on the same set of criteria and the top judges’ choices will make up the finalists. Depending on the day and time the contest will be take place and total amount of accepted entries; all effort will be made to try to play all accepted non-finalist entries into the contest in the AMV Room at some point.

All entries must be in our hands by no later than Wednesday, April 9, 2014. If you have any questions on any of the rules or submission guidelines, please e-mail us at amv@otafest.com and we will get back to you as soon as possible

Good Luck and we look forward to more amazing videos!


AWARDS

Honorable Mentions
- Up to a total of 8 Honorable Mentions will be awarded.

Judges’ Top Awards
- 1st Place (Best in Show), 2nd Place, and 3rd Place

Audience Favorite Awards
- 1st Place (Best in Show), 2nd Place, and 3rd Place

Both the Judges and Audience’s Best in Show will be considered the top awards. Ballots will be used to determine the Audience Favorite awards during the contest itself.

Honorable mentions will be listed on the title cards in the contest itself, while the judges and audience awards will be announced at the AMV contest awards block on Sunday in the AMV Room and/or closing ceremonies

Awards and prizes will be given out at the event, however If you are unable to attend the festival and you win something, you will be notified after the event by email. Your mailing address will then be requested so that any awards and prizes may be sent to you.

GENERAL RULES
1.Previously released videos (as shown publicly at conventions, clubs and contests, or for download on the internet) must have been premiered after May 22, 2013 to qualify.
2.Only two (2) entries will be accepted per individual or group.
3.Any age or skill level can enter the Contest.
4.All entries will be limited to a minimum length of thirty (30) seconds and a maximum length of six (6) minutes. Videos under thirty (30) seconds over six (6) minutes may be accepted at the AMV Contest Coordinator’s discretion.
5.All entries submitted must be the works of the person or group as listed with the information required with each submission. If submitted entries are found to be the works of another creator (stolen or plagiarized), the videos will be disqualified and the entrant may be banned from participating and/or attending future Otafest events.
6.This is a family festival and event. All entries are to be rated and any entries rated higher than the equivalent 14A or PG13 ( i.e. contain excessive nudity, graphic sexual content, graphic violence or excessive foul language) will not be accepted. Otafest will contact the entrant to inform them of this.
7.As this is an AMV contest, all entries are required to have the majority of their content anime/animation based (includes all Japanese animation, video game and inspired animation based on anime content). Entries that may not meet this requirement may be accepted at the AMV Contest Coordinator’s discretion.
8.Videos must use at least 70% of external music or songs (i.e., not part of the original audio track of the video source) with the exception of trailers that may be a combination of external dialogue and music.
9.All entries must meet the requirements listed in the Technical Requirements section below.
10.Otafest reserves the right to use any entry for display and promotional purposes. By submitting an entry to Otafest, it is assumed to be cleared for use by the entrant for this purpose.
11.The AMV Contest Coordinator and Judges’ interpretation and implementation of the rules and contest winners are final. All judging methods and decisions are final. Otafest reserves the right not to show entries for any reason.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

All videos are required to be in at least a resolution of 640 x 480 or higher and a frame rate of 23.97 or better (29.97 or better preferred). Audio shall be at a sampling rate of no lower then 44,100 Hz.

We will attempt to accept all media formats that we can play. Preferred in order of appearance are those encoded in mp4 (H.264), mpg2, mkv (H.264) and avi using HuffyUV, Lagrith, DviX, or Xvid codecs. Otafest reserves the right to reject any entries that will not play properly or cannot be re-encoded to something acceptable.

File sizes of each entry will be restricted to a size no more than 1 GB.

If you have problems encoding your entry, please contact us at amv@otafest.com to work out an acceptable solution.

HOW TO ENTER

All entries must be submitted online by e-mailing amv@otafest.com with the following information:
•Real Name,
•Studio Name (if Applicable),
•The sate and country you live in (so we can keep demographic statistics),
•Title of each video entered,
•The name of the song followed by the name of the artist of each video entered,
•Title of the video sources used (if more then 3, use "Various") of each video entered,
•If you plan on attending Otafest, and
•The method by which you will get your entry to us (see below)

NOTE: E-mailing us the above information means you have read and accepted all the contest rules.

The methods to get your entry to us are as follows:
•FTP: If this method is selected, the information for the FTP site to upload to (url, user, PW) will be provided.
•LINK: Videos may be accepted via upload sites (i.e.: web links, Dropbox, Rapidshare, Sendspace, etc) so long as they do not need to be "signed up" to access. Links to streaming sites such as YouTube will not be accepted. When choosing this method, provide the URL link with your information.

Once we receive your entry(s), have reviewed and tested them, we will send you an e-mail confirmation.

If you’re unable to get us your entry in any of the above methods, please contact us at amv@otafest.com to see if we can work out an alternative method.

[Rider4Z]

[ranmaman]

well, will hopefully attempt again this year, but after failing to even make the finals the last 2 years, kinda killed my confidence.. really haven't edited much of anything with anime as my Confidence has been a little shot..... but will try to suck it up and try and get something decent enough out that might be able to make the finals.. even knowing that the judging is blind, but being the amazing editors that submit to this contest and tend to make the finals every year.... assuming I just won't be good enough XD

[Vlad G Pohnert]

Well over a month till the deadline so plenty of time to still send in those entries

Vlad

[FarmXD]

Let's rock!

[Camichan19]

Had a lot of fun with this con being my first finalist placement last year- submitted.

[Vlad G Pohnert]

Just over a month left! Still awaiting more awesome entries!

[ranmaman]

Arlighty, still working hard on a request a friend asked me to try do - will try to have it done in time and submit if i think its worthy enough to attempt XD

[knage]

Sending 2 in.

[Vlad G Pohnert]

Submissions are slow, 3 weeks to go so don't forget to submit your videos and show Canada your AMV Passion

Vlad