Cross Category Videos

anneke · Post by **anneke** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 12:23 pm

I'm having a harder and harder time with my videos crossing categories. To the point that my friends and I have to watch the video several times to determine what category it would go under for a convention. Anyone else having this problem? What do you do when you have a video that doesn't fit to just one category for a contest? And yet the video isn't an 'other' or 'art' video either...

My recent videos:
Amadeus - Comedy / Drama / Dance video.
Mr. Alucard - Action / Comedy / Drama / Character Profile.
Obey the Fist - Horror / Comedy
Use to Love Her - Drama / Comedy

It use to be something would be Comedy and Fun and maybe Dance, and those all work together. My most recent being a Comedy/Horror just hurts my head. The videos don't just have elements of one category or another, but really a different person could see the video differently.

-Anneke

JaddziaDax · Post by **JaddziaDax** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 12:58 pm

i usually try to decide which element out weighs the other...

if neither out weigh then yea :/ i donno close my eyes and point and see which category is closer to my finger?

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 3:01 pm

I just receintly made a decicive effort to have that not happen, but it's definately happened in the past - and it always seems to happen when you're putting comedy elements into a video that isn't all comedy or are inserting non-comedy elements into a comedy. Everyone seems to do this because comedy and action are what the majority of non-AMV people think AMVs are all about.

To a small degree it means you have a problem with a solid concept - but then again, that sounds insulting in a way. You could be the anti-conformist mindset (like everyone else) and not want to be boxed in by boundaries and want to do the whole video for other people thing but unless it's strong in one area above all others you're left with something that's incomplete in some sence. Not solid as it were. You're going to suffer in the competition department if the major category is off (although that's seldom a good measure, because audiences are notoriously bad judges of quality and will vote for anything with popular series, flashy effects, and comedy).

Having to watch a video several times to figure out what category it belongs in isn't that bad of a thing. The feeling you get from it should categorize it. Having multiple category checkboxes here on the Org is a great thing because you're not alwyas going to be able to pidgenhole your creation.

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 5:18 pm

anneke wrote:I'm having a harder and harder time with my videos crossing categories. To the point that my friends and I have to watch the video several times to determine what category it would go under for a convention. Anyone else having this problem?

Yeah. Past two years with my Anime Central videos.

What do you do when you have a video that doesn't fit to just one category for a contest?

I submit it to Drama; that seems to be the dumping ground of AMV contests these days.

Adv1sor · Post by **Adv1sor** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 7:16 pm

Some of the best AMVs I've seen are, indeed, cross category. It's hard to fit some things into a box.

Willen · Post by **Willen** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 10:23 pm

Just like movies, most cross categories. Somehow Blockbuster manages to segregate them into Drama, Comedy, Action, Martial Arts (which is also Action), Children's (which is generally Comedy, but not always), Foreign (which is usually Drama, but can include Comedy and some Action), Anime (which sometimes includes Children's titles and stuff that is animated, but not what the .org considers Anime), and lastly the catch-all category of Special Interest. Of course, many times they grossly mis-categorize titles.

But where do you draw the line between Comedy and Action for a movie like Men In Black? And The Fifth Element would be a vastly different movie without the comedy elements in between the action. Ok, let's try an Anime. How about Trigun? Action? Check. Comedy? That too. Or is it a Drama? Hmmm.....

godix · Post by **godix** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 11:51 pm

I've never had a problem catagorizing my video. Is this really much of a problem? Honestly? Are you guys incapable of sitting down and saying 'When I started this video I was going for X and although I did add a bit of Y I meant it to be mostly X"? Are you guys so clueless and random that you honestly had no fucking idea what you meant the video to be? Hell, if figuring out what you were doing is proving too tough for you just ask yourself this: "If someone laughs at my video would I be insulted or happy? How about if they cry?" There you go, the answer to that tells you if it's comedy or drama. Unless you're one of those pathetic beings who'd damn near cum because some random stranger has watched your video no matter what their reaction is. In which case might I suggest that making AMVs so haphazard and scattershot that not even you can figure out what they are will never come close to boosting your ego that attention whoring in a LJ will do. You can get dozens of people there posting about how great you are if you play it right (tip: try self deprecation, emo suicide crap, and screwing goth girls. With pictures. You'll have a horde of fans going "no no, you're really a great person who should live. BTW Nice tits on that one" in no time)

If you really can't tell if you video is emo, laughable, violent, or whatever then you can always just mark the 'other' catagory. Although to date I've seen less than 10 videos that I actually think are 'other' and almost all of them are weird experimental things.

JaddziaDax · Post by **JaddziaDax** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 5:39 am

Willen wrote:some stuff

MIB and Fifth Element should go into the sci-fi category cause they do have the most ovbious overtones of sci-fi no matter how comedic/dramatic they are the sci-fi element stands out the most O.O because its the most ovbious...

if your blockbuster doesnt have a sci-fi category then they are uh "dumb" :/

EvaFan · Post by **EvaFan** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 5:47 am

It tells you to pick no more then 3 so pick the 3 that are mostly used. What's so uncomprehendable about that? If you have a vid with more then three then just fricken select all the categories. I've seen horrible amv's with EVERY category selected, maybe cause the creator was stupid or lazy, who knows. It's not like they do anything about it anyways. This isn't that hard people -_-...

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 7:50 am

Eva-Fan wrote:It tells you to pick no more then 3 so pick the 3 that are mostly used.

Read the first post in the thread. Anneke was talking about convention amv contests - where you pick 1 category only.

If you had to pick one contest category for your 'End of Evangelion Tribute' vid, how would you settle on the 1 category you pick out of the 5 categories you have selected right now?

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