Anime Los Angeles 2011 - Feedback and Suggestions

[BasharOfTheAges]

Actually, Yuusharo, most cons limit their submissions to 1 or 2 per person and their prescreening lets the better videos in, because the entertainment of the audience is the important thing. No magical mystery involved - just (somewhat) qualified prescreeners in most cases. Tastes can differ, but I can't think of a con that DQs someone because they're too good or lets people in for trying at the expense of a better video - or at least one with the gall to admit it.

[Stryyder]

@Ryv: thanks for the kind words!

I can definitely see the points on each side of the fence. I do remember hearing last year that some of one creator's vids were good enough to all make it, but since there are only so many spots, they wanted to keep the contest as a variety and not give that creator a biased advantage by making 10% of the contest their videos. That said, they did not try to hide this, they actually said it to the creator in question, as it came up in conversation and the creator in question did indeed win at least one award (names withheld to protect the innocent)

Now, I TOTALLY understand that position, but I agree with Bashar that having a per creator or per category cap is a good way to keep this from happening in a better way than "pick 1 or 2, dump the rest". As Ryvannis said, I am doing a major overhaul on the Anime Vegas contest and the current cap is any editor can only enter 1 video per category. If that means that an editor ends up with 4 videos in the contest, so be it.

And the "multiple anime" problem can be solved by using an originality score in your judging. From what I heard, this year there were a WHOPPING amount of Code Geass vids in one contest (again, won't mention specifics, as it isn't my place to say), however I only saw ONE make the finals. Mainly because it is a popular source, as was Naruto, DBZ, etc.

Summing up, I think I'm just trying to say, put safeguards in your submission and judging process to ward off against these problems and not just "dump" the videos for the reasons you mentioned. It gives everyone a more fair chance, and if you have good enough judges it will work out better than you'd think.

[Yuusharo]

Many thanks to everyone who's replied so far!

@BasharOfTheAges: Those numbers I was using earlier were just examples. Some contests like AX actually allow up to 8 submissions per year, however ours has always stuck to 2. I'm not saying that our contest has ever DQ'ed or allowed a video based on being too good or cutting a break. Like I said, I really don't have any clue how they've been prejudged in the past.

@Stryyder: Thank you for taking the time to help me out, man! I'd love to go to Anime Vegas this year, but unfortunately PAX is occurring that same weekend .

I actually agree with you. It makes sense to ward off a lot of problems by putting in safeguards in the submission process. I believe we currently only allow 2 videos per person/studio, so we've been able to avoid the flood so far. My main concern in the past has been the prejudging phase. Being a fly on the wall overhearing some conversations, I have my doubts that the system that's been employed in the past has been the most efficient. I don't mean to badmouth my own contest, but I think this is the area that needs the most change.

So for example, if we were going to go down the route of a simple scale to prejudge the videos, how do we go about it? What sort of criteria should they be judged at during this initial stage? How do we handle a video that has been submitted for more than one category? Should it be a secret ballot between judges, or should they collaborate? And how do you qualify a judge in the first place?

Stryyder, if you're able to, could you go over the steps you're taking with Anime Vegas this year, either here or through a PM? I understand if you're busy or need to keep things like that under wraps. I'm sure we'll come up with something on our own, but its obvious I have a lot to learn.