AnimeVerse Fest Houston AMV Contest - Submission Deadline 1/8/2025 - Contest 2/14/2024

[Harmadillo]

Event Timing: Convention will be 2/13/2026 - 2/15/2026
Submission Deadline is 11:00PM CST (midnight EST) 1/8/2026
Contest will Likely be on Saturday 2/14 and Sunday 2/15
Winners will be announced live at the end of the contest run on Sunday 2/15
Event Address: NRG Center - 1 NRG Park, Houston, TX 77054

Contact us here on the org my messaging me, or you can also email Harmadillostudios@Gmail.com or message Harmadillo (ID: derbadger) on discord

Entry form: We will ask for some AMV details and your personal information
You must upload the file to the contest drive via this form. Unfortunately the coordinator lives in a rural area with very poor upload speeds (thanks satellite!) so this is necessary. You will have to fill out this form for every video you submit - sorry!
Entry Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... usp=header

Submission Limits:
2 videos maximum
You may submit one video of any category / type and a second as long as the second is a comedy or romance vid. (It will be held on Valentines day weekend - romance represent!)

We will have two special awards : The Howdy Neighbor award for the best entry from a Texan editor, and another for the "Be My Valentine" best Romance AMV since this is valentines day weekend.

Judging: Contest will be blind judged by a group of AMV judges. This group will include both relatively new editors, highly experienced editors and some superfans that have experience judging contests. Please remove any bumpers or credits from your submissions before sending them.
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Rules:

For 2026 The AnimeVerse Fest AMV Contest will adhere primarily to A-M-V.org CONGRSS Rules

Basic Rules & Guidelines

Keep it decent! AnimeVerse Fest AMV Contest strives to keep a fun, “Family Friendly” atmosphere, and entries will be disqualified if they do not maintain a certain level of decency (Easy Translation: No Hentai AMVs or songs with a lot of profanity, excessive gore, etc). Videos should not contain excessive violence, language, or content that would either place it above a PG13 rating or is unsuitable for a general audience. This rule will be enforced on a case-by-case and contest-by-contest basis.
Videos should also refrain from having content that is derogatory, demeaning, or designed to insult others on the basis of race, gender, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation.
We reserve the right to disqualify any entry if we feel it is deemed inappropriate. If this happens to you and you feel it was unjust, you may appeal to the Contest Coordinator after the event.
Videos longer than 4 minutes 30 seconds are heavily discouraged. Preferred length is 3 minutes 30 seconds or less. We will LIKELY have about 1 hour for the competition video block. If videos are longer than the awards show or finals will allow, only a portion may be shown during the AMV Contest Event if at all.

There will be no pre-defined Categories. Videos will be distributed somewhat randomly with the intent to keep the show moving and entertaining.

Video & Audio Quality.
Entries should be of reasonable video and audio quality. 1080P is preferred. Videos that have a resolution and frame rate of less than 480p and 23.976fps may be disqualified. All submissions MUST be made in MP4 AVC format. From Wikipedia: Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is … by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distribution of video content …

Videos should not contain watermarks, TV logos, studio bumpers, credits, or references to other events/ competitions that are either not directly related to the video content, or unnecessary for the video concept. Videos should also not contain subtitles that were not created by the editor.
Videos should consist of clips edited solely by the entrant(s) or group listed on the entry form. Entries found to have been plagiarized from other Fandom Music Videos may result in disqualification and/or banishment from future events.
In the case of collabs, MEPs, or videos edited by multiple people, EVERY participant and the group name must be listed on the submission form. If the submission form doesn’t allow multiple editors to be listed, or if you forgot to include someone, please contact the contest coordinator to have the information added.

Entry Submission:
Registration for the contest will be handled via THIS very google form. Entrants will submit their videos in .mp4 format on digital media along with the above form containing the entrant’s name and e-mail, running time, the artist/name of the song(s) used, and the name of the anime(s) used, etc. YouTube or ”streaming only” links will not be accepted.
All entries must be received by the published submission deadline to allow time for the pre-judging and compilation of the finalists.
You may submit one video of any category / type and a second as long as the second is a comedy or romance vid. (It will be held on Valentines day weekend - romance represent!) .
Exception: Because it will be held on valentines day participation in a Romance MEP can count as your second entry in place of a comedic vid.

Freshness:
Freshness: Any video that was submitted to another contest and won an award before January 1 2025 is NOT eligible for the competition. If you won an award on January 2 2025 or more recently than that, you ARE eligible. If your video has never won an award you are eligible.

Rules regarding AI components in submissions:

This is intended to be a competition between human editors using human created source material. We merely wish to ensure that the AMVs shown meet that criteria. Please keep that in mind when submitting.

Specifics:
Songs or video sources created entirely or mostly by AI are NOT allowed.
AI scene selection, transition creation and auto titling are NOT allowed.
AI for new scene / background creation is not allowed.
AI use for background EXTENSION and background modification is allowable but try not to do too much of it.
Use of AMV Templates is heavily discouraged.
Use of AI integrated tools for functions like upscaling, interpolation, clip detection, text deletion, scene extension, rotoscoping, etc is allowed, but please be careful they are not changing the nature of the source material. They should only be used to reduce time performing tedious tasks or enhance the quality of the source material, not creating entirely new material. If using AI tools, please do frame by frame checks to ensure that un-intended artifacts are not present.

The Spirit of these rules is that the competition should be humans competing against humans, using content created by humans. Please use your best judgment in selecting techniques and sources to ensure that this is the case. If you have questions please contact the contest coordinator.


Competition:
Finalists will consist of the top scoring videos selected during pre-judging. The number of finalist will be determined by total contest run time. Finalists will be shown in a random order & voted on during the competition showing by the AnimeVerse Fest attendees and staff in attendance. A list of finalists Editor Names will be posted on Animemusicvideos.org before the convention and as soon as the judges reach consensus. Submission titles will not be announced online until after the contest.
Fans will select First, Second and Third place with the voted from both competition shows counting towards the cumulative total. All other awards will be judge selected. We reserve the right to select videos for extra awards that are only announced after the convention online if we are low on time.
Winners will be announced live after voting at the awards ceremony on Sunday.
At their discretion, the judges may elect to bestow their own awards, such as judges choice, best in show, best storytelling etc. These categories are not pre-defined and are a way for the judges to recognize excellence and effort, and possibly recognize videos they may love that do not make the finals.
We will have a special awards : The Howdy Neighbor award for the best entry from a Texan editor, and another for the "Be My Valentine" best Romance AMV since this is valentines day weekend.

Prizes:
We do not promise any tangible prizes outside of certificates for some winners.
You are not required to be present for the AMV contest to enter or win.
It is highly recommended that the winners be present, but any winners who are not present will be contacted after the convention via the e-mail address given when they submitted their video.
Arrangements will be made for the winners to receive the associated prize(s) and/or awards. (In most cases the award is simply a certificate and recognition in the community). Awards certificates will be created for Winners, Runners Up, and any judges awards.

Source Material clarification:
This is intended as an "Anime" music video contest not a visual art contest so no live action please. Live action footage from the live action adaptation of an Anime (city hunter, One Piece, etc) would be allowed. Scoring of it would be a judges choice thing. Typically this crew of judges has not rated live action stuff that was non Anime derived highly in the past.

We will accept Animation of any sort as long as it was not AI produced. So Anime (of course) also Gaming footage and Manga based footage are totally fine. Western Animation is also allowed.

Entry Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... usp=header

[Harmadillo]

Reserved for FInalists

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Reserved for Winners

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Reserved for Playlist Links and other links

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Quick bump for 3 weeks to submission deadline! If you have a cool Romance AMV cooking please let us have it!