Ohayocon 2006 AMV Contest!!!

[dji]

Yes I know.. it's pretty darn late... to be telling all of you about this now... however those already at the head of the class, made their submissions to the Ohayocon 2006 contest through their AnimeUSA 2005 entries.

With that being said, if you entered to AnimeUSA 2005, and did not take a first prize in their contest this year, and did option to enter Ohayocon's 2006 AMV contest, then you're already set, and do not have to do anything else.

However, for those who have not... here are the rules:

General Rules

o Submissions that are to be mailed, must be mailed to:
Ohayocon AMV Contest
PO Box 336
Edison, NJ 08818-0636

o Submissions must ARRIVE by December 23rd, 2005.
o Late submissions will be disqualified. We'll be compiling the contest the next day and won't be able to accomidate late entries, so please plan accordingly. It doesn't hurt to mail out your entry EARLY...
o Attendance is not mandatory, though it is recommended.
o The Ohayocon AMV contest screening is open to the public, and because of that, we must be wary of the content we show. Explicit lyrics, violence, or sexual content may be grounds for disqualification. If you would feel uncomfortable watching your video with your mother and your six-year-old sister, chances are we might have a problem showing it.
o This is an AMV contest, and therefore your submission must have both anime and music(or movie trailer audio). If your video consists mainly of non-anime footage then your video will be disqualified. Video game footage, however, is perfectly fine.
o Your video can not include subtitles, whether they be from fansubs or from an official release. Subtitles that you add yourself are acceptable.
o Your video should not include audio from a commercial dub. Any sound effects or dubbing you do yourself however, is fine by us.
o The length of each of your submissions may not be shorter than 30 seconds, nor longer than 6 minutes.
o Do NOT include studio bumpers, credits or title cards with your video. Ohayocon will be creating custom, uniform title cards based on the information that you give us. Including a bumper, credits, or title card of your own design may result in disqualification if we can't easily remove it.
o Ohayocon reserves the right to reject any video that does not adhere to the rules.

Submission Methods
o Currently we accept submissions on the following mediums:
- Standard Play(SP) NTSC VHS tape
- Standard Play(SP) NTSC S-VHS tape
- Submissions on disc (DVD-R, DVD+R, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RW, DVD-DL, DVD+DL)

Submitting on Tape
o You may submit up to two(2) videos to the contest. Please make sure they are the only videos on the tape. Do not send us your "reel" because we will simply use the first two videos on the tape.
o Please label your tape's spine with the following information:
- Your real name or your studio name (if applicable)
- Title of your video(s)
- Tape format (VHS or SVHS) Sorry. We cannot accept SVHS-ET
- Your phone number or email address (if applicable)

o Each submission MUST be accompanied by a printed, filled out, and signed submission form
- Download the submission form in Adobe PDF format (http://libsyn.com/media/otakugeneration ... ubform.pdf)
o Submitted tapes can not be returned, so please do not send us the only copy of your video.
o Submissions recorded in modes other than Standard Play(SP) will be disqualified.
o When putting your videos on tape, include one minute of black, silent leader before your first video, and 10-15 seconds of silent black leader before your second video.
o Ohayocon is not responsible for lost or damaged tapes, so please send your tape with a respectable mail carrier using whatever method you deem appropriate. If you wish to be notified when we receive your tape, let us know on the submission form (we only check our PO boxes on weekends so don't panic unless it's been 2 weeks since you mailed us)

Submitting on disc
o Ohayocon will be screening the contest digitally, so submitting digitally is the best way to ensure your video will be presented at it's best quality, however, explicit care must be taken when submitting to ensure that your video will be presented properly.
o You may submit up to two(2) videos to the contest. Please, only send us the two videos you intend on submitting. Discs with more than 2 videos on them will be used as Christmas ornaments.
o We will only accept digital submissions on the following mediums:
- CD-R
- CD-RW
- DVD+R
- DVD-R
- DVD+RW
- DVD-RW
- Dual Layer DVD+/-R
o We can accept mpeg1, mpeg2, Quicktime, and most AVI files.
o If submitting an AVI file, please make sure it uses one of the following codecs:
- Uncompressed AVI
- Huffyuv
- DV
- DivX 3/4/5
- DivX Compatible Xvid
- Indeo 5.11
- Mjpeg
- Microsoft MPEG4
o Audio must be either uncompressed, DivX Audio, or MP3 audio.
o We can accept Quicktime submissions if they are encoded using the default set of codecs included with Quicktime 6.5
- If you must send us a file encoded with Quicktime DV or Microsoft WMV, we'll try our best to encode it, but we make no promises. We highly recommend submitting on tape as well as a backup. We'll be sure to let you know if there's a problem.
o Mpeg1 submissions will not be recompressed for the screening, however be aware that they will be scaled to fill the screen, whether or not the video is anamorphic (16:9). This means that you must letterbox your widescreen footage ahead of time to be properly displayed. Also be aware that at the same bitrate, mpeg2 will produce much better results than mpeg1.
o Mpeg2 is the preferred method of submitting as that's the format the contest will be screened in.
o To ensure that Ohayocon will not recompress your video, please follow these guidelines when submitting your video in mpeg2 format:
- Make sure your video size is 720x480 and encoded with a 4:3 playback flag. Anything else will be scaled to this size. Our hardware does not currently understand how to properly playback 16:9 files on a 4:3 display so videos encoded with a 16:9 flag will look horizontally squished during the contest screening.
- Make sure the framerate is either 29.97 or 23.976.
- Interlaced or progressive scan videos are fine. If submitting interlaced, please check your video on a television first to ensure the field order is correct and there are no interlacing artifacts. We recommend purchasing a Hollywood+ card by Sigma Designs to do so as it is very similar to the hardware we are using.
- Please use mpeg1 layer 2 audio using the "stereo" setting and whatever bitrate you feel necessary. 2 channel AC3 audio is also perfectly acceptable.
o If submitting on DVD, do not author your disc. Simply burn the file to the disc as a data file.
o If a video is too large to fit on one disc, we recommend splitting the file using WinRAR (http://www.rarsoft.com/)
o When submitting on disc, please label the disc surface using a Sharpie™ with the following information. Do NOT affix a label to your disc.
- Your real name or studio name (if applicable)
- The title of the video(s) on the disc
- Your phone number or email address (if applicable)
- If your video spans more than one disc, please label each disc numerically (IE: "Real Cool Video Disc 2 of 4")
o Each submission must be accompanied by a printed, filled out, and signed copy of the Submission Form
- Download the submission form in Adobe PDF format (http://libsyn.com/media/otakugeneration ... ubform.pdf)
o Submitted discs can not be returned, so please do not send us the only copy of your video(s)
o When encoding your videos, please include 3 seconds of black, silent video, before and after each AMV. We need this so the audio and video can sync without clipping the first few seconds of your AMV.
o Ohayocon is not responsible for lost or damaged discs, so please send your disc with a respectable mail carrier using whatever method you deem appropriate. If you wish to be notified when we receive your disc, let us know on the submission form (we only check our PO boxes on weekends so don't panic unless it's been 2 weeks since you mailed us)

Submitting through FTP
o Ohayocon will also accept submissions through FTP instead of snail-mail. This can buy you a little extra time to finish your video. However, we can't be responsible for fixing last minute connection problems, so please, request a login early so that you can confirm that you can connect to our server without issue.
o Submissions sent through FTP adhere to the same rules as submitting digitally on disc. Obviously, there is no disc surface on which you can write down your information when submitting through FTP. Instead, files must be named using the following naming convention:
- Studio_Name-Video_Title-Anime_Used.xxx
- For Studio Name, if the AMV was produced by more than one studio, pick the studio that is associated with the "primary contact information" as indicated on the submission form. For Anime Used, if your video features more than one anime, just list the dominant title. If your video uses multiple animes and there is no real dominant title, then put "Various".
o You may apply for an FTP login by sending an email to amv.ohayocon@gmail.com. Just send an email with your studio name as well as what you want your password to be, in the body of the email. We will get back to you as soon as possible with the necessary login information. This is not an automated process, so it may take a bit of time.
o Entries submitted through FTP MUST be accompanied by a SCANNED copy of all 3 pages of the filled out submission form per video. We do this because anybody can forge a text file, it's a bit harder to forge your signature. This is every bit as much for your protection, as ours. If your handwriting is outrageously bad, you can type on the submission forms, but your signature must still be handwritten on the third page, scanned, and submitted for each video.

Joint Submissions
o If you have previously sent in your submission to AnimeUSA, and on the AnimeUSA submission ballot you indicated you wanted your AMV submitted to Ohayocon as well; then your video will be entered into the contest. However I recommend emailing us, to verify if your entry has been submitted for Ohayocon’s contest.
o If you indicated that you also wanted your submission to Ohayocon, it does not guarantee you a spot in the final contest. your video still can be rejected based on Ohayocon's prescreening rules. It was simply a "free" way to submit to both Ohayocon and AnimeUSA.
o HOWEVER! If your video took first place in it's category, or first place as determained by audience voting at AnimeUSA, you AMV will be automatically disqualified from Ohayocon. This is to keep the two contests different, and give other people a shot at winning.

Technical Difficulties
o Bad stuff happens, especially today in the digital age. Ohayocon recognizes that a technical problem with a video's encoding could mar an otherwise excellent video in the public eye. We recognize that the submitters deserve to have their video screened in the best possible light (figuratively of course. Screening rooms tend to be quite dark...) and the audience deserves the best show that we can give them.
o If Ohayocon notices a technical problem that can be corrected, we will email you with a description of the problem, and how we intend to fix it, given your permission. This includes but is not limited to PAL-to-NTSC conversion, aspect ratio problems, and field order issues. We'd rather not have to correct your entry, but if we see a correction is possible, we won't hesitate to make it so that your submission is displayed properly on our hardware.
o We will not re-edit your video for you, and we're not magicians. We can't make videos with poor quality, good again. The better quality video you send us, the better it will look. Remember, the contest is screened on large projection screens, not a small tv. Visual anomalies from poor compression will be enlarged.

The Contest
o The contest will be screened at Ohayocon 2006 at least once (most likely twice). The contest will not exceed the length of 2 hours. Should we receive more than 2 hours worth of submissions, all entries will be evaluated and 2 hours of finalists will be chosen to enter the contest. Videos that adhere to the rules but do not make the final cut will be shown during an overflow period, most likely very late at night since some videos in the overflow screening could be rejected from the contest for excessive adult content.
o The contest will be divided into 6 categories: Drama/Serious, Romance/Sentimental, Action, Upbeat, Comedy, and Trailer.
o Judges will rank the videos on various aspects tailored to the video's category, and a numeric average will then be compiled. The highest score in each category will be declared the winner for that category.
o The audience will also have a ballot listing all the competing videos and will be asked to indicate their favorite. The video with the most votes will win the Audience Choice Award. Recognition will be given for videos that place 2nd and 3rd in the audience choice voting as well.
o In addition, the video with the highest overall judges score will be awarded Best of Show.
o Additional awards may be issued at the discretion of the Ohayocon staff

Eligibility
o The contest is open to any AMV, regardless of age, that adheres to the content/time limit guidelines.
o The contest is open to any individual with means of getting their video to us, with the exception of the Ohayocon staff, and the Ohayocon AMV judging staff.

For more information regarding the Ohayocon 2006 AMV Contest, Contact amv.ohayocon@gmail.com
GOOD LUCK TO EVERYBODY SUBMITTING! AND REMEMBER, HAVE FUN!!!