Sakura-Con 2024 AMV Contest - DEADLINE: Saturday, February 3rd

[XStylus]

I think the spirit is AMVs are MUSIC videos. Therefore, I think the idea is that it's for people to enjoy the music. (so, to some degree, it's already exclusionary, because not everyone enjoys music for one reason or another.) Disclaimer - i myself is quite new to this space... still also learning.

If it's purely an accessibility issue, subtitle by itself actually doesn't help someone enjoy the music (at least I don't think, but I'm capable of hearing).

[Rider4Z]

(As an aside: I've looked into a few AMV contests, and I've practically always been unsure of rules surrounding subtitles. Maybe AMV contests really aren't for me if I'm that adamant about including subs, but I thought I'd finally sum up the courage to ask outright about it!)

Every contest has a different personality and there are a LOT of AMV contests out there. Don't get discouraged!

[MarshmallowGoop]

If there is a more appropriate place to have this discussion, I would welcome a larger conversation. I find rules banning or discouraging subtitles at AMV contests disheartening, to put it lightly, and though I'm not at all a legal expert, I also wonder about the legality of such rules in the United States. While laws like RCW 49.60.520, requiring "television closed captioning in places of public accommodation" in Washington, don't seem applicable to Washington's Sakura-Con, the outright barring of an accessibility feature feels to me like something that shouldn't be permitted under the ADA.

I think the spirit is AMVs are MUSIC videos. Therefore, I think the idea is that it's for people to enjoy the music. (so, to some degree, it's already exclusionary, because not everyone enjoys music for one reason or another.) Disclaimer - i myself is quite new to this space... still also learning.
If it's purely an accessibility issue, subtitle by itself actually doesn't help someone enjoy the music (at least I don't think, but I'm capable of hearing). Seems to me, it at best just improves understanding of lyrics. But music to me is so much more than lyrics. Music communicates a mood, an emotion, a feel without a single word, with its tempo, volume, and sound.

I'd really like to point to this short news clip about Amber Galloway Gallego, an ASL interpreter who works at concerts. Most relevantly, I want to pull out this piece:

Brhe Berry: Now that the video has gone viral, Amber says the number-1 comment she's noticed is people asking why deaf people would go to a concert.

Amber Galloway Gallego: Deaf people feel vibrations. And science has actually shown that once they feel the vibration, it triggers the same part of the brain that hearing counterparts have triggered, that releases all the good chemicals that are in our body.

So, d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing people absolutely can and do enjoy music! AMVs are not an art form that inherently excludes this population.

I also strongly disagree about lyrics. If a song includes lyrics, I think that's an integral part of the song—and it's also an integral part of my AMV process! My notes and planning documents for AMVs are so about matching images to the lyrics. Why should we have rules banning accessibility to those lyrics—to an important, crucial part of an AMV? The National Institute of Health reports that "[o]ne in eight people in the United States (13 percent, or 30 million) aged 12 years or older has hearing loss in both ears, based on standard hearing examinations" and that "[a]pproximately 15% of American adults (37.5 million) aged 18 and over report some trouble hearing." That's a lot of people who could benefit from subtitled AMVs at a convention in the States.

But also—subtitles can be helpful to anyone! Especially on AMVs! Lyrics can be hard to make out even for hearing individuals, but if I'm watching a subtitled AMV, I'd be able to easily understand what the editor was doing with the lyrics. Without those subs, I might have had no clue what the singer was saying, but the subtitles allow me to better appreciate the song and the work of the editor. In a similar vein, AMV subtitles could be really helpful for someone learning the language of the song.

I've already thrown out so many links, so here's another one while I'm at it that discusses the many, many benefits of captioned videos for everyone. I think there's plenty of data to suggest that subtitles help way more than they hurt, and it's been incredibly discouraging to have received so much resistance to the idea of subtitled AMVs at a con. Anime fans already can rarely watch an English dub with subtitles that match the English dub. Why create even more barriers? Especially when so many people watch anime subtitled and are very used to subs!

Every contest has a different personality and there are a LOT of AMV contests out there. Don't get discouraged!

Thank you so much. I'm a pretty new editor, but I'd love to try more contests in the future!

[ComplicatedMuse]

I'm new to this forum. But my feeling is perhaps it'd be better if there is a separate thread in the general forum about this if you'd like to continue the conversation. I think having the debate within a thread directly related to one single contest may not be the best place for a productive dialogue.

[MarshmallowGoop]

Done.

I guess my only other question about Sakura-Con specifically is: if I were to submit with subtitles, would I be automatically disqualified? I won't submit without them, and I'd rather not waste anyone's time if I'm only going to be auto-DQ'd.

[Rider4Z]

I'm not staff but I am a long time attendee. The thing about SakuraCon's contest is it's very polished and professionally put together, down to custom intros, credits, graphics, slides, etc. Subtitles in a single video would not be uniform to the rest of the videos and it could give it an unfair bias, be it positive or negative.

But I know the coordinators are also open to new thoughts so if subtitles become a bigger demand you may see a change in time. But again these are just my thoughts. I'm not the final word.

[Kazemon15]

Done.

I guess my only other question about Sakura-Con specifically is: if I were to submit with subtitles, would I be automatically disqualified? I won't submit without them, and I'd rather not waste anyone's time if I'm only going to be auto-DQ'd.

As a deaf/hard of hearing editor, I replied to your thread, I'll elaborate more there if anyone is curious about accessibility and how subtitles can benefit the disabled.

[Vlad G Pohnert]

It's been a while since I posted here, but I feel a few things should be considered for fairness more than anything:

If a contest really wants to subtitle all the entires, as long as it's stated in writing and made clear that is what will be done to thier videos then it's a choice an editor has if they want to enter that contest or not.

However, if the contest presents the videos subtitlted on one or more sceens, but not all of them and there is audience voting, then I think that is unfair from a contest point of view as it is presenting the videos in two diffrent ways and that may effect how people vote on depending on what scrren they are watching (subutitles of the lyrics can actually hurt some types of videos - see next paragraph)

Another thought is you can just have the contest accept entires with subitles and let the editors MAKE the choice if they want to include them or not. There are many examples of vidoes out there where adding the subtutles for the lyrics can acutally hurt the video more then help it. Sure, for example a dramatic video that follows the meaning of the lyrics it may help, however there are many videos that go with the feel or only a certian aspect of the song over the lyrics, or go for artistic impact where the subtuitles of the lyrics can actually hurt the video.

In the end it's up to the contest and coordinators how they want to run the contest, and as long as it's stated up front, then it's still a choice.

Again, just a few considerations and thoughts and not ment to stomp on anyone's opinion here.

Vlad

[MarshmallowGoop]

I'm not staff but I am a long time attendee. The thing about SakuraCon's contest is it's very polished and professionally put together, down to custom intros, credits, graphics, slides, etc. Subtitles in a single video would not be uniform to the rest of the videos and it could give it an unfair bias, be it positive or negative.

But I know the coordinators are also open to new thoughts so if subtitles become a bigger demand you may see a change in time. But again these are just my thoughts. I'm not the final word.

I guess personally I don't really see a problem with this? AMVs are all about creativity; everyone edits AMVs differently, and it'd probably be really boring if every AMV in a contest looked uniform! There are going to be biases and preferences for any choice an editor makes.

But it'd be really neat if there were different options for folks wanting subbed or non-subbed AMVs at contests in the future!

As a deaf/hard of hearing editor, I replied to your thread, I'll elaborate more there if anyone is curious about accessibility and how subtitles can benefit the disabled.

Thank you so much, again, for sharing your experiences

It's been a while since I posted here, but I feel a few things should be considered for fairness more than anything:

If a contest really wants to subtitle all the entires, as long as it's stated in writing and made clear that is what will be done to thier videos then it's a choice an editor has if they want to enter that contest or not.

However, if the contest presents the videos subtitlted on one or more sceens, but not all of them and there is audience voting, then I think that is unfair from a contest point of view as it is presenting the videos in two diffrent ways and that may effect how people vote on depending on what scrren they are watching (subutitles of the lyrics can actually hurt some types of videos - see next paragraph)

Another thought is you can just have the contest accept entires with subitles and let the editors MAKE the choice if they want to include them or not. There are many examples of vidoes out there where adding the subtutles for the lyrics can acutally hurt the video more then help it. Sure, for example a dramatic video that follows the meaning of the lyrics it may help, however there are many videos that go with the feel or only a certian aspect of the song over the lyrics, or go for artistic impact where the subtuitles of the lyrics can actually hurt the video.

In the end it's up to the contest and coordinators how they want to run the contest, and as long as it's stated up front, then it's still a choice.

Again, just a few considerations and thoughts and not ment to stomp on anyone's opinion here.

Vlad

I think there's maybe been a bit of confusion on my intentions. As I discussed in my last post in the thread I created specifically regarding the subtitle topic, I was really originally only asking if my subtitles would be allowed, not trying to say that AMV contests should require subtitles or subtitle everything themselves. Banning subtitles, something useful for accessibility, just seems like something we shouldn't want to do.

In regards to fair voting, it's unfair to vote on something that someone can't access properly. If there are no subtitles provided, and a person can't understand what's being said, that's unfair. In my opinion, giving people the option to watch the video in the way that best suits them will allow for fairer voting.

But all that said: the thread is probably really the place for that discussion! To keep more on topic, I did submit to Sakura-Con, and I hope my entry demonstrates the importance of lyrics in AMVs that use songs with lyrics. (Though, did the rules change slightly before the deadline? I could have sworn there was a shorts category, with a minimum of 10 seconds and a maximum of 90 seconds, and shorts are still listed once as something that an editor can submit, but when I was reviewing the rules again prior to submitting, the length requirements about shorts seemed to have disappeared? I was hoping to submit more than one to that category but didn't because it seemed like the category disappeared altogether.)

[Rider4Z]

AMVs are all about creativity; everyone edits AMVs differently, and it'd probably be really boring if every AMV in a contest looked uniform! There are going to be biases and preferences for any choice an editor makes.

I said uniform, not identical. A good panel of judges, which Sakura-Con has as far as I can tell, likes a wide variety of entries and stuff that stands out. It's pretty presumptuous to acuse a contest of being boring just because they don't allow subtitles.