AWA 10 Anime Music Video Contest Rules (Cliff's Notes)

SQ · Post by SQ » Sat Jun 12, 2004 11:48 am

I've got a question.

How do we prove that we won a certain con contest? Do you just trust us or do we have to mail you a copy of a certificate or something?(for masters)

Also.. For Masters, for our qualifying entry, do we leave the bumpers out or put them in? You never really said what for the qualifying video, so I am confused.

AND!(Man, I'm just full of questions today)... Are trailers allowed for Masters or is it strictly anime to music...?
Can live-action be entered in Masters?

More... (oi...)
Say we made a video on a tape. It's never been spoken of on the org, but has been shown to people(as a teaching tool for editing. 0.o) who have never heard of the org. Would this still be a qualifying entry for Masters or no?

Thanks for the help in advance.

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 6:08 pm

SQ wrote:I've got a question.

How do we prove that we won a certain con contest? Do you just trust us or do we have to mail you a copy of a certificate or something?(for masters)

Contest results can be verified with the contest coordinator pretty easily.

SQ wrote:Also.. For Masters, for our qualifying entry, do we leave the bumpers out or put them in? You never really said what for the qualifying video, so I am confused.

I'd say be cautious and have no bumpers on anything.

MCWagner wrote:Like the Pro contest, judging is “blind.” Don’t leave anything in the video specifically telling us who you or your group are. You can include a copy with all the “studio identification” intact for display at the convention, but the “blind” one is what will be judged.

You're probably thinking he meant only the video itself (and that may be the case since that's what the judges will see), but again, I think you should be cautious and not have a bumper on anything.

SQ wrote:More... (oi...)
Say we made a video on a tape. It's never been spoken of on the org, but has been shown to people(as a teaching tool for editing. 0.o) who have never heard of the org. Would this still be a qualifying entry for Masters or no?

Thanks for the help in advance.

Did it win an award at a non-online contest?

madmallard · Post by **madmallard** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 8:39 pm

Just to confirm...

SQ wrote: How do we prove that we won a certain con contest? Do you just trust us or do we have to mail you a copy of a certificate or something?(for masters)

As D indicated, we can verify contest winning entries, and if we can't to a certain satisfaction, we'll contact you for more information on your entries.

Also.. For Masters, for our qualifying entry, do we leave the bumpers out or put them in? You never really said what for the qualifying video, so I am confused.

It is not necessary to remove the bumpers from your QUALIFYING entry. The qualifying entry is not what will be blind judged, so it doesnt particularly matter if it has bumpers. In Fact, the judges will not even know who has entered until after all videos are judged.

You MUST NOT have bumpers on the actual master's entry.

Are trailers allowed for Masters or is it strictly anime to music...?
Can live-action be entered in Masters?

We have accepted live action videos as entries in past contests, I will have to confirm this for masters...

More... (oi...)
Say we made a video on a tape. It's never been spoken of on the org, but has been shown to people(as a teaching tool for editing. 0.o) who have never heard of the org. Would this still be a qualifying entry for Masters or no?

If it has competed in contest or exhibited in non-competing form at any time, it is probably not an acceptable entry for masters.

If you've shown it to a 'small circle of friends,' never at a convention or online contest, it should be fine.

TaranT · Post by **TaranT** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 2:18 am

sixstop wrote:If you've shown it to a 'small circle of friends,' never at a convention or online contest, it should be fine.

Unless that circle includes MCWagner or one of the other people reviewing the entries.

MCWagner wrote:Like the Pro contest, judging is “blind.” Don’t leave anything in the video specifically telling us who you or your group are. You can include a copy with all the “studio identification” intact for display at the convention, but the “blind” one is what will be judged.

Here's another, maybe pointless, issue. Last Christmas I was putting together an AMV that I thought was good enough for the Masters. Later I realized that I had already put the vid info in the Org's database three years ago. While I'm sure Matt doesn't look in the d/b for entry info, I thought it might be possible that he remembered seeing it there from some time in the past. And even if he never knew, there was a chance someone else might see it and make a comment. (We all know how AMV creators like to cause trouble.

) And the same question applies to the other people who are helping with the judging. So, rather than have even the slightest risk of making a problem for the contest, I changed plans and sent the vid to Anime Boston instead.

Maybe it makes sense to add a rule that the vid can't be listed (

). While it's impossible to search every site on the Web, the Org's d/b is unique as a concentrated source of AMV information. Or maybe it's not worth worrying about since complete and absolute "blindness" may not be achievable in the general sense. And the current system seems to work well enough.

I would certainly suggest to anyone entering, that you don't put the info in the d/b until after the show. I suppose that applies to the Pro contest, too, except for the fact that Pro entries don't have to be newly minted. So a Pro vid may already have a database entry, and in fact might be well-known from previous showings.

SQ · Post by SQ » Sun Jun 13, 2004 7:22 am

Hey everyone, thanks for all the information!

The tape is shown to... I guess it would qualify as a "small circle of friends", but otherwise it's never been shown anywhere con-wise or to AMVers, so that's good. (Unless any AMVers go to Walton high school o.o)

I am still waiting for the live-action confirmation, though.

Corran · Post by **Corran** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 11:58 am

From Master's rule page

Long version of the Master's rules wrote:NEW: Because online contests have expanded beyond any one person's ability to keep up with them, awards given via online contests are not eligible for this qualification. This is in no way meant as a slight against online contests, but rather an acknowledgement that if someone made up a fictional or rigged contest we'd never heard of online to give themselves an award, we'd be none the wiser.

Since these rules appear definitive this is probably a stupid question but I felt like I needed to ask anyways... Does this include the AnimeMusicVideos.org Viewer's Choice Awards? It is probally the most well known online amv contest and it wouldn't seem to fit the

if someone made up a fictional or rigged contest we'd never heard of online to give themselves an award, we'd be none the wiser.

part which the new rule is based on.

temaranight · Post by **temaranight** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 6:23 pm

Send us your award-winning video along with your Master’s submission, along with the name of the award won. This is your “qualifying” video that lets you enter the Master’s contest.

I'm going to ask a stupid question here but how do you want us to name the file of the qualifying vid to make sure it's known as just that and not the masters vid? Tag qualifying and masters onto the file name of each respective video is what I'd think ..but just asking to make sure it's done right...

madmallard · Post by **madmallard** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 12:06 am

Either actually naming the file/putting in a seperate named directory, or including a text file, or if physically submitting, a sheet of notebook paper will suffice.

MCWagner · Post by **MCWagner** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 8:29 pm

This ougtta teach me to leave the internet alone for a weekend! I wander off for a few days and when I come back y'all are full of questions! Anyway...

[quote= "TaranT"]
Maybe it makes sense to add a rule that the vid can't be listed (

). While it's impossible to search every site on the Web, the Org's d/b is unique as a concentrated source of AMV information. Or maybe it's not worth worrying about since complete and absolute "blindness" may not be achievable in the general sense. And the current system seems to work well enough. [/quote]

Essentially, it would be overkill to make this a rule. It's certainly a suggestion, and I'd advise anyone thinking of entering from doing exactly as you say and refraining from putting up the info until after the contest, but enforcing it would be rather tyrranical of us. I barely have the time to set up the contests as it is...much less browse the index close to con time, so it's hardly a concern on my part. Other judges might encounter it accidentally, though. We're trying on our end to remain "blinded" to the entries, so it would be a one in a million chance if one of our judges happened upon a contestant accidentally.

As for the life action stuff....if you think it would have a chance of winning Master's, go ahead. Considering that this is an AMV contest with but a single winner, that would be a bit like a cat winning at a dog show. The "trailers" though are just fine. Despite the fact they aren't really technically anime music videos, the whole genre has pretty much been adopted into the AMV scene.

The Viewer's Choice awards was a question that Patrick brought up as well. This is kinda a touchy area. When the rules were first written up there wasn't any such thing as an online contest. The rules were written to try and limit the competitors to a certain level of expertise, since there were only so many convention-run contests out there, and they all aspired to a certain level or higher, and the more experienced makers wanted to compete without stepping on the new guy's toes. Now, with all the online contests out there, the scale's kinda outta whack. Some contests are really great, some are very similar to convention contests, but others become difficult to compare... some contests are run among a small group of friends (competitors and judges), and some run with weirdly exclusive criteria (pick the subject matter, video source, etc). Rather than try and evaluate different contests on some sort of quality scale, dis individual contests and approve of others (like AMVers need more divisive infighting) it was decided just to exclude "online contests" altogether. The Viewer's choice contest could be argued as an exception, since it's the contest run at the nexus of the hobby. If anything qualified, it would.

But to do that would be pretty hypocritical of us. We said "online contests" so we have to mean it. Therefore, the Viewer's Choice Awards are not eligable for qualifying for Master's.

As far as naming the file, that's not a real problem. Quu does the final "blinding" of the entries before they come to me, and he's not one of the Judges. All I ever see are a list of entry numbers.

Boy, bunches of questions on Master's already!

The rest of the stuff TJ pretty much fielded.

SQ · Post by SQ » Tue Jun 15, 2004 11:41 am

OK. One last question.

Does winning an Iron Chef at a con count as winning a con AMV contest?