Otakon 2004 AMV Contest Finalists

[Vulkurt]

Ok I found it, "The Boney King of Nowwhere" made by Chad Weber.

Again, sorry to bother anyone, but apparently Chad Weber is not an org member. He also did a great Mezzo Forte video to "Looks That Kill" by Motley Crue. I tried a search for him on Google, but didn't come up with anything much. Do any of you know if he goes by a studio name as well? Thank you.

[Cyanna]

They did announce at the end of each contest that at the amv pannel they would be announcing the winners and you could see them ascept there awards. Also they played all the winners again at closing ceromonies. People just have to listen or ask questions at the con if they are truely interested.

Gene Starwind 21122

Yeah but you gotta admit it was really anticlimatic compared to last year. Part of the thrill is seeing the crowd go nuts after they view your vid....the other part is having the crowd go nuts when they saw it won. The change this year was a bit of a downer.

I had heard something about the Masquerade people and how they didn't want it at their halftime....but that was only something I heard. But if that really was the case....maybe the winners could be shown at the Saturday night fanparodies next time. A very good sized crowd comes to that and fan parodies and AMVs kinda go together.....in a number of cases you have the same people involved anyway.

Just a suggestion.

[WalterScott]

Ok I found it, "The Boney King of Nowwhere" made by Chad Weber.

Hmm, not on the org. I assume this is the same guy whose Mezzo Forte video was in the contest last year. (And that video was, as I remember, considerably more violent than the Nekojiro one.)

[Senta]

They did announce at the end of each contest that at the amv pannel they would be announcing the winners and you could see them ascept there awards. Also they played all the winners again at closing ceromonies. People just have to listen or ask questions at the con if they are truely interested.

I didn't know they played the winners at the closing ceremony. I think Otakon could have done a better job of informing us. I wonder if they had even planned on showing the winners or if it was an impromptu decision.

I'm surprised and disappointed a contest the size of Otakon's doesn't have its own separate awards ceremony. AX, AWA, and even Nekocon have amv awards ceremonies in their main events room.

[Ashyukun]

I'm surprised and disappointed a contest the size of Otakon's doesn't have its own separate awards ceremony. AX, AWA, and even Nekocon have amv awards ceremonies in their main events room.

Add ACen and Katsucon (at least when I was there in 2002- I assume it hasn't changed) to that list too. In fact, at Katsu that year the AMV Awards ceremony had more people attend it than the main panel from one of the founding members of Gainax. ACen's was fairly well attended despite being at a somewhat lousy time on Sunday, and last year (only one I can vouch for) AWA's was packed (no real surprise, given the AMV-centric nature of the con). It does seem somewhat surprising that the winners were only shown at the closing ceremonies and nowhere else. Last year's closing ceremonies were not attended very well- I'd guess this year's weren't an order of magnitude better. I had also heard there was some drama involving them not being shown at the Masq.- I'd love to hear exactly what happened there.

Re: the Cat Soup video.

I think completely omitting it from anything related to the contest (i.e., overflow tapes) was something that should not have happened. IMO, it should have been put on a tape that was scheduled to only be run late at night with a disclaimer about the content- this is what several other conventions do with questionable material. It was in no way, shape, or form proper to seemingly completely disown it from anything related to the contest- the editor took the time to make it and to send it in, it seems unfair for Geoff to have dropped it flat.

[Scintilla]

It does seem somewhat surprising that the winners were only shown at the closing ceremonies and nowhere else. Last year's closing ceremonies were not attended very well- I'd guess this year's weren't an order of magnitude better.

Well, they did manage to fill all of one panel room.

(We managed to get back there just in time to hear them announce the 20,000 attendance figure...)

[dwchang]

They did announce at the end of each contest that at the amv pannel they would be announcing the winners and you could see them ascept there awards. Also they played all the winners again at closing ceromonies. People just have to listen or ask questions at the con if they are truely interested.

I didn't know they played the winners at the closing ceremony. I think Otakon could have done a better job of informing us. I wonder if they had even planned on showing the winners or if it was an impromptu decision.

I'm surprised and disappointed a contest the size of Otakon's doesn't have its own separate awards ceremony. AX, AWA, and even Nekocon have amv awards ceremonies in their main events room.

I believe last year they had a "ceremony" at closing ceremonies. They announced the winners, showed their videos and gave the awards out to those in attendance. I liked that a lot more. Sure it wasn't that large of an audience, but it was just handled better and felt more special. Given, this is coming from the person who missed the thing at the panel :-/

[Cybermat]

I'm surprised and disappointed a contest the size of Otakon's doesn't have its own separate awards ceremony.

We've handed out the AMV trophies and played the winners at the Closing Ceremony on Sunday for the last year or two. I've pushed for having an awards ceremony on Saturday night after the Cosplay is over, but there's never been a lot of enthusiasm among the rest of the staff for making it happen. The big problem (I think) is that since the Cosplay may run long, or it may end early, nobody can predict when an awards ceremony can safely be scheduled on Saturday night.

Re: the Cat Soup video. I think completely omitting it from anything related to the contest (i.e., overflow tapes) was something that should not have happened. IMO, it should have been put on a tape that was scheduled to only be run late at night with a disclaimer about the content- this is what several other conventions do with questionable material.

That's not a bad (or new) idea; I tried doing something like that in 2003.

However, the audience didn't seem overly impressed by the half-dozen videos in that screening (since most of the AMVs had been held out of the overflow for language and/or tastelessness, or non-anime content), and then the bulk of the feedback I got from the few people whose AMVs got relegated to the 'Omega' tape wasn't that they were grateful to be played -- it was that they felt being segregated out for a latenight showing was an insult, and that they didn't like the timeslot because it was too late, and that they didn't think their AMVs deserved to be disqualified in the first place, and all the usual bitter comments implying administrative bias, smallmindedness, hypocrisy, and sadism. On the whole, making up that extra tape was, in the end, extra work to accomplish something that didn't seem to make very many people very happy.

We've always specified in the contest rules that we do have practical limits as to what we feel we can safely show at the convention, and that if something falls outside our limits it there's the chance that can't be shown.

[hackerzc]

Ok I found it, "The Boney King of Nowwhere" made by Chad Weber.

Again, sorry to bother anyone, but apparently Chad Weber is not an org member. He also did a great Mezzo Forte video to "Looks That Kill" by Motley Crue. I tried a search for him on Google, but didn't come up with anything much. Do any of you know if he goes by a studio name as well? Thank you.

He wanted his name to be used as the credit, so I guess he does it like Vlad does.
I know The other video you are talking about though. Can't remember where I saw it however.
I really like the Beowolf, Mezzo vid myself.

[hackerzc]

Sorry for the DP, but there were some things I wanted to respond too.

I had heard something about the Masquerade people and how they didn't want it at their halftime....but that was only something I heard.

Actually that's exactly what happened. The cosplay people said NO WAY. Never found out why though.

Hmm, not on the org. I assume this is the same guy whose Mezzo Forte video was in the contest last year. (And that video was, as I remember, considerably more violent than the Nekojiro one.)

I don't know why it was considered to gory. I didn't have a problem with it, and was surprised when Geoff said not to include it in the overflows *shrugs*

[quote='Senta"]I didn't know they played the winners at the closing ceremony. I think Otakon could have done a better job of informing us. I wonder if they had even planned on showing the winners or if it was an impromptu decision.

II have a strange feeling it may have been a last minute thing... but I honestly don't know.
I was only told about winners being announced at the AMV Workshop.

Last year's closing ceremonies were not attended very well- I'd guess this year's weren't an order of magnitude better.

The room they used had about 150 seats I think. And there were people standing out into the hallway, so for the room they used, it was packed. However it was a pretty small space considering.

it should have been put on a tape that was scheduled to only be run late at night with a disclaimer about the content- this is what several other conventions do with questionable material. It was in no way, shape, or form proper to seemingly completely disown it from anything related to the contest- the editor took the time to make it and to send it in, it seems unfair for Geoff to have dropped it flat.

Really there is no difference between this vid not being shown and other vids that could not be shown because of subs or what not. Though I think the videos that have subs were shown in the overflows anyway (it was my understanding that showing subbed videos was a liability issue, and legaly we could not do it.... *shrug*). So in that respect it was unfair IMO.
But like Matt said above, making everyone happy is hard. Chances are if there was an "Omega" tape, people would be more upset because creators felt seperated from the rest of the submissions. Maybe in the end, this was the lesser of two evils.