The Replacement for AWA Masters

Kisanzi · Post by **Kisanzi** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:54 pm

Since we're on the MEP subject. How about a Mystery Match MEP contest where interested editors are sent different sections of different songs. You could assign 3-5 editors to a song depending on how long it is and assign them a section of that song without giving them any prior knowledge of who else has the other sections of the MEP. They finish their sections and send them in, then the contest staff compiles each song together and then the finished MEPs are shown as a contest. And awards like best section, best overall MEP, or best editor match-up could be awarded.

I dunno...this sounded fun and feel free to take any liberties with the idea if you want.

Lord Rae · Post by **Lord Rae** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 5:41 pm

Only problem with something like that is you get into the kind of administrative nightmare that I'm pretty sure matt is trying to avoid. Theres a reason the MEP co-ordinators burn out so much...

plus as has been pointed out elsewhere MEP's kind of suck. They are fantastic to watch once, maybe 2-4 times at most but after that you never want to see it again.

Any new contest should really strive for something of the quality and calibur of masters imho. Videos that you'd want to watch lots of times or videos that impact or influence... MEPs don't really get that done aside from being a ridiculous amount of work for the person organizing.

ssj4lonewolf · Post by **ssj4lonewolf** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 6:55 pm

you could do like a rookie amv contest. Like kinda base it threw the org. FOr ppl who have been doing this for 2 years or less or somthin like that. Im going to awa next year(half the reason is cuz my famliy is there) but its just a thought.

Tsunami Jones · Post by **Tsunami Jones** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 6:56 pm

So far I like the theme idea the most

RolltheStampede · Post by **RolltheStampede** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 6:59 pm

A rookie contest would not bring in the caliber of videos that they want, besides if a rookie was really anygood they would be in the masters contest anyway. by your 2 year definition im a rookie and i could have entered masters but just didnt have time to do a masters video between work and AMVhell 3 anyway.

Lord Rae · Post by **Lord Rae** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 9:16 pm

Theme would probably be the best... you could maybe select an emotion... and people could handle an emotion like ... shit I dunno... anything and people would handle it 100 different ways.

Regret could be action videos, romance, maybe even a comedy if we get some twisted folks in on the mix... I dunno how high attendance would be though...

TaranT · Post by **TaranT** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:32 am

Vlad G Pohnert wrote:
MCWagner wrote: As for starting a live-action contest... nah. they have their own contests and conventions. I don't mind the occasional live-action vid slipping in, but I don't think I've got the stomach for an entire LA contest. Kinda warps the idea of the VAT.
that and the fact that lots North American Companies are VERY agressive in defending thier copyright... I don't think AWA needs letters from NA companies asking not to show videos with thier footage in it

Good enough reasons to put aside my LotR project.

Although you haven't said so, Matt, I get the impression that you're looking for a contest that would draw in something like 30-40 videos; i.e. a number like what you had hoped for Masters.

With that in mind, I can't imagine that a themed contest is going to work. 40 romance videos? Exclusive of Pro and Expo? Doesn't seem likely. Maybe it depends on the theme, but I keep thinking of the defunct dance video contest. That had a theme and apparently went nowhere. (Pseudo-random thought: maybe focus on a technique rather than a theme?)

The community of creators has already demonstrated a preference for the Pro and Expo contests (for different reasons). A new contest needs to draw time and effort away from those two. Which implies a significant motivator (plasma TV?) or a format that doesn't require a great deal of time or energy to make an entry.

The latter might include something like Anime North's one-minute-video contest, or maybe that format that the MAD people seem to like: remaking an anime's opening song with a different anime.

Brakus · Post by **Brakus** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 6:24 am

Tono_Fyr wrote:I kinda dislike the idea of an audiance judged contest. Think about it, someone uses Naruto or Fullmetal Alchemist, or something else of high wide spread popularity, and everything would go straight to hell. An audiance would end up going with the best video for their favorite anime, rather than the video with the best editing. It's an interesting idea, but it's far too unreliable in reality.

Let's consider the two big AMV contests of the year (IMO), Otakon and AWA. Otakon is audience-judged, while AWA is panel-judged (or in the case of Pro, judged by your peers).

At Otakon this year, a couple videos ("Naruto's Technique Beat", anyone?) won awards over other videos that seemed to deserve it more, simply because they were looked cool and shiny (it has a recent popular anime and it's loaded with visual effects). And of course the mis-categorization of the winning Romance video -- it should have been in Comedy -- goes to show that the crowd will vote for a funny video almost every time, regardless of where it is in the contest.

AWA's contest has contained some videos that were almost certain to win awards, but didn't because of the voting done by the participants. "Fake" by Mike & Meri and "Bouncing through the Years" by Ashyukun were a couple videos that I thought were going to win at least one award, and both were shut out. Same with "Shounen Bushido" last year; it got shut out of any awards last year because apparently the participants were blown away by "Do It Right (Shake It)". I kind of understand the hate that some people here have with "Shounen Bushido" what with all the pandering w/popular anime characters lip-synching to the song (I think it's a fine video myself), but people were asking it to be shown at Iron Chef this year.

My point is that past performance does not necessarily predict future results. Although in general the audience will vote a certain way, and a jury of your peers (or a panel of judges) will vote another certain way, you can't always rely on the judges, whoever they are, to vote for what you believe is the best video in the category.

How about having the audience choose a winning video from the Expo and Pro videos that won? Give the audience blank ballots (No names or identifying features) to be handed out before/during the contest and collect the votes at the end of the showing, and the winner be shown Sunday afternoon in the VAT, or in Main Events during Closing Ceremonies?

MCWagner · Post by **MCWagner** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 10:24 am

Whoo... this topic grew overnight...

'Couple of comments...

Kusoyaro wrote:MEP Iron Chef!

Two teams of 10 have 4 hours to create a cohesive MEP

"Cohesive"? Why start now?

Vlad wrote:Actually Matt, the audiance voting would not be that hard

Well... I wouldn't mind an audience vote if a) it was a simple vote and b) it was a vote over a small number of entries. 1,000 people deciding on a single winner between eight or nine videos should work fine. My problem is a) limiting things to a simple vote and b) getting a contest the right size. Plus, I dislike major portions of my schedule being undetermined before the convention. But that's just 'cause I'm a worry-wart.

The mystery MEP thing sounds great... except that I've always been around for the DDR projects to see their final assembly. Simply put, it's utter hell. DDR was never finished earlier than six hours before the convention, and reduced better men than I to tears when weird-ass tech problem after participant dropout cropped up.

Quality vs. Quantity: I'm really not looking for something that would require Masters-level quality, largely because I don't think I could force it out of the amv community, unless I managed to find something really inspirational. (And I'm not so sure I can do that, not knowing what motivates you kiddies these days.) Basically, I want enough participation for it to be a real contest, and enough quality that an audience enjoys watching 3/4-to-1 full hour of entries. More than that is gravy, but I need at least that much.

"Rookie" contest: Hmm... not sure what I think of that yet. I'll mull it over.

A straight-up "theme" contest might work, if I can manage a really clever, inspirational theme that wouldn't lead to a bunch of redundant entries. Onomotopiea?

TaranT wrote:Pseudo-random thought: maybe focus on a technique rather than a theme?

I was considering something like that, with the "audio from live-action film" concept. Hell, I'd consider a "re-make the greats" theme if it wouldn't be so completely sacreligous. Take a great AMV from the "ancient" past, and see if the new crop can improve on the design. Would stir up interest in the vids that got me into the hobby. Then the contest could show the original followed by the new one. Really only a one-year trick, but that's fine. But that was the general idea I had behind "theme"... some new structure to play in, rather than a dictated genre... stirr up the hobby a bit. (On a similar note, how'd that "one-minute AMV" contest turn out? I hadn't heard of that one.)

Re: Plasma TV: Almost certainly not. I get really nervous when there are fabulous prizes at stake. At the very least, in consideration of the VAT budget.

Castor Troy · Post by **Castor Troy** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 10:46 am

I bet if there was a "rookie" contest, people would lie and enter in something that's non-rookie material...

WMM Iron chef?