1stAgent wrote:Anything Movie related is just inviting the crap.
I beg to differ. I have a seen a good number of good movie related AMV work. This category also did not have to use movies. I will agree that from the staff perspective I think we could have done a better job of explaining this year's theme in our documentation.
1stAgent wrote:My question is this: why does this category still exist?
Most conventions are not AMV creator centric. The comedy category exists to entertain the audience. The AMV contest screenings at conventions exist to entertain the audience not to the satisfy the creators. The reality is the audience does not care about 99% of the drama entries shown especially if they are trying to make some "artistic statement." The people just want to be entertained. Creators give a little and the audience gives a little. The end result is we meet both ways. If folks feel so strongly about weak comedy entries my advice to you is do something about it. That is exactly why the comedy category isn't removed. Eventually people will get back on the ball.
1stAgent wrote:
The five traditional categories create a big, gaping hole in the typical convention format. Romance and Action are self-explanatory and you know when a video fits there.
It's interesting actually how Romance is now considered a traditional category. It used to be just drama, action, comedy. A lot of contests actually just used to be audience vote and the top 3 were given awards; no categorization at all.
1stAgent wrote:
Drama is reserved for pure angst.
The reason a lot of boring drama videos are made is because people approach with this mindset.
1stAgent wrote:
Dance/Upbeat is reserved for an After Effects parade like that stupid Dual video that won it this year.
This type of reponse is pretty much taken as jealousy especially because of the manner you present it in. From my personal experiences as a competitor I date from a slightly different time so if this thread would have some creators at each other's throats because of who won what it wouldn't be something that would phase me. This is obviously not at that level. One common difference between those few years ago and today is that people used to talk smack and bust people's chops over certain videos winning back then a lot (often this seemed a result due to audience based award systems). In those cases the the person making the comments was often a perrenial winner and would point out weaknesses in a video (sometimes tear it to pieces which you can imagine can really be rough to the person who won especially if they dont' have a thick skin). My advice is that if you are going to cite a video as an example of being a problem then you need to objectively break it down. Ask yourself if this video you dislike is nothing but some random matting and transparency work or if this style of video is just unappealing to you personally.
1stAgent wrote:
My Kino's Journey video was totally out of place in Drama this year, but I submitted it there because it wasn't at all meant to generate laughs, used action only as a plot point, and I didn't dare submit it to Upbeat because I knew something like that stupid Dual video would win.
So in your own opinion you miscategorized it in the hopes it would have a better chance of winning? Does this not prove that the categories are not necessarily cut and dry? Give me a distinct category it falls into that we did not offer. I'm not sure where I would put it other than drama. It's interesting you would consider upbeat for it when you put a scene of someone being stabbed with a knife.
1stAgent wrote:
There are a lot of decent videos that simply try to make people smile rather than laugh or cry. The Org has categories like Fun and Character Profile, and I really think conventions should start to follow suit instead of simply forfeiting awards to half-assed "comedies."
I would like to offer more diverse options to all the creators but fun is far too vague and is a pretty weak qualitative manner of categorizing videos. Example: I made a hentai video that was fun, I made a comedy video that was fun, I made a trance video that was fun, I made an action video that was fun, I made a heartwarming drama video that was fun to watch. It's a superset qualifier as opposed to a subset.
Character profile is something I have considered as an additional category but I am hesitant because a lot of people do a poor job with this format and the entertainment value to the audience can be hit or miss. We usually end up with them in action or drama anyway so as far as a submissions aspect it's not something that necessarily hurts us. Would it provide creators with another award category? Yes. Is there a better one we could add? I'm working on it.
