Anime Expo 2010 Iron Chef AMV Contest

[Impurse]

I definitely enjoyed this event thoroughly. Besides the competition, it was great to really see what it takes go make AMVs , I must say that I completely underestimated the whole process of making them. Thanks a lot of giving us the opportunity to ask questions and for showing us some top notch AMVs.

For next year, a big room would be great ^_^

[MisterFurious]

I'd run over a few suggestions but I'm honestly afraid they'll fall on deaf ears.

Please, try me. We took Yue and Kitsuner's advice on the spot and started running more videos.

It's easy to feel after all the drama of the contest that Iron Chef would be more of the same. However, I want to stress that Iron Chef is an opportunity for AMV's to have a larger presence at AX, and as long as I'm involved with it, I want to make it more of a community effort for everyone's enjoyment. If you don't pipe up with your ideas, we can't very well try to implement them, can we? If you're concerned about criticism of your suggestions from other members, then go ahead and PM them to me. I promise I'll listen, and give you my honest opinion.

No need to have posted your picture. I believe that you were there.

[MisterFurious]

Well, considering that I wasn't there but from the few people I know that were, I wouldn't call it an "Unbelievable success" in the sense that it sounds like you guys would've been completely screwed if it wasn't for John and other AMVers stepping up to fix technical problems and provide content.

I think a lot of the nay-sayers are forgetting to take some facts into account. We had only two weeks to get all this set up. AX provided us with a limited number of connections to their board. It was up to us to conform to their standard rig, and Troy was able to marshal the computers, cables, and connections, mostly by raiding his company's supplies. He pulled unused hard drives from stock and loaned them to Nic to transcode all six of the sources onto. During this time, we naturally had hardware problems, and Troy stayed late at the studio to rectify them. He only succeded in getting the machines running at 100% a few days before the con. He drove all the way to Temecula to borrow his dad's truck so he could shlep everything from his office to the convention center, and put everything together on site.

Even so, we were prepared for the worst to happen. Troy even prepared a third computer in case one of the editing machines died.

So what ultimately went wrong? Troy forgot that the KVM switcher required a PS2 keyboard to type in a password, and we couldn't find such an ancient piece of equipment on-site. As a result, the main monitor had blue squares on it and "password" superimposed over a fraction of the image. The video cable was wonky and didn't feed green. Some Iron Chefs did not bring any of their AMV's, so we had a shortage. Kitsuner was kind enough to chip in and provide his own hard drive with music videos on it (something we didn't have time to complile, since we were too busy setting up the equipment). And BaitMaster's machine stalled on the first attempt at final render. Simply cancelling and retrying fixed it, a delay of seven minutes.

Should we have stopped the show and sent everyone home because things weren't perfect? Hell no! These were minor inconveniences. The show went on, and we adapted as best we could, but we got it done, and everyone (save for a few) had a great time! With the time constraints and technical limitations, forget "unbelievable success", that's a miracle in my book.

Yes, we can certainly do better, but now we have a whole year to plan, and as I already made clear, I am wide open to suggestions. For example, we have a lot of time now to build a small computer that has a ton of AMV's on it for screening purposes. I also want to make sure next year's editing tables have desk lamps, so we can turn off the house lights to screen videos without disturbing editors' work flow. Naturally, a larger room will be in order.

Instead of dwelling on what went wrong in the past, let's learn from it to improve our future. AX allowed us to have an Iron Chef contest, something they've refused to do for 10 years. If we work together, I really believe we can make serious inroads to having more AMV events on the AX schedule that we control.

Viva la revoluciòn!

[Impurse]

It's pretty amazing that this went well though and with more time in hand for next year, better things will come xD

Honestly, sitting in for 3 hours killed my butt but I don't care, it was totally worth it.

[MisterFurious]

oh, and who won, or was that posted as well and I just missed seeing it?

Vlad

Sorry, it wasn't. Wired Knight won.

[Radical_Yue]

My review of the event...Don't worry, I won't be Hitler this time around

First off I'm really not a fan of the way the competitors were chosen in the first place...If you're chosen as the main competitor, who would you choose as you challenger? An editor than you know/believe has better skills? Or someone you've never heard of and hasn't edited in forever? The obvious choice would be someone you think you can beat. No one wants to lose in front of a large room of people.
While I don't agree with the process, it's your choice in how you want to run it.

The secret source was pretty obscure. When it was announced and during the 3 minute clip of it playing the general consensus was "What the heck is that?" I personally believe in using sources that the crowd can be excited about seeing. Something they'll want to wait for 3 hours to see in a video. While AMV contests are about the best of the best, Iron Chefs would not survive without the audience who shows up to watch the spectacle and we've all seen how they cheer whenever they see an anime they know/like on screen.
It's kinda like showing up to a concert to find out that you don't know any of the bands and aren't really interested in the genre of music.

Now as for the "success" of the competition...You do realize that you lost about 40% of the crowd within the first hour? And that they only came back when videos were being played... While QA is a great aspect to any AMV 101 panel it's NOT something that people come to ICs for. In case you didn't notice most of the questions were deep technical questions or basic "What's better, Vegas or Premiere?" Now, as for the tech questions...have you caught on to the fact that...when you answer this question the only one who understands the answer is the person asking and maybe 2% of the audience, if that. The rest of the attendees are forced to listen to droning tech nonsense for 5+ minutes.
While I kind of like the idea of "Hey, if you want to see what they're up to, feel free to walk around and take a look at their screens." Answering tech questions for long periods of time is NOT a way to keep the audience entertained. As for the more simplistic questions, you can rule all these out by passing around simple flyers that include information about basic editing programs such as Vegas, Premiere, etc...and the programs used for converting footage, IE the AMVAPP.

I was sitting next to a young fan that I've never met before and each and every time the technical rambling would begin, she'd slam her head down on the table. She didn't understand anything, she wasn't amused and neither was the other 97% of non-editing con goers in the room.
People that want to edit will show up for the AMV 101 panel, people who are looking for a fun show with lots of AMVs go to an Iron Chef.
I could see her frustration and I started to explain the basic concept of other Iron Chefs to her; non stop videos being played, games being played and audience involvement that keeps everyone entertained. She told me that it sounded like one of the most fun events ever
Never once has our ace Iron Editor host Ashykun stopped to answer pointless tech questions and generate the feeling of "I could leave right now, come back...and he'd still be talking -_-" <-That's an actual quote from another attendee that I've never met before.

The Iron Chef could have been muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch better. But I'm really looking forward to talking with Nic (StudioHybrid/KagatoAMV) because he seemed really open to changing things and making this into an excellent event. I'd also like to invite him and any other to the Iron Chef even we're putting on at Nan Desu Kan in Denver, Colorado. You'd be more than welcome to join us.

You get a sideways thumb for this event only due to Kit saving it with the AMVs.
Lets make next year a

And in the meantime...
enjoy some videos from EXCELLENT Iron Chefs


Editor Dansen!
The King of Germany!
Niotex and Kitler the Musical
Koopiskeva's Proposal x3

[Fall_Child42]

Editor Dansen!
The King of Germany!
Niotex and Kitler the Musical
Koopiskeva's Proposal x3

[Radical_Yue]

Editor Dansen!
The King of Germany!
Niotex and Kitler the Musical
Koopiskeva's Proposal x3

That is a spy!

[Kitsuner]

Honestly, I had a lot of fun up there. I love sharing fun videos, so I'll definitely help out if I make it back next year. A separate computer for showing videos would be a major improvement so the audience can stay occupied while the competitors' videos encode. Crowd participation always helps too (games, prizes, etc).

[Pwolf]

lots of stuff

Would've been nice if Troy explained that earlier instead of replying to Mitch like he did. Talking to Mitch last night after making my post and him explaining to me more of the tech problems that were present, I think a lot of his frustrations (and others like myself) could've been helped if there was more explanation and willingness to accept help. We have a lot of editing, technical, and plenty of IC experience under our belts so we have higher expectations and knowledge about how to make it run and keep people interested. Mitch can come off as a jerk sometimes but he has high exceptions for these things (as do many of us) but is willing to share his knowledge if people will allow him to (which doesn't seem like is happening). I think if some people were more open to that and we as a knowledge base of experience felt safe about our opinions, the show will turn out even better next year.

But yea, 2 weeks isn't a lot of time to do EVERYTHING. I think the fact that the IC was even allowed to happen is a good step towards bringing AMVs back into the spotlight at AX. I hope next year the tech problems are worked out and the show is more enjoyable for the attendees.

PS: I heard you guys were using CS4 as the editing software... for the love of god, don't use CS4 It crashes more and exporting causes problems in of itself. if you can get better hardware, CS5 is very stable and fast. For a cheaper solution, 6.5 or 7 would probably be the best choice of software IMO.