Ashyukun wrote:
[rant]
As Dan said, the contest was not without what we would call 'issues'. As was previously noted, the video that won "Best in Show" (I'm pretty damn sure it was MITTERNACHT, but even if it was Phenomenon) was not even one of the pre-final judging recommendations for "Best in Show". Nothing at all against MITTERNACHT- it's a damn good video- but the pre-final judges were quite certain and set in the three that were recommended for Best of Show. We were under the impression that the Guests of Honor that did the final judging would not only be given the tape of the videos that were in the final three of each category but also the list of recommendations (complete with their rankings from the pre-judging). Basically, what I think all of us were concerned would happen when we heard how the final judging would happen came true- the final judges in many cases threw out the pre-judging recommendations, in some cases quite spectacularly (i.e., Best of Show). Based on how things came out, it appears that the judges may have just been given a tape with all the finalist videos on it and told what the awards they had to choose were, and not even given the listing of what videos were supposed to be up for what awards- which would just really suck for a couple of the videos.
Of one particular concern was that I believe two of the three finals judges were Japanese Guests of Honor (I know at least one was from talking with her). To some extent, I think this was the case due to the way the awards worked out- The video that won Best in Show against the recommendations of the pre-judging was in a language (German) that likely none of the judges were really familiar with, and at least one and I think two of the winning videos were instrumentals. I especially think that the Japanese GoHs would have a realy hard time judging the Theme category well- as, well, what we consider nostalgic for the 80's would differ from what they would consider '80's'. I can't fault the finals judges though, all told. I'm sure they did their best. I just think that the whole concept of having a small number of Guests of Honor who may not be particularly in tune with AMVs is not a good idea. If the judges were, say, celebrity AMVers (for example, I would have been quite happy if EK or Brett Weaver had been judges) or video professionals, or at least directors.
I very seriously think things overall were not handled the best this year at all - on the non-technical side of things. I believe Quu and SailorDeath did a very good job of running the technical side of things and dealing with the few small problems that cropped up. But on the planning and execution of a number of the things, I think there were a lot of problems.
Finally, all of the final judging had problems. It really felt like it was all thrown together at the last minute. Those of us who ended up doing the pre-judging were given very little direction as to what we should be judging and how we should be doing it- for a while there was even some confusion amongst us as to what the overall categories were. Add onto that what I would consider apparent problems with the true final judging, and the whole thing just went all to hell.
Given all of this, especially what seems to have happened with the final judging, I very strongly believe that ALL of the finalist videos Dan listed should be given Honorable Mentions. While I don't believe it would be fair to try and change the results, I very strongly believe that a few of the editors got very much screwed in the end, and that they at least deserve some form of official recognition for their efforts.[/rant]
Let me add to this with what I have been told occurred. Let me go into the details of the actual judging process. For ACen, it is two-fold and to be quite honest, I don't agree with it at all (For reasons explained below).
As Ashyukun explained, a group of creators gathered after the contest and picked 3 videos in each category. A first place got 3 pts, a second 2 pts and so on. This would narrow it down to three finalists in a category and also a recommendations (notice how I list the videos 1), 2) and 3) above?) to the judges. This recommendation is obviously based on which video had the most "points."
These finalists are compiled on a tape and given to the judges with the breakdown of the finalists (i.e. 3 per category) and the recommendation. The Guests of Honor then watch the three entries, discuss and pick a winner. Out of the (I think) 6 years of ACen, there has only been one instance (that I know of) where the Guests of Honor chose a different winner than the creators recommendation. This year, the judges chose differently in 5 of 8 categories. In most cases, they chose the "3rd place" entry as well.
I *think* I've figured out why. BTW I do apologize for the 'rant-nature' of this response, but these are the facts. First off, two of the three Guests of Honor Judges were Japanese. In fact, both did not speak English *that* well (or not at all). I will state my personal opinion, in that I think this isn't fair. 95% of the entries used songs in English and relied on the lyrics. This can be even further shown in the fact that 2 winners were instrumental pieces. This makes logical sense since instrumental pieces do not require knowledge of a language. Not to knock these videos *at all*, but at least in one instance the video that won was clearly not the "best." I won't name specifics since this will start a flamewar.
Secondly, I have found out recently that the judges only received a tape without any breakdown of the finalists in each category or a recommendation. This *probably* means they saw the tape as one big contest and chose winners out of the entire pool. That would easily explain why a video that was only up for Best Action won Best of Show. As you can easily see, we creators did not put Midnight (as good as it was) up for Best of Show and yet it won.
I have already discussed this with Julius/Sailor Death and I am confidence in his A) ability to remedy to fix the problems in the contest and more importantly B) his resolve to make ACen's contest as perfect as possible.
I would like to give mad props to him and Patrick. The technical side of the contest (rendering the videos on time, prejudging and so on) were done 10x better than last year. Unfortunately, something still went wrong (judging), but I don't mean to at all imply it was their fault because it's not.
It's unfortunate that a number of videos that (warning...possible offensive statement incoming) a number of videos were "screwed." I don't know about the other creator's, but in a number of categories, I thought the winners were clear-cut (as is shown in our finalists and recommendation). I don't *at all* mean to knock ANY videos (and hence why I am not naming any), but from the results I know, many of the point totals were clear like X - 14 pts, Y - 3 pts, Z - 2 pts. It's unfortunate that we had foreign guests who, IMO, are not experienced (or versed in the language) enough to be competant judges and also that the finalists and categories were not clearly communicated. I guess I will be specific in one thing, since it does anger me, but I *hear* this was the contest coordinator's fault since they were not there during final judging and thus the judges did not have adequate direction.
All in all, another ACen comes to a close and allw e can do is A) try and make it better (which I am confidence Julius will do) and B) make better videos.
I hope this clears things up slightly. As said earlier, the contest was not without it's fair share of problems, but regardless, we must all remember awards are fairly trivial and it was fun in itself seeing so many talented videos.
. oh well, it was a good contest, i'm just glad to see a vid of mine getting showed on a larger screen than a computer monitor 
