The Replacement for AWA Masters

MCWagner · Post by **MCWagner** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 10:03 am

Hokay, now that AWA 11 is a bit behind me and I've had a chance to catch my breath for a while, I can start discussing the big issue as far as the contests are concerned.

As y'all know, this year was the last for the AWA Masters' contest. There's been some discussion about an eventual return, but not for at least a couple years.

However, this leaves me with a big hole in the VAT schedule for AWA 12. I've a few ideas of contests to fill that hole, but I'm interested in other people's opinions. Is there any style of contest that y'all prefer? Something that wouldn't overlap with the Expo or Pro contests? Something entirely new? I'm looking for something that'll get at least a reasonable level of participation so we can have a good, solid contest (and can be shown during the daylight hours).

Field's wide open... I'd love to hear any ideas y'all might have, as well as what sort of prizes could be given to make this contest unique.

RolltheStampede · Post by **RolltheStampede** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 10:18 am

How about a best duo or colab contest. see who is better at working together with other editors. teamwork and all. Best Mini MEP or something

Kusoyaro · Post by **Kusoyaro** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 10:38 am

Bring back the AMV Dare!

Also, this wouldn't be a contest, but how about a block where you show all past Masters winners, Pro best video winners, and Expo best video winners? Expo alone would be 11 videos worth, and I bet people would be interested in what won 10 years ago.

Lord Rae · Post by **Lord Rae** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 11:07 am

While I did really enjoy the history lesson at AWA 10 I'm not sure it would be a good thing to have another section like that...I dunno... maybe thats kind of short sighted on my part but ... meh.

As for contests we could have? yikes... dunno. I wish I had a idea cause more than likely as long as it doesn't have a "You must have won something before" stipulation I'll probably participate. ;p

Kusoyaro · Post by **Kusoyaro** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 11:20 am

Lord Rae wrote:While I did really enjoy the history lesson at AWA 10 I'm not sure it would be a good thing to have another section like that...I dunno... maybe thats kind of short sighted on my part but ... meh.

I forgot that they did that at AWA 10 already

Probably because I missed it.

MCWagner · Post by **MCWagner** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 2:06 pm

Kusoyaro wrote: Bring back the AMV Dare!

Maybe in some form... but not a "make the best vid to this music" concept. I think we proved last time that it devolves into hearing that damn song over and over again for an hour.

Kusoyaro wrote:Also, this wouldn't be a contest, but how about a block where you show all past Masters winners, Pro best video winners, and Expo best video winners? Expo alone would be 11 videos worth, and I bet people would be interested in what won 10 years ago.

We did something similar, but not exactly the same, last year. It was essentially little-known but deserving samples from each of the ten years. Great fun for everyone, but would overlap pretty heavily with your suggestion.

I'm tempted towards some kind of unifying concept, without hard-dictating the source. Just uncertain how to go about it...

MeriC · Post by **MeriC** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 2:23 pm

How about an audience-vote driven contest? The beauty of the existing contests at AWA is that all of the hard work of selecting the winners is done in advance. Maybe to spice things up a bit, there can be a traditional AMV contest with the standard categories, and the audience votes for the winners at the con? I guess it would essentially be like the Expo contest, but the audience would vote for their favorites in each category.

MCWagner · Post by **MCWagner** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 2:36 pm

MeriC wrote:How about an audience-vote driven contest? The beauty of the existing contests at AWA is that all of the hard work of selecting the winners is done in advance. Maybe to spice things up a bit, there can be a traditional AMV contest with the standard categories, and the audience votes for the winners at the con? I guess it would essentially be like the Expo contest, but the audience would vote for their favorites in each category.

Hmmm.... my initial inclination would be to not do an audience-driven vote for the following reasons:

1) I hate counting ballots. It takes hours, ties up staff, and puts a big delay between the screening of the contestants and the announcement of the winners.

2) It would tend to pull videos out of the Expo contest, since they're all drawing from the same pool.

3) It would cap the contest at a reasonable number of entries, because we could never get a whole audience to sit through and judge three hours worth of entries in addition to seeing all of the other vids. That means either making the entry requirements so strict that only a few people are able/willing to enter, or going through with my staff and doing an initial cut to remove vids we don't think are good enough... a judgement I've conciously avoided for many years.

On the other hand, this idea is brought up to me at least a couple times a year, so maybe I should re-evaluate it.

Brad · Post by **Brad** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 2:37 pm

MeriC wrote:How about an audience-vote driven contest? The beauty of the existing contests at AWA is that all of the hard work of selecting the winners is done in advance. Maybe to spice things up a bit, there can be a traditional AMV contest with the standard categories, and the audience votes for the winners at the con? I guess it would essentially be like the Expo contest, but the audience would vote for their favorites in each category.

This is probably the best idea so far. I mean, we've got Expo which is judged by a panel of judges, and Pro which is judged by the creators themselves. Having an audience voted contest would definitely add a lot of excitement to the crowd. Though one thing that I think Otakon gets right about audience voted contests is, don't have a Best of Show. It's justn ot worth it. The one that wins Best Comedy 9 times out of 10 will also win Best of Show. It just makes the award kind of redundant.

I dont really know how the mechanics would work out, but I think it could be a great new addition to the AWA line-up

Kusoyaro · Post by **Kusoyaro** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 2:59 pm

How about a themed contest? Give 'em the same theme as the Iron Chefs...show the block some time before the IC contest, and watch the Iron Chefs squirm

(muahaha, freeedom!)