AWA 2025 - VAT THUNDERDOME

[silverfox21088_2002]

Good Evening Everyone!

Can you believe Anime Weekend Atlanta is next week?! In just 7 days as of writing this the convention will be here but want to know something even more shocking? Video Art Tracks THUNDERDOME is returning as well for AWA - 2025! For those that don't know what THUNDERDOME even is, aside from it being a Mad Max reference, Editors in groups of 1 to 5 or more work together to create either a masterpiece or a beautiful train wreck of an AMV in 1 hour intervals during the con. It's strongly encouraged that each team must confer with their members on music and footage to edit with for their AMV however there's usually one "small" stipulation, you won't be able to see your teammates timelines so whatever scenes they chose will be unknown. Each teammate gets 1 hour to make their contribution with the final member, the anchor, receiving 1 hour to add their own. As the final member the anchor then has 1 hour to combine all team members footage together and make any possible final tweaks after which they get to preview the final render to be shown and voted for via audience participation at the end of con Sunday.

TL;DR?

Thunderdome is a team based editors challenge we host at the con where editors sign up at the con and form teams. Each member gets 1 hour to edit and the last member, the anchor, gets 1 hour to edit. Once the Anchor completes their hour they then gain access to their teams videos and have 1 hour to piece all previous member footage together for the final render.

A brief timeline of VAT's Thunderdome:
Began in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, skipped 2020 due to covid, 2021 and the last was held in 2022.

Here's a link to the past Thunderdome Videos separated by year...since I haven't posted them to the org.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Can't wait to see you at AWA!!

[silverfox21088_2002]

There were a couple questions about the software available for use in the Thunderdome so I'll share the list here and in Discord:

Photoshop
Aftereffects
Premiere Pro
Pinnacle Ultimate Studio 25
Pinnacle Ultimate Studio 26 (on 1 PC)
Vegas Pro 23
DaVinci Resolve 20
Kdenlive

In regard to how Thunderdome works, sign up is done at the Convention. Though you're able to create a team beforehand, life does happen and sometimes people can't make it. We provide the computers, software and source footage to work with as well. Please bring your own music.

Teams will be able to pick which footage they get to work with. Though how that gets done has varied from year to year. Sometimes by drawing lots, sometimes it's first come first served, making sources unavailable to the other teams, and sometimes it's one source per team member. This year the provided sources will be available to all teams. The only way to know what scenes from the selected sources your team members have used is through communication as your timelines will be hidden.

As stated in the previous post announcing Thunderdome's return, each team member gets 1 hour to edit. When they're done, their section will be previewed and rendered to make sure there's no stuttering or artifacts and then their timeline hidden so the next member will be blind as to what scene from the selected source was used. Will your team have an awesome video? Yes. Is there potential for your awesome video to be an awesome train wreck? Also yes, the choice is yours.
The Team’s selected Anchor gets 1 hour to edit as well. As the final member, the anchor then has an additional 1 hour to combine all team members footage and make any possible final tweaks. This does not mean the Anchor has 2 hours to edit as the anchor will not have access to the team’s renders until after they’ve finished their 1 hour of editing. Should the Anchor choose not to edit for their 1 hour then they will have only 1 hour to put the teams renders together to complete the full video and make any final tweaks. They get to preview the final render to be shown and voted for via audience participation at the end of con Sunday.

To put it simply, the Anchor gets 1 hour for individual editing and 1 hour to piece everything together and make any final tweaks.

Remember the goal is to have fun