A-Kon 19 VSE: WINNERS!

[Trilaan]

I lost once again. Though who knows what might have happened had people actually been able to vote for my Zone of the Enders video, It was shown with all the others but left off the voting sheet due to a printing error. I might give up on sending videos to A-kon in the future. This wasn't the first time things got screwed up for me, though it was the first time the oversight was so glaring. Might have made a difference, might not have. Well, maybe I'll just stop sending them into the actual contest since it's great to see and hear so many people enjoying a video. That's still what I'm in the "business" for. Sure would be cool to succeed beyond that, though.

Now where to send one next...


Aside from all that it was great to see videos of my 2 favorite shows I've seen over the last year, Baccano! and Lovely Complex. I'm definitely downloading those two for myself.

[VespaBee]

Congrats to the winners.

[Ashnak]

By the way....did anyone catch Naruto Shorts 3 before hentai-fest? I wasn't there to see the reaction to it...soooo if you saw it, what did ya' think?

[JaddziaDax]

stuff..

That was the bizarre one about the mech and the dude right? it amused me greatly... we didn't vote on anything though... we gave up our ballots for people who were trying to get in the contest room and they ran out and such... :3

but it was good times watching it...

[Empath]

I mean, first off Voorheeszilla Studio indeed won the H-AMV contest with OMG, but to say you forgot because of a guest appearance is a little insulting. Even more insulting is that there was no clear runner up either, but whatever, the H-AMV contest is not what I had a problem with as it was still fun for all who came.

Now on to what I consider the real "bullshit" of the con. Did anyone see the expert AMV competition? You know, what I like to call the cry-fest full of fail that killed my faith in judged competitions? What am I talking about you may ask? Well for those who did not attend, let me break it down for yah.

We start with Action, a rather good thing to start with that should really get the audience pumped. However, action seemed rather short this year, and most of the videos shown were what I like to call a "color orgy of eye raping fun". Hell, the first video was so over-loaded with effects, transistion, and color manipulations that I honestly had no idea what I was watching. It seems that according to this years judging staff that an action video can not be acceptable without over 25 transistions and so many effects one's mind simply turns to orange goo before they can even process what has just happened.

Even so, we press on to Drama, the catagory which dominated this year. Now by dominate I do not mean that there was an over abundance of awesome videos (although there were a few good ones), what I mean is that out of a contest that lasted about 3 hours, about 2/3 of it was Drama videos. Now I will be the first to admit that I am not a very big fan of this catagory, but I do enjoy my fair share of videos. But with that being said, Drama was an over-kill for time this year. I mean, I can sit through about 45 mins of Drama and not be phase, but honestly, by the time 85 mins of Drama had past I wanted to go emo and cut myself to death with the same CD's I used to enter my studio's AMVs with. Seriously, no video contest should ever be that one sided with one catagory, even by the judge's choice.

Now, before I go into Comedy/Fun, I am going to apologize for the use of language I am about to use, but going by that logic, I also want the A-kon staff to apologize for what they did to what was an awesome catagory before a few uppity judges drove their cold, black, emo, hate-driven, knives of cry-alot into the heart of what should have been the best part of the show.

Now Comedy/Fun. One word can sum up what happened here: FAIL. FUCKING FAIL. I have never see such an obvious pit of extreme faggorty in an AMV contest, ever. Seriously guys, you dropped the fucking ball here. I just can't believe just how hard you guys failed, even more so since you have about 7-9 judges. However, I guess putting fun in the title is your way of flooding the competition with nothing but dance video and throwing out anything funning. I mean, come on, do you guys got something against laughing?

For those who left early or didn't make it, Comedy was a fucking train wreak of fail. The laughs that were heard were far and few between. Out of all the videos, only 2 could be considered funny. (Side note: Jubjub2, your comedy video was the funniest thing there). And then there was Drama. And you might ask yourself "Wait, didn't he just get done with Drama?" And to that I would say "Well somebody should have asked that to the Video Staff." I mean, one would think that after over an hour of Drama we would have been done with the catagory. However, here comes our big boat of fail to shit Drama all over the comedy catagory.

I mean, somebody should have known something was up when people started either leaving in mass or heckling the Comedy catagory. And what makes it worse is when I went to ask a few people about what had just happened. I wanted to know why about 1/3 of the audience left before Comedy was over. I wanted to know why the Princess Tutu video, which was so much a Drama video it wasn't funny, had found it's way into Comedy. Hell, I wanted to know why Comedy wasn't Comedy.

The answer I got actually disgusted me. I was told, by people who will remain unnamed, that the video judges were the final say and that this is just how it went down. This tells me two things. One, they knew about the train wreak of a contest and didn't care. Two, they were obviously judging video with a bias, something no "pofessional" judge should ever do. I mean, I am glad the judges got their way and were all to happy with the video that were played, but I think the 60-100 people that walked out might have something else to say. Hell, I am pretty sure that those who stayed to heckle or wait for something funny in Comedy might have something to say. I mean, YAY, we appeased our judges, so who cares about the people who have to sit through the mess they put together.

To the A-kon staff, you want feedback on how to improve? If not, too bad cause I am a person who believes in giving a better way when they feel like critizing something or someone. First of, KEEP DRAMA IN DRAMA. I don't care if certain people in your staff do not have the balls to send an e-mail or get on the phone to tell an editor that their video has been moved from one catagory to another. It ruins the spirit of the contest to let one catagory dominate another because of your inaction. Second, make the catagories more balanced for time. When one catagory take up most of the contest just because your judges wanted to have an emo wrist cutting cry-fest, it makes it unfair to all of those who entered into Action or Comedy and even more unfair to the fans who were expecting more. And lastly, take Fun away from Comedy and give it it's own catagory. Seriously, you guys using "FUN" as an excuse to kick most of the Comedy videos out so you could flood the catagory with more videos that were either not fun or should have been in Drama to begin with is just not funny. But who am I to say anything, you guys were there, and I mean those crickets were laughing pretty hard.

A-kon, I just don't know what happened this year. You guys had a great contest last year. You seemed to know what you were doing. And then this year you just dropped the ball. I mean, damn. I just don't know what else I can say to express my extreme dissatistfaction with not just poor judging, but poor judgement on how the contest was put together in the first place. I guess the only thing I have left to say is that I hope you guys can pull your heads out for next year. I don't think I, or many other people who attended can sit through something like that again. It's just sad to think that something so good fell this far.

Anyways, goodnight everyone.


PS- If any A-kon rep posts in response to this and says anything to the effect of "Well I am sorry you didn't like what happened but we stand behind our judges" or "I am sorry you feel that way, but our methods are still better" or anything else other than "I am sorry, we will have everything fix by next year", you will be promptly ignored.

[jade_eyed_angel]

crap

dude. u fail at life. stop whining.
the category divisions aren't to cut out comedy. people just failed to send good ones.
O;

[JaddziaDax]

We brought up category issues to the coordinators (in a non bitter sort of way) at the con... and from a competitive point of view grouping the categories they way they did makes no sense. (At least thats how I felt about it until I talked to the coordinators myself about them.)

And I'm not talking just upbeat/comedy because even with drama/romance, people can make upbeat romances such as Love Rush and they don't really in any way fit with or compare to such things as Waiting for Death, the two videos are drastically different and just really don't "fit" in the same category.

However after talking to the coordinators we learned that the videos were not judged on how well they fit into the categories but on how well they were made/scored, the categories were just there to give the chance of giving out a few more awards... They could drop off all the categories all together and just give best in show and a runner up if they really wanted, but they want to have the chance to give back more to people who contribute to the contests.

The contest results were rather interesting this year, but they always seem rather "odd" to me every year, and that is why I enjoy participating in the contest. I like seeing the random results every year even if I don't agree with the results (or even if my videos were cut, or if I don't win).

They don't claim the contest to be "perfect" or "better" than other contests, from what I can tell this contest is just different. Just as Anime Central has it's own way of judging their contest, and just as Anime Weekend Atlanta has it's own ways as well.

Perhaps instead of being bitter and angsting on the forums, you should try, you know, discussing such things with the coordinators in a level headed sort of way and listen to their point of view as well... If you really want people to listen to your concerns, talking and discussing things goes a lot farther than getting mad and "yelling" about it on an online forum.

[JudgeHolden]

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Naurto Shorts 3 was cut? amiright?

And if my effects in Action melted your face off, then you have a very low tolerance level (Simple 4 point masks) and some other stuffz...

And Katie is right, the results always have a few "out of left field" winners and losers. I thought for certain Chii had Fan Fav. However, you can sing to Code Monkey (right Rina).

[JaddziaDax]

actually after crowd reaction I thought Jubber's latest video would have Fan Favorite, but the coordinators said that there were a whole lot of close calls.

[BasharOfTheAges]

they were uh... kinda quiet during your video... but they clapped afterwards but they clapped after every video O.o

Was it me, or did the pre-voting and post-voting master lists look exactly the same? Did every vid entered into experts get into it?