AMV Contests and Creators

[Vlad G Pohnert]

Seem to me there is an explosion of AMV contests as every con, club and organization is getting into having a AMV contest, let there seems to be less and less creators entering them and I see a lot of contests struggling to get their share of entries.

Even though there seems to be a lot more AMVs more world wide these days, the number of contests in North America has grown by a huge amount by the amount of editors that participate has shrunk. Some of that may even have to do with Youtube as there is less need by some to have a large audience see their video when hundred of thousands can from the comforts of their home.

Interestingly enough, submitting to too many contests use to be a real controversial subject (tolling, etc) however seeing there are so many contests screaming out for entries, I wonder how this has changed that perception.

It is also intrusting to note that some of the traditional contests still end up wit a lot of entries even to this day. Do people feel loyal to a particular contest? What actually draws creators to enter a specific contest? It is loyalty, the person running it or the way its run?

Ironically though, AMV rooms at cons (at least the ones I run or know about) seem to be very popular and continue to grow. At Sakura-Con, only three years ago the room size was 90 and today it’s 840 with many hours at full capacity. So is that people want to actually go and just enjoy videos rather then watch them in a contest?

Vlad

[Mr Pilkington]

I will say that some times there are so many contest its hard to keep up and even gets overwhelming. In January I entered 3 contests alone with several videos, February I had the same hopes but have fallen shy off that mark partly due to time constraints, which for many editors working full time and pursuing other hobbies could also be part of the issue, as well as the tiresome task of encoding video for conventions with specific requirements; many of which differ greatly from one another. While some may accept the original 720p60 encode, others require 480p and 29.97 or so-on. And just because con A is willing to accept one format does not mean cons B and C will. While h264 seems to be more widely accepted, especially at the bigger contest, its not totally universal yet and some still refuse to encode in such a way.

What I am getting at is the idea of a AMV convention standardization, but with technology and formats always changing I know this is pretty difficult.

[OropherZero]

a lot of contests have that MPEG2 requirement which annoys you coz you just want to send in that mp4

[Qyot27]

Partially, I think the continuing popularity of con-based contests and AMV rooms is one part the con experience, and two or three parts that the old idea that 'the contests, or at least the big ones, are the realm of the top tier editors' is still hanging on. People know that the contests at those kinds of conventions are still where you get to see the crème de la crème in one condensed setting competing for the prizes offered, and again, it's an experience to be at a con witnessing it (especially with more editor/audience interplay or transparency, as with Iron Editor competitions) than sitting in front of a computer screen on the 'tube or reading the posts on the forums here.

I haven't submitted a video to a con since 2004, and lots of things have coincided to make my chances of doing so less and less as time has gone on. If everything hardware-wise and employment-wise sorted itself out tomorrow, then yeah, I probably would get into attending cons and having a steadier flow of videos, but it probably ain't gonna happen any time soon.

[Bauzi]

Let me tell you how it goes in Austria (a small country with 8 million people). I know the situation is way different, but you might be interessted:

It seams like our con-goers are lazy. The go to Vienna to the "big" main convention and that's often it. They don't even take 2 hours to get to our second biggest convention. However they tend to start more and more little conventions. Why do they do that? So they only have up to 1 hour to got to a half ass con (no offense, I'm exagerating)?

Anyway... I hope that there don't come up more AMV-Contests like all the cosplay contests that poped up everywhere. I think my country has about 150 or maybe only 100 editors. Including YT editors as well. They are probably the majority. I miss competitions in "pro/advanced" areas. Hardly anybody has a-m-v.org tech-knowledge. Most people tend to choose the beginner category to enter. Which is funny, because I often think that the beginners section is more difficult to win than the pro category. They should show some balls and enter the next level, because I do know that some of them have been editing for years and could easly make a step up.

We have two amv contests. I'm running the one for the second biggest convetion. We both have the "only new videos that get premiered at the con" - rule and hardly any techincal rules. Heck... most of the editors wouldn't even know what I'm talking about. This makes things nasty when I have to convert some .wmv that often ends to be converted out of sync. Stupid... container/codec.

The bigger contest at the bigger con gets about 40 entries. I guess that I will get around 15 or maybe even up to 20 entries this year. I'm sorry for my friend who runs the big contest. Running a contest with a total length of 3.5 hours isn't fun. He looses his whole jury every year, because no one wants to go through so many vids again. Oh yeah and I'm sorry for him that he is probably the first contest coordinator in Austria who has to reject videos due to bad quality. That would make him the mean bad guy for manys.

So a good solution would be if the editors would split up and also attend at my contest. Most of the editors here make only one video a year and I open the contest more internationally to get my solid number of entries. The big one has only national editors.

However they won't submit their works because they are lazy con goers and seam to be loyal to the main big contest. *sigh*

[Nya-chan Production]

Seem to me there is an explosion of AMV contests as every con, club and organization is getting into having a AMV contest, let there seems to be less and less creators entering them and I see a lot of contests struggling to get their share of entries.

Even though there seems to be a lot more AMVs more world wide these days, the number of contests in North America has grown by a huge amount by the amount of editors that participate has shrunk. Some of that may even have to do with Youtube as there is less need by some to have a large audience see their video when hundred of thousands can from the comforts of their home.

Interestingly enough, submitting to too many contests use to be a real controversial subject (trolling, etc) however seeing there are so many contests screaming out for entries, I wonder how this has changed that perception.

It is also intrusting to note that some of the traditional contests still end up wit a lot of entries even to this day. Do people feel loyal to a particular contest? What actually draws creators to enter a specific contest? It is loyalty, the person running it or the way its run?

For me it's both - one really god mention would be Otafest - I joined only the last year, but I know I'll try to make something again this year because I already participated and because Jenn was really nice and friendly about anything in it.
Another nice example would be elitism - AWA Pro is in this category. it's something "more".
And third kind would be local cons - one always wants to shine in front of people they know him. In my case it's the Czech Animefest.

Ironically though, AMV rooms at cons (at least the ones I run or know about) seem to be very popular and continue to grow. At Sakura-Con, only three years ago the room size was 90 and today it’s 840 with many hours at full capacity. So is that people want to actually go and just enjoy videos rather then watch them in a contest?

Vlad

General people (we talk about people who see one anime a quarter, claim to know eerything and squeal over Sasuke) tend to be lazy. A lot. I've had a conversation with them a lot of times, and - they want to watch, but they don't want to download the videos!

Why is that?

Well, it's actually fairly easy - they usually:
- don't speak English.
- think of it as a waste of time.
- don't want to search for quality vids among those... other ones.

And so they are happy when someone else chooses what they should watch for them :<

[Adv1sor]

Ironically though, AMV rooms at cons (at least the ones I run or know about) seem to be very popular and continue to grow. At Sakura-Con, only three years ago the room size was 90 and today it’s 840 with many hours at full capacity. So is that people want to actually go and just enjoy videos rather then watch them in a contest

This is it, in my opinion. We have been running a panel at some conventions, The Ten Greatest AMVs of All Time and The Ten Funniest AMVs of All Time. It's not really a pannel, just a showing of ten really good AMVs. Always to a crowded and even sro room.

I think you would hard pressed to find any anime fan that doesn't enjoy a good AMV. A good AMV can even be a good advertisement for the anime.

So, despite my plea to shorten the contest, the more good AMVs the better.

[ngsilver]

As someone who has run contests at multiple cons that vary in size, age, and 'scope' I've noticed a trend really.

What I see a lot of times is there is loyalty that some editors have to a convention and thus will enter it's contest. I also see a loyalty to a coordinator, or at least some editors will feel more at ease entering a video in a contest run by certain coordinators. I also see what I call the n00b factor, that is, editors will will only enter certain conventions because they feel they are small enough and their rules are simple or welcoming enough to the 'little guys'.

I also think in some ways a contest can really thrive or fail based on the love a convention's management give to it. A convention who's staff and management are more passionate about their contest will often get more videos and their contest will thrive simply based on their enthusiasm and willingness to shine more of the spot light on the contest, while conventions who really only hold a contest because it's a 'tradition' and tend to offer very little of the spot light tend to suffer for it. The same can really be said about AMV rooms at cons, though a lot of times that can also be attributed to the person who is in charge of running the room.

I know I have a few conventions that I submit videos to because I trust the coordinators, the convention, and at times the rules.

The real reason I think many AMV Rooms thrive is because the AMV room in ways caters to the ADD nature of the majority of anime fans these days. They can sit down and in the course of an hour see all kinds of anime and hear all kinds of music. Also, what is shown in an AMV room many people feel they don't have the power to see at home, while they can easily download the same anime that is shown in the video rooms. At the same time I see certain events thrive while others seem to slowly but surely die. What I notice is that more interactive type showings (such as Iron Editor) thrive because the audience gets to participate. When I run AMV Wars at Youmacon (our own version of the Iron Editor Challenge) I see the room get packed to the brim, standing room only, and the audience just has a BLAST watching and participating in the show and videos (we have a rule that if you know the song you must sing along.) They sing, they dance, they conga-line, we give them free candy that in turn gets them more hyper, and in the end everyone has a ball. Other events I find that thrive are ones that devote the whole time to showing really fun and funny videos. ACEN's Happy Fun Time always gets a packed room, and many of the videos that we show you can't find online anymore. But at the same time that I see this, I also see AMV How-To panels start to die off as less and less people attend because more and more are able to find help online (be it here or elsewhere.)

In the end I think the big thing about how an AMV room thrives is the fact that a con goer can come and go as they please and they wont really miss anything. At any time during the day they can sit down, take a load off, and watch some good videos that they are sure will be entertaining because why would the people running the room put up bad videos that are not fun to watch? It's a way for them to escape the normal 'con' atmosphere and enjoy some good music.

[Castor Troy]

Absolutely nothing beats a live screening. I used to think that live screenings and awards were the main reason why so many editors enter cons in the first place.

Sadly, alot of the editors that started before youtube, hell, even before the .org's local hosting are just moving onto other things or have just lost interest. The youtube generation has literally de-valued videos in a sense that it's not so hard to get your work shown anymore. Got rejected from a contest? Fuck that, just put your video on youtube.

I thought the digital age was going to bring even more participation to contests because of the ease of accessing the technology. Apparently, the biggest contest now is seeing how many hits and subscribers you get on youtube.

[Enigma]

Absolutely nothing beats a live screening. I used to think that live screenings and awards were the main reason why so many editors enter cons in the first place.

Sadly, alot of the editors that started before youtube, hell, even before the .org's local hosting are just moving onto other things or have just lost interest. The youtube generation has literally de-valued videos in a sense that it's not so hard to get your work shown anymore. Got rejected from a contest? Fuck that, just put your video on youtube.

I thought the digital age was going to bring even more participation to contests because of the ease of accessing the technology. Apparently, the biggest contest now is seeing how many hits and subscribers you get on youtube.

Perfectly explains the whole problem if you ask me.



Why the fuck aren't there any cons here at Puerto Rico? I will never know ;____;