AX 2002 Report
After a long 8 hour drive home (4th of July weekend traffic up the 5 freeway)
I'm back and since my internal clock is so messed up I figure I'll write my
report now.
If you want to get right to the AMV parts scroll down to the spacer like this:
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July 3rd
I flew down Wednesday at Noon and stopped by my apartment to pack the last of my
stuff. I'm moving all my stuff up to my parents place in NorCal (where I sit
now) for the time I'm in Japan starting at the end of this month. I spent about
3 hours loading everything I could into my car and throwing out all the garbage
that I couldn't or didn't want to take. After all this, I headed off to Long
Beach. I parked in the Hyatt structure because no one was working the booth and
thus it was free! Yay. Had to move it later, but anyways...
I go to get my badge since it's about 6:20 and I don't have to be at Rock Bottom
for the AMV creators get-together for another hour. Registration went fast,
although it still puzzles me why the Paid Pre-Registration line moved slower
than the other two lines... But I didn't have to wait very long anyways and got
my badge. I headed down to grab un-labeled/un-inserted DVDs to finish up with
Brad later and head to Rock Bottom.
At Rock Bottom I got to meet a buncha people. Apparently I'm fairly well known
amongst the newer AMV creators, which is nice. Brad shows up with my first batch
of 20 finished DVDs and I managed to distribute somewhere between 10 and 15 to
all the creators. The meeting itself is great. The food was decent (albeit
overpriced) but the best part was hanging out with everyone including Troy,
Sean, Vlad, Brad, Tim, Ben, Peter, Carlos, CasterTroy (whose real name I am
unable to remember), and a bunch of other people whose names escape me at the
moment (the girl who did the parody dub, the group of guys sitting at the table
including the guy who dressed up as Vash the next day).
We chatted for a good two hours when we finally decided to head out. Ben and
some of his friends went off to see Men in Black 2 but I had to go with Brad to
finish prep on my DVDs. Back at his hotel room we cut the covers and put the
labels on the batch of discs I had brought with me to bring my total DVDs that I
brought to AX to 38. Brad thought I was crazy for bringing that much.
Muhauhahhaha.
Vlad and Vanessa come up to the room eventually and we have a good time looking
over the photos they took from their trip to JACON. Some great stuff. After that
Vlad and I went back to his place to see if Tim had arrived (Vlad and Tim were
rooming together, those wacky canucks). Sadly he hadn't, but I got to see Vlad's
Otakon video in all it's full glory on the TVs in the hotels (which weren't that
bad, although they didn't have stereo jacks for sound). I must say I can't see
how his video WON'T win at Otakon. And after seeing some of the Drama entries in
the Finals at AX I seriously doubted the integrity and/or credentials of the
judging staff...
Tim finally showed up around 12:15, and we chewed the fat for about an hour.
Lots of fun, Vlad and Tim are both great guys and being able to talk with greats
like them is always thoroughly enjoyable. I then headed back to Ben's hotel
room, where he was letting me crash that night as my other room was not
available yet (I was staying with some people but the room was only rented
Thursday-Sunday). Again big thanks to him. I had some guy in his room (please
forgive me for forgetting your name!) say he really liked my "I Pray" video,
which is the first time I've like EVER been told that in person. Usually people
always like Closer or The End of Me, but this guy went right for the heart.
Thanks, dude, you have no idea how much that compliment meant to me.
July 4th
I get up so late that I miss the opening ceremonies for the most part, which
sucks because I wanted to see Youko Ishida and the ParaPara girls, but oh well.
What that did let me do was get into the Dealers room before anyone else and
entirely avoid the line! w00t!! I must say the dealers room at AX kicked much
ass, although the amount of bootleggers there was disturbing. I mentioned their
existence to the folks at the Pioneer booth and they said they'd try to do
something, but the fact that ALL of them were still there on Sunday spoke
volumes of AX's policy against bootlegging. I was not pleased in that respect...
Anyways, the Wherehouse Music booth in Pioneer's area was selling the ParaPara
MAX CDs for only $20 a piece!! I was like OH MY GOD that's cheap! I bought PPMax
3, 4, 5, and Mecha Max. They didn't have Bishoujo MAX so I had to go to the
Anime Jungle booth to get that (got it for $28). Pioneer is the Japanese
publisher of the albums so I figure that's how they got 'em so cheap, and
probably why Ishida-san and her cohorts were at the Con. Also I found a Read or
Die folder which is just too uber-kawaii for words. Chibi-Yomiko!!! *ErMaC
melts* Those were my only purchases on the first day.
Thursday afternoon I wind up hanging with some friends for a good chunk of the
day, then heading to the Arcade room and playing some DDR MAX2, which was rather
lackluster I must say. They were using a DDR USA machine modded to MAX 2, but
the problem is the USA machines have inferior dance pads attached to them (they
take more force to activate and dip + move when you step on them, they aren't
solid). Still managed to do pretty well, but the lines were so horribly long
that it just wasn't worth it, especially not for $1.50 a game!
The whole day I'm trying to get a hold of the person whose room I'm supposed to
be staying in. My friend Kevin knows her and gave me her Cell Phone # but had
apparently given it to me wrong so I couldn't call her. I was worried about not
having a place to sleep! Finally he returns my call around 10PM and I figure out
where I'm supposed to stay. Whew.
Earlier in the afternoon I had met up with Nic Neidenbach and Troy, and we had
gone out to eat lunch. You wouldn't believe how eager Troy was to talk about his
video, he was really excited, but Nic and I both pleaded with him to let us have
the experience fresh when we saw it at the contest.
July 5th
It was the best of days, it was the worst of days.
It begins with me waking up late again (see a trend here?). I go down and get
something to eat with some friends and hit the dealers room. One of my friends
bought this really nifty Chinese silk shirt and I had to get one of my own. It's
very nice, but feels a bit too much like wearing Pajamas at times. I also bought
a NERV T-shirt that day.
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I head to the panel after the Dealers room. The Panel was by far the high point
of the entire con for me. Troy ran an absolutely fabulous panel, which he
managed to get extended to 3 hours long (which was much needed as we found out)
and it was a real blast. He had some great questions prepared, and I got to show
a couple of my videos and had a really fun time chatting with the other creators
on the Panel. Note to Eric: Dude, you are f%#$ing awesome, stop beating yourself
up! =) Only problem was I was the first one on the Panel and so I always was
answering questions first, which wound up giving me the most talk time since on
at least a quarter of the questions the other people on the panel would say
after me, "Yah, I agree with what Justin said," or a reasonable facsimile
thereof.
I managed to distro ALL of my DVDs at the panel. That means THIRTY-EIGHT of my
DVDs are now in the hands of fellow creators and other AMV fans (one guy even
bought one for his Anime club on club funds, I wound up giving him my very last
copy that I was planning on keeping for later because it was for a good cause).
I was very pleased. I still lost about $40 by my calculations on all the DVDs,
but that's a loss I can live with.
During the panel one of my friends made a McDonalds run, which was a damn good
thing because of what happened later. I ate a nice Double Quarterpounder
w/Cheese that had gotten a little cold from sitting there uneaten for an hour
but that's life. Still was tasty.
We all then headed over to the AMV Competition line. The whole thing is packed
and there's no sign of people going in anytime soon. I meet up with Brad and
Tony while I'm there. Apparently they're having troubles with the final master
tapes, which was just unbelievable. It's not like they had to wait until that
day to make it, right?
Anyways, to cut a long story short: People begin stripping outside to pass the
time, a paper airplane manages to pierce the projection screen inside, the
Guests of Honor manage to start a wave, and the contest is cancelled and moved
to Saturday morning at 8AM. I'm pissed. I go off with friends to Southern Hills
Golfland down the 22 freeway to drown my sorrows in some real DDR. We come back
after a couple hours and then go to sleep.
July 6th
I don't even try to wakeup on time for the AMV contest. I'm so f%#$ing pissed
and disillusioned I just figured I'd show up for the Comedy category since I
figure it'll be the best. I arrive at the theater around 11 and they aren't even
done playing the Drama videos yet. Apparently they retroactively added a new
"Fun" category, which was bad because they hadn't TOLD anyone about it, but good
because Ian's Shameless Rock Video won! Congrats Ian.
After seeing some of the Drama videos, all the Comedy videos, I must say I was
disappointed with the videos in the contest. I kept asking myself why mine
didn't make the finals (I later find out that one of them was like #11 on one of
the lists, just missed the cut). Also, even though my Initial D video was
disqualified for content, there are two other videos in Comedy with MUCH more
explicit situations which were not disqualified, which really frustrated me. I
would talk to the James (one of the coordinators) about it later, but that's for
later in the report.
The one saving grace of the contest: An Action video won Best Action, a Drama
video won Best Drama, and a Comedy video won Best Comedy. There will be little
to no arguing over whether or not the winning videos belonged in their
respective categories. However, I almost feel sorry for the winners because of
the way their awards will be tainted by the contest. At the end of the videos
showing, like half the audience left before the final audience vote, and to
begin with less than 2/3 of the original audience from Friday returned to see
the Saturday showing. I'm half glad my videos didn't make the finals.
After the contest Tony and his friends, along with Tim, Vlad, and one of my
friends and myself all head to Rock Bottom again for Breakfast/Lunch. We chat a
whole lot about the contest, AMVs in general, the con, the con staff, etc. Very
good conversations all around. I head back to the dealers room afterwards and
wind up buying like 8 pins, two more tshirts, some manga, and like four more
CDs. Then the dealer's room closed.
I headed back to the room with the people I was staying with and we hung out for
a while. Some of them went to the Masquerade but I really didn't want to go and
was still so internally pissed about the AMV contest that I wouldn't've been
able to enjoy it, anyways. I wound up going to Golfland again with one of my
friends after we go to eat. When we come back we meet up with our other friends
at Karaoke and hang out. I went up and sang Call Me Call Me from Cowboy Bebop,
very well if I do say so myself, except that 1/3 of the way through the song
their speakers cut out and I had to start over, which was a big problem since
the song is very straining on my voice (it's at the very top of my range) and so
in the final chorus I begin to crackle and lose my voice. Grumble. We went back
to the arcade down in the Hyatt and we messed around, I wind up playing two more
games of DDR, then I go back to the room and sleep.
July 7th
I wake up at Noon. I'm not feeling great due to the massive amounts of germs
I've been exposed to during the Con and my escapades at DDR and Karaoke last
night, so I decide to just hit the dealers room and then pickup Ian's award for
him since I was his proxy. I managed to make it into the dealers room, and I
bought Gasaraki vol 8 on DVD since that was the last one I was missing, along
with one more pin that I found somewhere, and the Groundwork of Evangelion The
Movie Volume 2 artbook (to go along with my volume 1).
After that I head down to the Vid Tech staff and I meet Tony and Troy who are
both already there talking to James. Apparently James is just as puzzled about
me not making the finals and being disqualified as I was. He says he doesn't
know how the Excel Scat video wasn't disqualified (it featured two very
un-ambiguous penis appearances) and he hasn't heard an explanation from the
judges as to mine was disqualified. I find out that the awards were handed out
during the Masquerade of all things, and they don't know where the awards are
right now so they would just mail it to Ian. Hopefully it actually does get
mailed and not lost like Joe's award did last year.
I then go back to my hotel room, pack up, and begin the drive home.
Reflections:
While I never set foot once into a single video room, from what I heard the
whole con was just screwed up. Projectors were breaking, showings were
cancelled, panels were cancelled, CONTESTS WERE CANCELLED AND MOVED TO
UNREASONABLE TIMES, grumble... The only three high points of the whole con were
the Dealers room, the AMV Panel, and hanging out with my friends and the other
AMV creators.
The actual contest itself had been run poorly from the start. The fact that they
ran into field order problems the night of the contest shows how unprepared they
were - James admitted to me that they hadn't even watched the videos on a real
TV monitor until then, only computer monitors. If this were so, how the heck
could the judging have been accurate? After seeing Vlad's video not getting into
Drama, and seeing some of the videos that were not disqualified, I have severe
doubts as to the suitability of the judging staff. The whole contest was plagued
by one thing - a lack of time. The VTech staff just could not run the whole
con's technical aspects as well as run the AMV competition. They just did not
have the man power, nor the experience, and this is what was at the root of all
the problems with the contest like the late deadline, the bad judging, the
delayed contest, etc. It was unprofessionally handled, and I feel sorry for
every single AMV creator whose video got in the finals and wound up getting
screwed.
Since next year I will literally be within driving distance of AX (and will be
able to carpool with at least two other people) I will most likely still go,
however whether or not I will invest any interest into the Contest at large is
totally up in the air. I would rather save my money to fly to Anime Weekend
Atlanta than spend my time at AX.
I think I can sum up my whole feelings about the AMV contest in three words:
I miss Shaun.
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Justin "ErMaC" Emerson
ErMaC Studios
http://www.ermacstudios.org
"Yea, we're harsh on videos. That's cause don't want this Amateur crap, we want
Professional crap!" -Actual AX MV Contest Judge
glad i wasn't around for that
