Project Editor Exit Survey

[Kisanzi]

Question #1: If you could have one major change in this contest (anything is fair game), what would it be? If you could keep any one thing about this contest the same, what would it be?

One extra day to rest for one. Also, maybe a few less eliminations. Maybe narrow the contestants down a bit less each round building to a final four in the last round rather than 3. More videos, more possibilities for awesome.

Question #2: From here on out, I will be letting the contestants and viewers to submit themes that will be used in future OrgEditor contests. Therefore, if you could have any theme(s) added to our contest, what would it(they) be? Keep in mind that themes should be capable of being done within a week's time and themes involving more than one person is not always the best idea. You may submit as many ideas as you want, but I reserve the right to "trim" certain themes or alter them slightly to be more editor-friendly.

I'm more of a fan of having a couple more "editor friendly" open ended themes that just limit editing/source criteria rather than creativity. While the Persona round was neat in theory, that was incredibly difficult for me to work on for the first few days when the ideas just weren't coming. So it would be nice to still have those deep thinky rounds, but a couple of less abstract thinking rounds in there wouldn't hurt either.

Also, keep a remake round in there, those are great fun. Just ease up a bit on the creatively change the video aspect!

Question #3: Do you feel as though the judging criteria is fair, or should there be a re-write?

Maybe a revamped and more defined point system? Some judges seemed to put their thoughts into certain scores while other judges put them into different sections. I mean having separate scores for concept and theme? They kinda blend together to me for a contest like this. (Since the concept directly correlates with the theme, then if the concept doesn't fit the theme, can one still score highly in concept?) And shouldn't overall just be the final average of the other individual scores? Just a clearer re-branding/definition of the scoring categories would be nice versus seeing judges docking the crap out of the broad larger scale scores, like overall, because there's no where else to dock the scores for a video that they really don't like?

Question #4: Did you feel as though you had (a) enough time to edit (b) too much time to edit (c) not near enough time to edit.

A week is enough time.

Question #5: How would you feel if deadlines were only on weekends and due during the daytime (around Noon-1PM).

For me personally, I work weekdays. So having a round start on Friday sucked since I usually need a day or two to brainstorm and prepare footage before I can edit, leaving me with nothing but work days to use. Which is fine, but I have a bad habit of editing for like 8-10 hours straight and doing that on a weekend is fine, but on consecutive work nights is murder. Having the rounds start on the beginning of each week would be great for a standard M-F employed person. (And yes, I don't think this contest should be limited to just people who don't work or have ample free time due to a part-time work schedule. The 40+ hours people can be just as dedicated. )

Question #6: Is there anything you'd like to see added/removed from the subforum?

N/A

Question #7: Would you prefer that judging remains blind, or perhaps open up the gates and allow contestants to upload their entries to a-m-v.org once finished?

Blind is good stuff. It's more fun to see people react to videos more when they have no idea who made them.

Question #8: The following changes are being seriously considered for season 4. What are your opinions on these changes?

+ (Rule Addition) Utilization of any material from a previous AMVs without the owner's consent is a disqualifying offense.

Agreed.

+ (Formatting Change) Changing the style from a 32 person tournament to a 64 person tournament, and utilizing a two-group system similar to "The Quickening", with the same elimination/theme standards as previous contests, just split in two. This will provide editors with a larger break (since only one group will edit at a time until the semifinals), and provide with more AMVs for the general public to watch/enjoy.

Change is always fun if you can get enough people for the idea.

Question #9: Put anything not mentioned above that you want to talk about here.

More support for the contestants please! It's hard putting aside 50-100+ hours of people's lives to participate in these contests with breakneck deadlines. So a little more consideration for the contestants would be nice to see. I don't mean you should love every video that is made, but just give some encouragement and thanks to the competitors from each round who are editing themselves into the ground. (Which I admit to doing in one round where I got incredibly sick after finishing my vid .) It's fine to voice your support or criticism of the vids individually, but please acknowledge and respect the time and energy people are putting into these things under the circumstances before bluntly stating to all 32 contestants that the entire contest was disappointing and that all the videos are blah. The crowd doesn't boo the Olympians because they aren't breaking all the world records each year, right? That's because they know that the athletes aren't there to shatter records, but are trying to prove to themselves and others what they are made of and what they have to offer as a competitor. I will personally admit that I didn't enjoy every single video made this season, and maybe I had favorites that I liked from previous years, but I give a huge thank you and congratulations to all of my fellow contestants who participated and I'll look forward to the next competition with no preconceptions about what kind of videos to expect!

[Ileia]

The Olympics comment reminded me of

All I gotta say to the majority of editors in this thing is, "kaaammaaaaaaannnnnn guys." This is like tuning in to watch the Olympics only to find that half of the countries were too lazy to show up, and those that did show haven't trained all year and were going to start the day before their event.

Now let's see some quality stuff here and stop submitting the last minute afterthought vids. Thankyouplease.

It's a lot easier to have appreciation for the competitors when you have a better understanding of what they're going through each week.

[Kisanzi]

The Olympics comment reminded me of

All I gotta say to the majority of editors in this thing is, "kaaammaaaaaaannnnnn guys." This is like tuning in to watch the Olympics only to find that half of the countries were too lazy to show up, and those that did show haven't trained all year and were going to start the day before their event.

Now let's see some quality stuff here and stop submitting the last minute afterthought vids. Thankyouplease.

It's a lot easier to have appreciation for the competitors when you have a better understanding of what they're going through each week.

Oh snap! I remember that! I agree that it is easier to relate once participating. But I remember directing those comments more toward the fact that there were videos being submitted with 30-50 second runtimes and such.

Also take note of others things I said during that contest:

Sooo...Watched all the vids for round 2 and........

...it's a vast improvement from round one! This is exactly what I want to see from this tournament. It's good to see the majority of videos have a fair amount of effort and/or thought put into them. 300% improvement on editing quality and viewer satisfaction here. Any qualms I had with the first round have been cleared up. Now I hope the momentum continues into round 3.

I realize the challenge in collaboration and a time constraint, but this round is probably my least favorite round next to the first round. 4 out of the 5 videos took slow and safe stances on the editing choice and yielded some "ok", but very basic and random, videos. As a viewer, I would've liked to have seen the editors have more fun with the editing like in the previous 2 rounds, but I realize the safer choices may have been made due to collaborative restraints. ...But still, kudos to all the editors for working with such an awkward theme for an individually scored editing competition and rising to the challenge.

So contrary to if you were trying to make me eat my words or not, it's ok to voice your opinion constructively like I said in my comments in the exit survey. But I just wanted to see more people acknowledge and consider the editors plight and post their support (as is bolded in my statements from orgeditor 2011) rather than just voicing cold-hearted disappointment. But seriously, hopefully you weren't posting this to try and belittle me since this thread isn't really the place for that discussion, but I stand by my words. As a fan I wanted to see a bit more longevity to the videos and tried to go about it in a way that tried to motivate rather than flat out insult. It differs in context a bit more than posting "I am disappointed in you all. I expected way better. This contest was just all bad." at the end of the contest for all to see. But thanks for the walk down memory lane!

[Ileia]

I'm just saying that it's a commitment that goes unappreciated really easily

[Kisanzi]

I'm just saying that it's a commitment that goes unappreciated really easily

Amen to that.

[Rendakor]

Question #1: If you could have one major change in this contest (anything is fair game), what would it be? If you could keep any one thing about this contest the same, what would it be?

I would get rid of the bonus points; each round's videos should be evaluated on their own merit. You end up with a rich get richer scenario, where the good editors don't have to try as hard because their scores are being padded. For an example of why bonus points are dumb, we have a tie in the finale because of them.

Question #2: From here on out, I will be letting the contestants and viewers to submit themes that will be used in future OrgEditor contests. Therefore, if you could have any theme(s) added to our contest, what would it(they) be? Keep in mind that themes should be capable of being done within a week's time and themes involving more than one person is not always the best idea. You may submit as many ideas as you want, but I reserve the right to "trim" certain themes or alter them slightly to be more editor-friendly.

I don't have any specific suggestions for themes, but when prepping for next year I'd suggest grouping themes into "broad" and "strict" or something similar. That way you can easily alternate between broad and strict, instead of giving us two very broad categories (seasons and distant future) back to back, followed by an incredibly restrictive one.

Question #3: Do you feel as though the judging critera is fair, or should there be a re-write?

I feel the judges need stricter guidelines on objectivity as seen in the numerous arguments early on in the contest. Displaying the scores individually by category helps a lot, since it forces the judges to justify why they're giving a really good or really bad score.

Regarding the specific judging criteria, Audio/Video and Editing/Sync are both fine. I'm not sure we need Theme and Concept categories though; your video's concept should be an extension of the round's theme. If you make a video that had an excellent concept but didn't match the theme AT ALL you should just be DQ'd instead of getting a 20 Concept/0 Theme so I'd probably just roll those two categories together. Overall is another highly subjective category, and to me should just represent an average of the above. I realize it lets the judges weight videos in cases of "Everything is well done but I just didn't feel it" and "There were a lot of problems but it all came together well"; if that's the intended purpose of Overall let's just be honest and call it Opinion or some such. Basically my issue is that having 40% of the judging objective and 60% subjective allows way too much wiggle room and results in the wild score disparities between the various judges we've seen in this year and previous POE's.

Question #4: Did you feel as though you had (a) enough time to edit (b) too much time to edit (c) not near enough time to edit.

Enough time.

Question #5: How would you feel if deadlines were only on weekends and due during the daytime (around Noon-1PM).

I like the rotating deadlines. Having deadlines always on Saturday (for example) would either shorten editing time to ~5 days or create week-long breaks in between rounds, neither of which I'm in favor of. I've no opinion on the time of day entries are due.

Question #6: Is there anything you'd like to see added/removed from the subforum?

Something that would be cool is a fan-favorite vote each round in the form of a poll, and maybe another poll for contestant's favorite; nothing with prizes just something fun to do.

Question #7: Would you prefer that judging remains blind, or perhaps open up the gates and allow contestants to upload their entries to a-m-v.org once finished?

Blind judging.

Question #8: The following changes are being seriously considered for season 4. What are your opinions on these changes?

+ (Rule Addition) Utilization of any material from a previous AMVs without the owner's consent is a disqualifying offense.

I'd go so far as to say utilizing ANY material from a previous AMV should be grounds for DQ, with or without consent. The challenge of the contest is to edit a video within the timeline, and using pre-edited footage seems like cheating.

+ (Formatting Change) Changing the style from a 32 person tournament to a 64 person tournament, and utilizing a two-group system similar to "The Quickening", with the same elimination/theme standards as previous contests, just split in two. This will provide editors with a larger break (since only one group will edit at a time until the semifinals), and provide with more AMVs for the general public to watch/enjoy.

I don't like this one. If you want to add more people, go for it, but keep the level playing field: everyone competes against everyone on the same themes.

Question #9: Put anything not mentioned above that you want to talk about here.

Make sure all of the judges are able to submit their scores on time, every round. It's unfair (and stressful) to the editors to hold up the contest because a judge couldn't get their scores in on time; and for all the complaints about editors dropping we had at least two cases this POE of judges failing to submit scores for a round at all, including the FINALS.

[Kimberly]

Question #9: Put anything not mentioned above that you want to talk about here.

Make sure all of the judges are able to submit their scores on time, every round. It's unfair (and stressful) to the editors to hold up the contest because a judge couldn't get their scores in on time;

-adds on- And please no more extensions, Code. It's unfair to the editors who were already eliminated.

[Kitsuner]

Question #9: Put anything not mentioned above that you want to talk about here.

Make sure all of the judges are able to submit their scores on time, every round. It's unfair (and stressful) to the editors to hold up the contest because a judge couldn't get their scores in on time;

-adds on- And please no more extensions, Code. It's unfair to the editors who were already eliminated.

Judges who turn in scores late get eliminated :O

[Pwolf]

Question #1: If you could have one major change in this contest (anything is fair game), what would it be? If you could keep any one thing about this contest the same, what would it be?

The bonus point thing was a bit messed up IMO... Just judge videos on a round by round basis. It's the editors job to make something worth winning. If they can't do that then so be it.

Question #3: Do you feel as though the judging critera is fair, or should there be a re-write?

Yes but only if all the judges are on relatively the same page. The discussion we had during the first round explains my thoughts on this. Make sure the judges and participant clearly understand what the judging criteria is so the participants don't feel as if they are being unfairly judged because they used an "overused source". There is a bias towards and against certain sources and a disconnect about what is considered "original". I shouldn't be afraid to use a source because I know a judge is bias against it. I should be focusing on making what I want to make and knowing I'll be judged fairly.

Question #4: Did you feel as though you had (a) enough time to edit (b) too much time to edit (c) not near enough time to edit.

Personally, no. But that was my own ability to manage and understand the amount of time I would have. The only thing I would suggest is making sure the Judges are on time when submitting scores. Have a contingency plan in place incase one or more judges can't submit their scores... like having a handful of guest judges who you know can be available to judge on short notice. Stick to the schedule. When I entered in the past and this time, I look at when the rounds will be to make sure I will be available to edit during those times. In the past, we had extensions and I would not have been able to edit during the final round if I had actually finished my video and advanced.

Question #7: Would you prefer that judging remains blind, or perhaps open up the gates and allow contestants to upload their entries to a-m-v.org once finished?

Yes, keep it blind. As bad as source bias is, editor bias is much more prevalent and worse IMO.

[xPauChan]

Question #3: I find it pretty fair.

Question #4: a

Question #5: Well daytime = night for me because of timezones so it doesn't really matter, tbh though I prefer deadlines on week days ( weekends are horrendously busy for me )

Question #7: I like blind judging.

Question #8: The following changes are being seriously considered for season 4. What are your opinions on these changes?

+ (Rule Addition) Utilization of any material from a previous AMVs without the owner's consent is a disqualifying offense.

YES.

+ (Formatting Change) Changing the style from a 32 person tournament to a 64 person tournament, and utilizing a two-group system similar to "The Quickening", with the same elimination/theme standards as previous contests, just split in two. This will provide editors with a larger break (since only one group will edit at a time until the semifinals), and provide with more AMVs for the general public to watch/enjoy.

I think I pretty much like this one as well :3