Anime Evolution AMV Contest: WINNERS!

[purplepolecat]

Here are the winners! Congrats to everyone.

Action:
Emma Browning - Crossed Hearts

Romance / Sentimental
Maboroshi Studio - Flashes Of Light

Fun/Upbeat
Kisanzi -

Drama
BakaOppai -

Judges' Best Overall
BasharOfTheAges -

Comedy and Audience's Best Overall
BakaOppai -

Animu Stew surprised me a little, as it kinda limped into the finals. However, during the actual contest it had people on the floor. It was on over half of the total ballots cast for Comedy, and was way ahead of the pack for Audience Best.

So, BakaOppai has to make room for three trophies on the mantle, and it was almost four, as Piece Of Toast and Snowball Genocide duked it out for Fun/Upbeat. Of course this is Canada, so the snowball video won*.

Thanks for Draqua for the killer intro video, she will probably upload it somewhere soon.

*it doesn't snow here

[Rider4Z]

Ahh poo! Oh well, congrats winners!

[BasharOfTheAges]

Sweet! Thanks judges. And congrats to the winners.

[purplepolecat]

The Optimists was a very very close 2nd place for the Judges' Award.

[Rider4Z]

i'll take it

Spoiler :

*shakes fist at bashar*
*fist bumps bashar*
*shakes fist at bashar again*

[BakaOppai]

Awesome, wasn't expecting this ;D. Glad toast lost to Kisanzi tho :3

[Kisanzi]

Grats to all the finalists and winners. Makes me glad to hear that the audience showed so much support for the vids!

[MaboroshiStudio]

Wow... congrats to all the other winners and finalists. Glad to hear the contest was a huge success and that all videos were received so well.

[l33tmeatwad]

Animu Stew surprised me a little, as it kinda limped into the finals. However, during the actual contest it had people on the floor. It was on over half of the total ballots cast for Comedy, and was way ahead of the pack for Audience Best.

First I would like to point out you diluted the category with parodies that don't really pace humor the same way comedy video do. That said, judges watch enough AMVs to really focus on quality and have seen enough that they tend to really focus on better videos. Audiences, on the other hand, often don't even watch AMVs in their spare time so they simply watch to enjoy and care little about what editors consider to be quality videos. The advantage a video like Stew has is that's it's a lowest common denominator video and doesn't have to actually be a solid video and simply hits a variety of different fandoms. With this style you can consistently get laughs from different groups in the crowd which will build group laughter with the illusion of constantly hitting jokes despite it only hitting segments of the crowd at different points. Also keep in mind that some audience members have a very low bar for what equates as a joke.

I myself have made bad videos that barely made finals yet won at conventions and good ones that judges liked that consistently made finals yet were unable to win over a crowd. Much like movies there are AMVs like Transformers that win the masses yet are pretty shallow, ones that are quality yet only impress those in the hobby, and everything else is just in the middle. Very rarely do you see those magical gems that are actually impressive to everyone...

[purplepolecat]

If you look at the rules page, the official title of that category is Comedy/Parody. I try to be consistent when I post here, but often forget.

If you want to make it at a convention contest, you need to please the crowd, and that includes going for cheap laughs if you have to. As a contest coordinator, my first responsibility is to make sure that the people who come to the contest are entertained, because ultimately they are the ones paying for the room rent and shiny trophies. So if someone wants to grab a cheap victory by actually making some people laugh (and laugh they did, it was no illusion), that's fine with me. If you want to be judged by your peers, we have the VCAs and JCAs.