1. How do you feel about the way categories have changed over the years and between contests? Has this caused any struggles or confusion while you are entering videos?
I think the main thing people need to keep in mind is that if you're running a small contest, you're going to get a small number of entries, and thus should have a small number of categories. I've seen first- and second-year cons that have, like, six to eight categories, and without fail some of the categories end up with two entries or one entry or even no entries. At AMV League, we don't even separate entries into categories anymore unless there are at least four in each category, since a contest between two entries isn't really a contest.
2. How do you think audiences and contests differ between smaller and larger conventions?
As someone who's run contests at both small and large conventions, there's not as much difference as you may think. Yeah, for the bigger cons, the audiences tend to be bigger, and thus seem more high profile. And we do get LOTS more entries at bigger cons. But there's always an audience. We've never had an event yet (knock on wood) that didn't reach the eleven-entry minimum. And no matter how small the con is, people DO go watch the AMV Contest. People hear the music from the hallway and filter in. It doesn't fail. AMVs are still popular at conventions, even if they seem to be overshadowed by cosplay and video games.
3. How do you feel about freshness vs. award limits on videos?
The main reason we don't accept any video more than once at AMV League is because, like Maboroshi Studio said, we were seeing too many cases of veteran editors spending all year making one really good video and then spamming it around to every convention ever and winning boxes and boxes of awards, leaving less-seasoned editors in the dust. However, with our AMV League Nationals, those "one really good" videos still tend to rise to the top, but other editors aren't forgotten at the individual convention level. We WOULD like to see more competitivity, particularly at smaller conventions, but so far we think the AMV League system is working pretty well, at least in this respect.
On the other hand, "debut rules" i.e. "This video must be shown at this contest before you show it anywhere else" are buuuuuuuullshiiiiiit. AMV League will NEVER implement a rule like this.
4. What method of entering videos do you believe is the easiest?
We
Google Drive. Cloud-based entries are generally quicker, more reliable, and don't take up 43 GB of our host's server space.
5. What is something you would like contest coordinators to know that might make the convention contest experience better for editors?
DO. NOT. USE. AUDIENCE. VOTING. There are so many problems with audience voting. People who come in late and haven't seen every video can still vote. The video with the most popular anime tends to always win. You don't put the Academy Awards to an online poll to determine who wins an Oscar, you leave it to folks who have experience with AMVs and can examine it more on a professional basis.
Other than that, well... as someone who runs 10+ convention contests in a year, I would LOVE to get some feedback from folks on how to improve AMV League and get more of y'all fantastic editors to participate. So, everyone, feel free to send me a PM.
