Anime Central 2003 Finalists and Winners

[Tom the Fish]

Huh, none of my videos made it. How I weep.

Oh well. Gratz to the winners.

Tom

[suberunker]

Was the Honorable mention Utena video "The Two Shall Meet" and happened to use a lot of compositing?

Then I'd be very happy and sad at the same time.

suberunker

[trythil]

Was the Honorable mention Utena video "The Two Shall Meet" and happened to use a lot of compositing?

Yes. It was. (Or at least it used a lot of compositing.)

Then I'd be very happy and sad at the same time.

suberunker

I dunno if this is any consolation, but we loved that thing...me especially

I am sure quite a few of you have a few things to say, so feel free. Hopefully we can answer questions. I am also sure a few other things will come up and hopefully we can figure that out too.

I'm not quite sure just how much I can comment on the whole thing, since we're basically sworn to secrecy over the entire process.

Though, just to clear things up, I didn't vote myself for that Honorable Mention...I hope I'm not saying too much.

I'm wondering how Midnight won Best of Show...I mean, it was pretty impressive and all, but considering that it wasn't even nominated for that category...meh, I dunno. Guest judging must have done something funny

Talk about a surprise. I didn't even enter Pokemon Never Die into the contest

I supposedly entered Everyday and Glory. I screwed up uploading everyday, but I thought it got fixed.

You what?

Well, they showed it anyway..."Glory" is an awesome video.

...anyway, so I guess that's why you appearently had three entries...we were a little confused over that

[trythil]

Oh yeah, and I think that the "Back to the Future" video was by Animexcel (or so he's known on the ACen boards).

[Ashyukun]

Dan- the last Honorable Mention was Nappy's second entry, "Can't Stop the Rock"

Vancore- I'm pretty certain that he's right about the winners- I was there for the announcement and presentation of the last 4 awards (Drama, Best in Show, Best Tech, and Best Original Concept). I missed the Staff, Action, and Theme awards. Admittedly, to my knowledge there has been no official announcement outside of the rather ghetto way the awards were handed out at the convention, so we can't totally put any questions about it to rest.

Three of the honorable mentions were recommended by the judges that did the pre-final judging, and they were basically used to reward videos that were deserving of recognition but had been unfairly (in our opinions) denied the chance to be seen by the 'larger' audience (see the end of this post on that...) by being excluded from the actual contest (two of them we still don't know why they were cut, one was cut due to being the editor's secondary entry). The last was apparently awarded by the final judges. It was also hinted to us when we asked whether or not we could make Honorable Mention recommendations that there was a good chance the finalists that were not actually awarded anything would be given HM's as well- which I'm actually rather pissed did not happen, as some excellent videos went otherwise unrecognized.

Metro- You know, I was wondring about that... at one point in the prescreening I actually went up and check with Julius and Quu as to whether you had two or three entries in the contest, and they only had two listed. I need to watch Everyday when I get back home- there was a Macross Plus video in the pre-screening, but I can't remember what music it was set to (I remember it in particular because the ending had a decent bit in common with my own Eden 12/24).

Glory was another one of our favorites... IIRC, it was one of the videos strongly in contention for the final 3 in Drama- but there were just so many excellent Drama vids...

Midnight/MITTERNACHT are the same thing (Mitternacht is German for 'Midnight').

Tom- Your videos were shown at the pre-screening, but I know at least the Hello Kitty video was not put into the contest due to having won at Anime Boston. I'm not sure about the other one- I remember there being another entry from you, but I don't remember exactly what it was

suberunker- Yes, that would likely have been your Utena video we're talking about. All of us loved it, and were rather put out that it (like trythil's "Always") was not in the actual contest. It was however shown during the AMV Iron Chef, and got a very good reaction from the audience.

[rant]
As Dan said, the contest was not without what we would call 'issues'. As was previously noted, the video that won "Best in Show" (I'm pretty damn sure it was MITTERNACHT, but even if it was Phenomenon) was not even one of the pre-final judging recommendations for "Best in Show". Nothing at all against MITTERNACHT- it's a damn good video- but the pre-final judges were quite certain and set in the three that were recommended for Best of Show. We were under the impression that the Guests of Honor that did the final judging would not only be given the tape of the videos that were in the final three of each category but also the list of recommendations (complete with their rankings from the pre-judging). Basically, what I think all of us were concerned would happen when we heard how the final judging would happen came true- the final judges in many cases threw out the pre-judging recommendations, in some cases quite spectacularly (i.e., Best of Show). Based on how things came out, it appears that the judges may have just been given a tape with all the finalist videos on it and told what the awards they had to choose were, and not even given the listing of what videos were supposed to be up for what awards- which would just really suck for a couple of the videos.

Of one particular concern was that I believe two of the three finals judges were Japanese Guests of Honor (I know at least one was from talking with her). To some extent, I think this was the case due to the way the awards worked out- The video that won Best in Show against the recommendations of the pre-judging was in a language (German) that likely none of the judges were really familiar with, and at least one and I think two of the winning videos were instrumentals. I especially think that the Japanese GoHs would have a realy hard time judging the Theme category well- as, well, what we consider nostalgic for the 80's would differ from what they would consider '80's'. I can't fault the finals judges though, all told. I'm sure they did their best. I just think that the whole concept of having a small number of Guests of Honor who may not be particularly in tune with AMVs is not a good idea. If the judges were, say, celebrity AMVers (for example, I would have been quite happy if EK or Brett Weaver had been judges) or video professionals, or at least directors.

I very seriously think things overall were not handled the best this year at all - on the non-technical side of things. I believe Quu and SailorDeath did a very good job of running the technical side of things and dealing with the few small problems that cropped up. But on the planning and execution of a number of the things, I think there were a lot of problems.

First off, the primary contest showing was held at 9:00 AM on Saturday. I'm used to seeing rooms packed for AMV contests at conventions. When the showing started (only 5 minutes or so late), the room couldn't have been more than 1/5 full. Contrast this with the pre-screening showing the night before starting at 7:00 PM in one of the panel rooms, where the room was packed, with people sitting on almost every available non-aisle floor space and standing severeal layers deep i nthe back of the room, many of whom stayed until after mid-night. I honestly think more people saw the first 3-4 hours of the pre-screening than saw the first half of the actual contest showing. The scheduling just truly and honestly sucked. Most of my friends that were at the con missed it because they (like a large number of the con-goers) simply weren't up and about that early.

Second, rules and blanked eliminations need to be applied evenly across the board and without exceptions. There were some good videos that were cut because of having not followed the rules (the 'no title card' rules on being the biggest one people didn't pay attention to) and several excluded due to the trolling rules. However, several were not taken out of the contest in spite of violations of these, which meant several other excellent videos that had not violated any rules at all got excluded.

Finally, all of the final judging had problems. It really felt like it was all thrown together at the last minute. Those of us who ended up doing the pre-judging were given very little direction as to what we should be judging and how we should be doing it- for a while there was even some confusion amongst us as to what the overall categories were. Add onto that what I would consider apparent problems with the true final judging, and the whole thing just went all to hell.

Given all of this, especially what seems to have happened with the final judging, I very strongly believe that ALL of the finalist videos Dan listed should be given Honorable Mentions. While I don't believe it would be fair to try and change the results, I very strongly believe that a few of the editors got very much screwed in the end, and that they at least deserve some form of official recognition for their efforts.

[/rant]

(just an aside note: I do not count myself among those who got screwed over. Well, OK- I did get screwed over or more accurately rather badly pwned- but that was because Nappy made such a damn good video. His video(s) just rocked and blew the other comedy entries away.)

[PhReAkAzOiD187]

hmmm.. well that's a kick in the groin . oh well, it was a good contest, i'm just glad to see a vid of mine getting showed on a larger screen than a computer monitor . however it was a very small audience this year, which kinda sucked, but oh well. good job to everyone in the contest, it was really close in all aspects.

[SailorDeath]

YEah, there were a lot of issues that still happened, which is why I'm going to work even harder for next year, we're going to have new rules that are going to be more strictly enforced, as for times and such I will be working to get us into a better timeslot, I know 9am is really lousy but that's what the con gave us, and there was little that we could do because of it.

[dwchang]

[rant]
As Dan said, the contest was not without what we would call 'issues'. As was previously noted, the video that won "Best in Show" (I'm pretty damn sure it was MITTERNACHT, but even if it was Phenomenon) was not even one of the pre-final judging recommendations for "Best in Show". Nothing at all against MITTERNACHT- it's a damn good video- but the pre-final judges were quite certain and set in the three that were recommended for Best of Show. We were under the impression that the Guests of Honor that did the final judging would not only be given the tape of the videos that were in the final three of each category but also the list of recommendations (complete with their rankings from the pre-judging). Basically, what I think all of us were concerned would happen when we heard how the final judging would happen came true- the final judges in many cases threw out the pre-judging recommendations, in some cases quite spectacularly (i.e., Best of Show). Based on how things came out, it appears that the judges may have just been given a tape with all the finalist videos on it and told what the awards they had to choose were, and not even given the listing of what videos were supposed to be up for what awards- which would just really suck for a couple of the videos.

Of one particular concern was that I believe two of the three finals judges were Japanese Guests of Honor (I know at least one was from talking with her). To some extent, I think this was the case due to the way the awards worked out- The video that won Best in Show against the recommendations of the pre-judging was in a language (German) that likely none of the judges were really familiar with, and at least one and I think two of the winning videos were instrumentals. I especially think that the Japanese GoHs would have a realy hard time judging the Theme category well- as, well, what we consider nostalgic for the 80's would differ from what they would consider '80's'. I can't fault the finals judges though, all told. I'm sure they did their best. I just think that the whole concept of having a small number of Guests of Honor who may not be particularly in tune with AMVs is not a good idea. If the judges were, say, celebrity AMVers (for example, I would have been quite happy if EK or Brett Weaver had been judges) or video professionals, or at least directors.

I very seriously think things overall were not handled the best this year at all - on the non-technical side of things. I believe Quu and SailorDeath did a very good job of running the technical side of things and dealing with the few small problems that cropped up. But on the planning and execution of a number of the things, I think there were a lot of problems.

Finally, all of the final judging had problems. It really felt like it was all thrown together at the last minute. Those of us who ended up doing the pre-judging were given very little direction as to what we should be judging and how we should be doing it- for a while there was even some confusion amongst us as to what the overall categories were. Add onto that what I would consider apparent problems with the true final judging, and the whole thing just went all to hell.

Given all of this, especially what seems to have happened with the final judging, I very strongly believe that ALL of the finalist videos Dan listed should be given Honorable Mentions. While I don't believe it would be fair to try and change the results, I very strongly believe that a few of the editors got very much screwed in the end, and that they at least deserve some form of official recognition for their efforts.[/rant]

Let me add to this with what I have been told occurred. Let me go into the details of the actual judging process. For ACen, it is two-fold and to be quite honest, I don't agree with it at all (For reasons explained below).

As Ashyukun explained, a group of creators gathered after the contest and picked 3 videos in each category. A first place got 3 pts, a second 2 pts and so on. This would narrow it down to three finalists in a category and also a recommendations (notice how I list the videos 1), 2) and 3) above?) to the judges. This recommendation is obviously based on which video had the most "points."

These finalists are compiled on a tape and given to the judges with the breakdown of the finalists (i.e. 3 per category) and the recommendation. The Guests of Honor then watch the three entries, discuss and pick a winner. Out of the (I think) 6 years of ACen, there has only been one instance (that I know of) where the Guests of Honor chose a different winner than the creators recommendation. This year, the judges chose differently in 5 of 8 categories. In most cases, they chose the "3rd place" entry as well.

I *think* I've figured out why. BTW I do apologize for the 'rant-nature' of this response, but these are the facts. First off, two of the three Guests of Honor Judges were Japanese. In fact, both did not speak English *that* well (or not at all). I will state my personal opinion, in that I think this isn't fair. 95% of the entries used songs in English and relied on the lyrics. This can be even further shown in the fact that 2 winners were instrumental pieces. This makes logical sense since instrumental pieces do not require knowledge of a language. Not to knock these videos *at all*, but at least in one instance the video that won was clearly not the "best." I won't name specifics since this will start a flamewar.

Secondly, I have found out recently that the judges only received a tape without any breakdown of the finalists in each category or a recommendation. This *probably* means they saw the tape as one big contest and chose winners out of the entire pool. That would easily explain why a video that was only up for Best Action won Best of Show. As you can easily see, we creators did not put Midnight (as good as it was) up for Best of Show and yet it won.

I have already discussed this with Julius/Sailor Death and I am confidence in his A) ability to remedy to fix the problems in the contest and more importantly B) his resolve to make ACen's contest as perfect as possible.

I would like to give mad props to him and Patrick. The technical side of the contest (rendering the videos on time, prejudging and so on) were done 10x better than last year. Unfortunately, something still went wrong (judging), but I don't mean to at all imply it was their fault because it's not.

It's unfortunate that a number of videos that (warning...possible offensive statement incoming) a number of videos were "screwed." I don't know about the other creator's, but in a number of categories, I thought the winners were clear-cut (as is shown in our finalists and recommendation). I don't *at all* mean to knock ANY videos (and hence why I am not naming any), but from the results I know, many of the point totals were clear like X - 14 pts, Y - 3 pts, Z - 2 pts. It's unfortunate that we had foreign guests who, IMO, are not experienced (or versed in the language) enough to be competant judges and also that the finalists and categories were not clearly communicated. I guess I will be specific in one thing, since it does anger me, but I *hear* this was the contest coordinator's fault since they were not there during final judging and thus the judges did not have adequate direction.

All in all, another ACen comes to a close and allw e can do is A) try and make it better (which I am confidence Julius will do) and B) make better videos.

I hope this clears things up slightly. As said earlier, the contest was not without it's fair share of problems, but regardless, we must all remember awards are fairly trivial and it was fun in itself seeing so many talented videos.

[dwchang]

Let me add to this with what I have been told occurred. Let me go into the details of the actual judging process. For ACen, it is two-fold and to be quite honest, I don't agree with it at all (For reasons explained below).

Funny how I say I'll explain and then don't

The reason I don't agree with this two-fold system is because, as you saw this year, the judges can completely disregard the recommendation and pick a video that well..to the creator's is not worthy of the award. I had mailed the coordinator throughout the year stating my displeausure in this method (since it *could* screw up the first wave of judging). The retort (which worked until recently) was that only once a video has been chosen that was not the recommendation (basically 40+ awards, 1 different). I might also add that this instance I actually agreed with the change. This year obviously changed things since 5 of 8 videos were chosen differently than the creator's and in essence our votes meant nothing and all our hard work ranking and narrowing them down also meant nothing.

As I said earlier, I have talked to Julius and he has told me possible ways they might change judging and I'd say they're on the right track. I won't go into further details since A) I'm not sure he wants me to share it and B) it's awhile out .

[Nappy]

Man, and I thought the clap-o-meter was flawed @_@ Are you saying that the winners were chosen by only 3 judges and 2 were japanese o_O ,glad my vid didn't rely too much on lyrics :P
Was their even a averaging between the pre-judges and the final judges? And why is there so much confusion on who the finalist/winners are @_@
and 2nd vids auto dropped boooo, course theres only 3 finalists so I can understand >:P