Winnowing

Kai Stromler · Post by **Kai Stromler** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 12:11 pm

AbsoluteDestiny wrote:
Not to mention that the official Indoensian release, which is a Region 0 DVD and has english subtitles has been out since 2001 I think.

nifty....gonna have to see about ordering that.

--K

MCWagner · Post by **MCWagner** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 12:12 pm

Kai Stromler wrote:
Ideally, the idea of using unbugged source should get the same currency in the community that the idea of buying CDs to rip songs from has; perhaps honored more in the breach than in the observance, but current enough so that people know they shouldn't, even if and when they do.

This, I think, is fairer. My objection was mostly to the "should videos with the network logo be disqualified automatically" aspect. If it's a matter of narrowing down the field, OK, but if it's from an attitude of "we're not going to waste time watching this video if it's not up to a certain level of technical quality" I think that's a bit unfair.

AbsoluteDestiny · Post by **AbsoluteDestiny** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 12:23 pm

Admittedly when I posted at the start of this thread I was playing devils advocate a little.

It's true that we shouldnt be so high and mighty about the technical aspects of videos. These elements do not designate the entertainment quality of the video.

However, I do think it is up to a contest to decide whether or not they want prescreening to take technical issues into account as a measure of quality. If that is decided upon it should be specified - I'd have to qualms with a contest that took that approach. It's just a different way of judging quality, rightly or wrongly.

MCWagner · Post by **MCWagner** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 12:45 pm

Well...I'd have artistic qualms with a contest that disqualified on relatively minor technical flaws (as opposed to major qualms like "destroyed my VCR" or "has inaudible audio). Taking them into account is expected, especially if there will be a limited prescreening block. Disqualifying them automatically is less so.

That, however, is my opinion. It's perfectly fair if it's specified in the rules. It's their contest, they can conduct it however they like. Hell, we have to have rather stringent submission rules just so we don't spend six hours trying to get the file to play on our system.

Org Profile · Post by **Vlad G Pohnert** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 1:46 pm

MCWagner wrote:Well...I'd have artistic qualms with a contest that disqualified on relatively minor technical flaws (as opposed to major qualms like "destroyed my VCR" or "has inaudible audio). Taking them into account is expected, especially if there will be a limited prescreening block. Disqualifying them automatically is less so.

That, however, is my opinion. It's perfectly fair if it's specified in the rules. It's their contest, they can conduct it however they like. Hell, we have to have rather stringent submission rules just so we don't spend six hours trying to get the file to play on our system.

Personally, the two contest I'm running this year I try to encourage people to enter and not disqualify them on quality alone. I feel it's much harder to make a good video then to fix the quality of a video. That is something eveyone can learn and it's a shame to discourage people with real talent just becasue the may have not mastered ouputing better quality!

NOw, taking that into account, YES it has to be reasonably viewable. There really is not point to screeening a video at a contest where you can't see the great artistic qalities if you can't even make out the picture!

VLad

Cybermat · Post by **Cybermat** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 4:39 pm

MCWagner wrote:Taking them into account is expected, especially if there will be a limited prescreening block. Disqualifying them automatically is less so.

The reason I bring up the question is that, as the amv contest coordinator for Otakon (at least for the next few weeks), I'm drowning in music video submissions. Screening out the amvs with junk like TV/fansubber logos all over their footage would seem to be an effective way to screen out the most cheaply made amvs. We already DQ amvs with leftover subtitles randomly popping up all over the place, so it seems like basically the same thing from my point of view.

I'm not trying to assert that it's impossible for anybody to make a good amv out of low quality footage; I'm sure that a motivated person could manage it... but most motivated people would get good quality footage to begin with.

MCWagner · Post by **MCWagner** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 5:07 pm

You'll have to excuse me, as I've never been to Otakon (damn job), but I don't know the details of the system you use. IIRC, you have a pre-screening, and the audience votes on the winners, right? Well, you already have to prune the submissions way down in order to have a reasonable number to show in the prescreening, right? (Really, I don't know.)

Are they pruned for artistic or technical quality? Stuff with low tech quality is generally by newcomers, so they are usually lower on the artistic scale too. In order to evaluate the tech quality of the video, you have to watch it, right? So you could judge the artistic quality at the same time. It seems to me, from the 10,000 foot perpective, that, if pruning need be done, then doing it soley on the artistic scale would be fairer, and more helpful to creators.

Is the blanket DQing for specific (albiet rather glaring) tech flaws just a matter of convenience? I honestly don't know, I'm afraid. But if it is, it seems a slight disservice to the contestants. Their video may -play- alright (avoiding disasterous technical problems) and be artistically good, but they get DQed for not owning the DVDs.

Eh. MHO.

Cybermat · Post by **Cybermat** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 6:54 pm

MCWagner wrote:IIRC, you have a pre-screening, and the audience votes on the winners, right? Well, you already have to prune the submissions way down in order to have a reasonable number to show in the prescreening, right? (Really, I don't know.)

No problem. Here's how it goes:
0. We receive a bunch of AMVs from anime fans. After the deadline, we stop checking the mailbox for new submissions.
1. All the submissions that can be physically played are compiled onto tapes which are shown at the pre-convention amv screening sessions and evaluated.
2. After the prescreenings are done, the AMVs that were observed to not follow one or more of the rules of the contest get disqualified. "Not advancing to the finals" should not be confused with "being disqualified": being disqualified means that they flat-out don't get shown at the con (approximately 9% on average).
3. All the remaining AMVs are compiled onto another set of tapes which get shown at the con in the general amv screenings (in the past known as the "overflow"), whether they were chosen for the AMV Contest or not, or even whether people hated them or not.
4. The amvs with the highest evaluations also get shown in the AMV Contest & voted on by the members of the convention. The amv in each category with the highest number of votes wins the category.

MCWagner wrote:Are they pruned for artistic or technical quality? Stuff with low tech quality is generally by newcomers, so they are usually lower on the artistic scale too.

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by the word 'pruning' exactly... do you mean A) not allowing an AMV to advance to the finals, or B) not allowing an AMV to be considered for the contest at all?

Regarding evaluating Artistic vs. Technical merits, we're not that sophisticated... in pre-screenings we just ask people what they think of each video overall: +2, +1, 0, -1, -2. (Come to think of it, doing 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 would work just as well.) Evaluating separate components -- like technical flaws, editing proficiency, originality of concept, etc. -- takes longer and also raises issues of weighting each component in the calculation of the final (scalar) overall result.

Org Profile · Post by **VicBond007** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 8:03 pm

In addition to what Matt's said, the Otakon prescreening method is effective because it's designed around the final voting system. At Otakon, there are no judges, the audience is 100% in control of who wins what. The prescreening is open invitation, so in other words, that same audience that is in control at Otakon, determains what makes the final cut, so, in theory, the random sample of prescreeners "should" ideally pick out the videos that would be most enjoyable to the audience, since they themselves are just a general audience. The general audience doesn't sit there with a scorecard and rank the AMV in different categories, do some math, throw in a pythagorean theorum for fun (fanservice^2+LensFlares^2=enjoyment^2) and come up with a winner. If they like the video, it gets "high marks", if it hurts to watch, it gets low marks, just like in the prescreening system.

However, quite a few videos this year hurt to watch and take extra time to compile, so I guess what we're really looking for is something that a general audience finds distateful so we can eliminate those videos from the contest screening ahead of time.

Or maybe I'm just wrong. ^_^()

dokool · Post by **dokool** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 8:38 pm

VicBond007 wrote:The prescreening is open invitation, so in other words, that same audience that is in control at Otakon, determains what makes the final cut, so, in theory, the random sample of prescreeners "should" ideally pick out the videos that would be most enjoyable to the audience, since they themselves are just a general audience.

I wouldn't call the prescreenings completely open. Sure, at KoP there were a few people from SOS, and I'm sure the NYC and UMCP screenings had people from the Terrapin Anime Club or whatever they call it, but for the most part, it was the editors who came out.

VicBond007 wrote: However, quite a few videos this year hurt to watch and take extra time to compile, so I guess what we're really looking for is something that a general audience finds distateful so we can eliminate those videos from the contest screening ahead of time.

I do agree with this, and I think waiting to make non-technical (i.e. NOT "the video is frozen") DQs until prescreenings is the fairest option. That way, there can be no complaints of fascism on the part of the contest coordinators. If a reasonably-sized group of anime fans agrees that the video should be DQed, then it's most likely a fair decision. The same goes in general for which videos make it and which don't.

IMHO, whether or not the video itself is good doesn't override technical issues. The syncs may be great, but they're lessened if I get distracted by pixels and macroblocking. As Vic said, some of the videos really were physically painful to watch. However, unless they had dirty words in the lyrics or had fansubs, they'll probably get shown in the general screenings, which is more than fair. Any editor who wants to compete will take the extra step to insure quality. I'm guessing most of the people who sent in pixellated entries would be happy to just get a general screening, and they should be given that. However, whether or not they should be allowed to compete is another story.

-DOKool