Otakon AMV Master's Invitational

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 9:22 pm

I've thought about it and I'd like to voice my own opinions.

I'm not sure the motivation behind such a move, but I imagine it's to distuigish Otakon's contest(s) from other cons and to a degree to reward the creators. I (as well as others I'm sure) recognize this and I for one appreciate the fact that you're thinking up new thoughts and trying to please the creators. That's very thoughtful of you. I mean a new contest sure seems pretty nice right? More prizes? More videos? and so on.

At the same time, I've read over the responses and a lot of good points have been made and I'll try not to repeat them too much. Anyway, other than the most obvious gripe about "elitism" which comes with the group of "invite-only," (which has been covered heavily) my second main concern is with the quality of the "regular contest." I know Ian covered it, but I'd like to voice my personal experiences to somewhat help.

I'll be honest in saying that Otakon 2003's contest was easily one of the (if not the) most impressive AMV contests I have ever had the pleasure of participating in/seeing in both the way it was handled and the competition itself. It was handled marvelously all the way from the submission, pre-judging and showing. I know I wasn't the only one sitting at the contest going "Wow!" to nearly every video. The strength of the competition was quite high and the videos equally high in quality. IIRC some category winners only won by < 10 votes!

All of this can all be easily attributed to A) Otakon's reputation for doing things "right" which in turn leads to B) a lot of creators submitting. IIRC ~180 entries were submitted with just under 30 making it into the contest. I don't mean to imply some sort of arrogance here, but I for one was quite proud to have gotten into the contest which such stiff competition and sheer # of entries. I was told it was "a big deal" and somewhat scoffed at it, but after seeing the contest itself, I now believe it. It was a great contest with great videos.

That leads me to my point. By segregating editors into two seperate contests, the "normal" contest will suffer greatly and as stupid as it sounds, lose prestige. I'm going to guess that some of the motivation behind creating another contest is for the benefit of having such a highly regarded contest and the same prestige to the winners. I can understand that, but at the same time....you already have it

. Ask any of us on here

.

Basically if one of the reasons behind this is to have a highly regarded contest, please don't. You already have it. I mean the fact many editors even create a unique entry *just for* Otakon should tell you that much. Hell, I'm planning on one as well. By creating *another* contest, you will lose that magic you currently have. Not to mention all the other negative things which create rifts within our community.

I realize this is not your intent, but please keep all these things in mind and again I appreciate your efforts to try and make things better for both the audience and creators. Hopefully we can all discuss this and figure it all out.

outlawed · Post by **outlawed** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 9:46 pm

I will keep this fairly short.

My advice:
Keep the same plan but scratch the invite only. Make it so those people who have won an Otakon category before MUST submit into the new contest (let's call it advanced) for that category and CAN NOT submit for that category into the regular contest (let's call it beginner). This will give people who have won before stiffer competition and allow new submitters or past non-winners a better chance to win a category. Also it will allow you to present the high quality 2nd contest (i.e. best of the best) for your audience which is what I gather you made this 2nd contest for.

On the posted contest concept:
Whether the current system announced breeds elitism is unknown until it actually takes place. Only then would be know if the selected individuals take and elitist attitude. What it may lead to before it occurs is a lot of bitter feelings of those not selected against those who were. In other words those snubbed will be the ones upset.

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:07 pm

trythil wrote:Assuming that the rules for selection will be made available and unambiguous in time, I'm not sure what makes this different from, say, AWA Masters.

If I read the AWA Masters rules correctly, you didn't have to be <i>invited</i> to that one as long as one of your videos had won an award... right?

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:23 pm

Scintilla wrote:
trythil wrote:Assuming that the rules for selection will be made available and unambiguous in time, I'm not sure what makes this different from, say, AWA Masters.
If I read the AWA Masters rules correctly, you didn't have to be <i>invited</i> to that one as long as one of your videos had won an award... right?

Yeah AWA's only criteria is that you've won an award in the past. It's a bit more selective, but a lot less than "invite only."

TnAdct1 · Post by **TnAdct1** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:36 pm

outlawed wrote:I will keep this fairly short.

My advice:
Keep the same plan but scratch the invite only. Make it so those people who have won an Otakon category before MUST submit into the new contest (let's call it advanced) for that category and CAN NOT submit for that category into the regular contest (let's call it beginner). This will give people who have won before stiffer competition and allow new submitters or past non-winners a better chance to win a category. Also it will allow you to present the high quality 2nd contest (i.e. best of the best) for your audience which is what I gather you made this 2nd contest for.

One thing to add here (if the Masters contest does take place at Otakon 2005): have first runner-ups also be eligible as well. If memory serves me right, there's currently 22 people or groups that have won the Otakon AMV contest, and of those 22, some of them have retired from the AMV creation business, which means there's less people who will be eligible for the Masters. Also, with the first runner-ups being in the Masters, this would mean more of the experts of AMV's (i.e. VicBond007 Productions, Aluminum Studios) will be involved in that part of the AMV contest as well.

Joe Klemm

jbone · Post by **jbone** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:43 pm

TnAdct1 wrote:
outlawed wrote:I will keep this fairly short.

My advice:
Keep the same plan but scratch the invite only. Make it so those people who have won an Otakon category before MUST submit into the new contest (let's call it advanced) for that category and CAN NOT submit for that category into the regular contest (let's call it beginner). This will give people who have won before stiffer competition and allow new submitters or past non-winners a better chance to win a category. Also it will allow you to present the high quality 2nd contest (i.e. best of the best) for your audience which is what I gather you made this 2nd contest for.
One thing to add here (if the Masters contest does take place at Otakon 2005): have first runner-ups also be eligible as well. If memory serves me right, there's currently 22 people or groups that have won the Otakon AMV contest, and of those 22, some of them have retired from the AMV creation business, which means there's less people who will be eligible for the Masters. Also, with the first runner-ups being in the Masters, this would mean more of the experts of AMV's (i.e. VicBond007 Productions, Aluminum Studios) will be involved in that part of the AMV contest as well.

Joe Klemm

If you include runners-up as well, remove te mandatory "MUST enter Masters." Not every "runner-up" entrant is worthy of being a Master - cruel as this may sound, some people make finals because the other entries _JUST_ _SUCKED_ _EVEN_ MORE._

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:46 pm

jbone wrote:cruel as this may sound, some people

<---

jbone wrote:make finals because the other entries _JUST_ _SUCKED_ _EVEN_ MORE._

mckeed · Post by **mckeed** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:36 pm

hmmm.....i agree with most of the things being said against the contest. Its a bad idea. I think animeboston has got the right idea with the tiered approach. As other people have commented, If anything i would make it previous Otakon winners. Picking people for an invitational contest is bad. If there were a system lets say that was clearly written out and explained how entires are eligible then that is one thing. Oppinions of a person are very biased and are bound to cause problems with other people crying "no-fair." Since there is now way to watch every video that every creator has made there is no possible way for you to make a good judgement on eligibility.

Org Profile · Post by **Vlad G Pohnert** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 12:10 am

Well, A lot of my thoughts have been mentioned already.

I feel that Otakon has one of the best contests in terms of audiance and diversity than most cons. The contest has pretty much been fan votes only which is something I not all that supportive in terms of determining all the winners. Personally, I feel a more concentrated effort should be made to exand this contest and possible add more judging and catagories into it.

Also, I'm not really clear here on what is trying to be acheaved by having such a contest by invite only? Why does it have better prizes? Why by invite only? Is it to have a better selection of videos in the contest? If that is the case it dosn't really make sence to me since the existing contest pretty much already has the better videos as the finalists since so many creators send into it, and I don't see getting better ones by doing this...

Vlad

dokidoki · Post by **dokidoki** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 12:47 am

BogoSort wrote:Are they going to be forced into the category that they won in taking one of the possibilities in #1, or do they get free reign? How are you going to deal if they become unbalanced?

*grabs machine gun*
*starts mowing down people GTA-style*
*BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA!!!*

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

oh... wait... You meant if the categories become unbalanced?

Never mind."