A-Kon Video Contests and Events 2007

Elgebar · Post by **Elgebar** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 5:21 pm

Hello everyone. We are back again in 2007 with a number of additions and changes to the AMV/Fanworks contests and events. We have taken the best things out of last year forward and are continuing to develop the events based on the feedback we have been receiving from the community.

Below you can find a summary of all of the offered events this year. Here are a list of the major rules revisions:

Event Name & Category Changes - We have spent some time reviewing the feedback given last year and we have decided to refine the event names and the categories offered in each event. Please see each event listing below for the changes.

MRS or Minimum Required Score - In order to manage the contest length and quality we have implemented something we are calling the MRS system (I know...not very orginal). This system will help us pre-qualify videos that will be shown at the convention. The system is based on the cumulative scores awarded by all judges. The MRS value is posted on each rules page relative to the maximum score available. In additon, we have written a website tool that will allow you to tell whether or not your submission has met the required MRS value and how many judges have completed scoring your submission. This information updates in real time.

Along with the revised contest rules, we are also adding new features and functionality to the website.

Here is a list of new enhancements:

Profile Management Tools - We have created a login and profle system for the website re-launch in 2007 which will enable creators to register on the site and maintain a static profile from year to year. In the profile options you will be able to specify optional information such as creator aliases, group/studio name, private contact information and proxy award recipients.

Submission Management Tools - In addition to providing tools to enter submissions, we have developed a dynamic toolset to allow you to manage your submissions online as well. This will include the ability for you to edit your submission information, confirm your video upload status, add external links to where your videos are hosted, and delete or withdraw your entries. (Entries which are withdrawn will remain part of the master listing posted publically at the end of the event)

Increased status information - We have chaged the status notations to more accurately reflect the submission process.

Real-time MRS display - With the addition of the MRS system we have included tools which will allow each creator to see if his/her submissions have met the MRS value required to be shown at the contest as well as how many judges have completed the scoring process for each submission.

Proxy award acceptance options - We have now added the ability for creators who cannot make the convention to specify a Proxy Recipient in their editable profile who may obtain awards on their behalf.

Viewable judges commentary - This was a big one for us. We have now included a tool to allow the judges to post commentary to the creators as part of the scoring process. Each judge will now have the option to share his comments and feedback with the creators. To protect the privacy of our judges each judge must chose whether or not he/she wishes to post anonymously to the creator.

General Information:

Event Rules and Submission Management Tools: http://vse.a-kon.com

The submission deadline for all events is: Sunday, April 15th, 2007.

Event Listing:

We are excited to offer the following events for you to participate in:

Judged Events

Fans' Exhibition

This event is our standard music video contest and is open to all fans who wish to contribute a submission.

The following categories that will be available for this event will be:

Comedy/Fun
Action/Horror
Drama/Romance

Experts' Exhibition

This event is an adaptation on the standard music video contests designed to cater to professional and elite music video creators. Fans who wish to contribute to this event must meet a set of qualifying requirements.

The following categories that will be available for this event will be:

Comedy/Fun
Action/Horror
Drama/Romance

Hentai Exhibition

This event is for fans over the age of 18 who wish to create music videos with extremely adult themes. It will be aired at the beginning of the traditional “H”-fest and all creators and viewers must be at least 18 years of age and will be required to provide a picture ID with proof of age to gain access to the event.

There are no categories for this event.

Fanworks Contest

This event is aimed at fans who wish to create a fanwork that is not considered an anime music video such as short films, parodies, mock trailers, or music videos that contain FMV (full motion video) or video game content.

The following categories that will be available for this event will be:

Short Film
Parody Work
FMV/VG Music Video

Showcase Events (Non-judged)

Fans' Showcase

This event is an open forum where video creators who want to share their videos with the convention may do so outside of a competitive environment.

The following categories that will be available for this event will be:

Comedy/Fun
Action/Horror
Drama/Romance
Fanwork Content

rubyeye · Post by **rubyeye** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 3:27 pm

As with last year, I will be helping to coordinate/refine these rules & events so if you have any questions or concerns you can direct them to Elgebar or myself.

Let's make it a great year folks!

JaddziaDax · Post by **JaddziaDax** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 4:25 pm

YAY i can join experts contest this year XD

jubjub2 · Post by **jubjub2** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:08 pm

I'm looking forward to being there again this year!

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 12:19 am

You sure go all out on your website for this.

I'll be sure to send something in.

Elgebar · Post by **Elgebar** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 1:10 pm

YAY i can join experts contest this year XD

Yes, and you better. We really enjoyed your work last year and want to see more from you.

You sure go all out on your website for this.

Lol! It's all for you guys. We're actually changing a number of things with our processing a playback as well. As I promised last year, I managed to scrape up a budget for moving the contest to direct computer playback which means...NO MORE ENCODING AND PLAYBACK ISSUES!

While this is very cool for the creators, it's equally as cool for my staff and I. It also allows us to make immediate assesments of the playback quality. One of the features I would like to incorporate next year is a playback quality indicator on the status page though I haven't come up with a good way to represent this yet. Any thoughts?

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 2:23 pm

Like "video quality"? Or "if the video played as it was intended to"?

JaddziaDax · Post by **JaddziaDax** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 2:34 pm

they had video playback problems last year on just about all the videos (i think Willen's was the only one that didnt have any problems)..

on the fade transitions for some reason they wouldnt fade from one scene to another but strobe between the two scenes O.o

I'm glad to see that youre working on fixing stuff up for this year XD

Shinodude · Post by **Shinodude** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 7:45 pm

im gona enter I think......

Elgebar · Post by **Elgebar** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 12:04 pm

BasharOfTheAges wrote:Like "video quality"? Or "if the video played as it was intended to"?

In essence, both. One of the things that it is hard for everyone to realize is that videos look very different when expanded to fit the big screen. In reality, most of the Experts' and experienced Fans' submissions are not an issue due to the fact that most of those individuals who submit use higher quality equipment and source footage. However, there are a number of creators who use pre-encoded, compressed source footage which looks great on a standard computer monitor, but tends to look poor when bloated to fit the big screen.

Since we no longer need to re-encode the videos, I now have the time to test each video playback on a large screen and provide feedback to each creator on how their video appears. In general the most common traits we see are blurry lines, high pixelization rate, and poor transitions due to low frame rates. On smaller computer monitors, these issues are less apparent then when a video is blown up to 100x its original size. Moving to direct digital playback will help allieviate most of our major issues, but I was wondering if any of you thought it might be helpful if we provided a simple rating system based on the videos quality on large screen playback.

In truth, this may end up being a moot subject, and it is not our intent to exclude videos based on this rating system. Our intent here is to give creators enough feedback to chose the option of re-encoding or re-mastering their submission before the convention so that they get the best viewing experience possible.

Perhaps this is just a bit too much effort on our part, but I am open to ideas and suggestions on whether or not this would be desired information or feedback.

As always, thanks.

-Elge