Otakon Site Updated (AMV Contest Rules Posted)

[hackerzc]

Hey everyone! I'm pleased to announce that the Otakon website has finally begun to roll out updates for 2007, and along with it the rules for the AMV contest.

The complete AMV Contest Rules and Submission Form can be viewed on Otakon's website at the following address: http://www.otakon.com/events_amv.asp

I look forward to receiving your AMV entries, and good luck to everyone!

[Scintilla]

No VHS or Beta submissions allowed this year?

01-F. Musical Parody/AMV-Hell: (Lampoon, Spoof, Mock, Off The Wall). TV ad theme music set to anime. AMV-Hell Style videos. Remake of a shows opening using a different series. Unconventional Comedy Typically using multiple songs, or non-conventional audio sources (ie: a TV commercial, or movie trailer). Different from "Fan Parodies" due to their heavy use of music as opposed to dialog.

Am I reading this right? You're lumping parody videos into the same category as "A Song For Everyone"-style videos?

Otakon will no longer be conducting public pre-screenings as done in the past.

Finalists for the Otakon AMV Contest are selected by the Contest Coordinator(s) based on evaluations made of every entry by a select panel of "Judges" who have been selected for their past experience with anime music videos. The job of the panel is to review and rate all entries received, and identify those who do not meet contest rule standards.

Wait, WHAT?

Does this mean no by-invitation-only prescreenings either?

[hackerzc]

No VHS or Beta submissions allowed this year?

VHS has not been accepted for several years now, and as far as I am aware beta has never been.
In fact in the past three or four years of the contest, if I remember correctly, there has only ever been one entry that wasn't submitted via optical disc or ftp, and that was on Mini DV. (tape submissions have been fairly non existent)

Am I reading this right? You're lumping parody videos into the same category as "A Song For Everyone"-style videos?

I believe you are misunderstanding the meaning of the category as it pertains to the contest.
First, you have to understand that when we say "Musical Parody" we do not mean a "parody video". At least not in the same sense as what would be shown at fan parody programming at the convention.
A prime example of the type of video that would be in this new category is "Rock Lee: Mentos Spokesperson" by Dave Mckeed. In this example you have an AMV that uses the audio of a commercial to parody the original advertisement. It is not the same as say, doing a video with DBZ to the audio of some Tampon commercial with a bunch of hard dialog (hard dialog meaning unsung spoken word without music and such).
Both are parodies, both are funny, but only the Mentos video fits the requirements for the contest. Anyone submitting a strict parody video to the contest will promptly receive a message saying that their entry can not be used in the AMV contest, and that it has been forwarded to the Fan Parody department.
The reference to TV commercial, or movie trailers in the description are simply examples of where such audio sources would come from.

"A Song For Everyone", is actually quite different from AMV-Hell style videos (as far as AMV contests go). "A Song For Everyone" is very ambiguous compared to your typical AMV. There are so many different moods/Themes in the video that honestly it could be placed anywhere (moments of action, moments of comedy, moments of seriousness/drama, romance, etc). AMV-Hell style videos (again as far as AMV contests are concerned) typically use comedy as their overall theme (especially in the case of Otakon, where we have had a number of such entries the past couple years).

The overall theme here is comedy. In fact all we really did was take comedy and split it into two sub-categories as there was an issue with certain types of videos "out classing" other videos. Much in the way Romantic and Dramatic videos split from the same category, or Action and Upbeat.
We simply took the AMV-Hell style comedy entries, and gave them their own category. However the AMV-Hell vids were kinda alone out there so we included other videos which we thought shared somewhat similar properties.

I know it all seems strange. It's something new we are trying in order to address the whole "videos being outclassed by other videos" issue within comedy. The other alternative that was in the works was to disallow AMV-Hell type comedy entries all together there by eliminating a bulk of the class difference. Personally I think the new category idea is the better option as it expands the range of AMV contest (nearly crossing the line into fan parody country), while allowing more creators to be recognized for their good work. Like anything new though, it's likely going to have bugs that need to be worked out, but you need to start someplace.

Wait, WHAT?
Does this mean no by-invitation-only prescreenings either?

Several months ago (on various forums and mailing lists) the question was posed as to whether people would prefer going to prescreenings and having an early deadline, or no prescreenings and a much later (read: closer to con) deadline.
In the end the majority opted for a later deadline.

The main reasons for the deadline typically being 2-3 months before the convention is 1) Printing deadline for the ballots (the FINAL date for this tends to be around 3-4 weeks before the con), and 2) Post deadline/pre-con work (creating slates, reviewing AMV's, putting the contest together). #1 can not be avoided... the date is when it is and can't be changed. #2 can be "bent". Doing slates, tapes, putting things together all can usually be done fairly quickly. The prescreenings however are a big time hog. We are talking multiple locations, multiple dates... then there are the results of the prescreenings that have to be processed. I can't remember what the exact figures were for last year (which was small compared to previous years), but we had about 50 reviewers, each voting on 80 or so videos on a scale of 1-5. That's several THOUSAND votes that you have to go through vote by vote, video by video, page by page, person by person. And it HAS to be accurate.
Between the prescreenings and processing of the results you are looking at a good month to a month and a half of work that is unavoidable.
On the other hand, there is the option of conducting one small review session with a handful of experienced people over a single weekend. This dramatically cuts the time needed for reviewing and processing of those reviews from a month/month and a half, to 3 or 4 days. That lets you have the deadline later, allowing more creators time to work on and finish their entries before the deadline (which has been a major complaint).
The trade off is that the reviewer pool isn't as large as it once was, so since space is now limited you have to consider who will be doing the reviewing. That is where the panel of judges comes in. They will review, rate, and act as quality assurance for the contest just as the reviewers in years prior.

The short and simple is no "by-invite-only" prescreenings. That is unless you happen to be invited to participate as a reviewer.


Anyway I hope I addressed everything in a way that makes sense (I've been awake almost 25 hours now, so I'm a bit out of it). If there are any other questions just ask.

[Adv1sor]

All submissions must be RECEIVED by 11:59pm (Eastern Standard Time/GMT-5:00) on Friday June 1st, 2007. *PLEASE NOTE: There will be NO extensions made for the deadline. All dates are final.* Otakorp, Inc. nor convention/contest staff is responsible for items that are delayed, damaged, lost, or otherwise adversely affected in the mail.

No way! That's way too soon! What with summer and other cons and whatever!

Just kidding I just wanted to be first to say it.

Looking forward to another great show!

[MousePotato]

request deadline extension.

/sign