Obligatory, annual, elitist AWA 2016 Pro AMV review!

[SailorDeath]

[Rider4Z]

HOKAY LET'S TRY THIS AGAIN. Reviews below (all of them this time, pretty sure). Gave each a score out of 10. Enjoy?

[Shin-AMV]

[irriadin]

I didn't make a video this year, but I have to say this:

Some of you need to show more respect and decency to your fellow creators (editors, AMVers, whatever). It's easy to throw down a huge manifesto (or small but concentrated takedown) of how much each video sucks and maybe affix a meaningless rating to it.

That is not constructive, it is not funny, it does not make you a 'tough critic', it is just mean.

[VivifxAMV]

I didn't make a video this year, but I have to say this:

Some of you need to show more respect and decency to your fellow creators (editors, AMVers, whatever). It's easy to throw down a huge manifesto (or small but concentrated takedown) of how much each video sucks and maybe affix a meaningless rating to it.

That is not constructive, it is not funny, it does not make you a 'tough critic', it is just mean.

This. I didn't participate this year either, although I did waffle for a long time about making a video.

But seeing the way that these pro reviews pan out again this year, honestly I'm glad I did not put forth any of my time or effort to participate in this. Every year I feel like pro just brings out the most toxic and salty aspects of this community. And that is absolutely devastating because I know how cool, inspiring and driving this community can be.

This competition should not be about tearing your fellow creators down and making them feel like they never want to edit again. It should not be about figuring out who made what video and then only supporting your favorites and belittling others. It should be about providing constructive criticism to help other editors grow and learn. It should be about sharing feedback in a positive way so that the winners chosen are truly the best videos, and those who lose walk away with the tools to make better videos.

The fact that I have heard from multiple editors at this point that they personally feel like they don't want to make AMVs, or were emotionally hurt by some of the 'reviews' in this contest should be telling, because even though I have been AMV AWOL for the last year, I STILL caught wind of this.

If you want to be an asshole that's your prerogative. But don't bundle your pettiness in with some half-assed advice and call it "a review."

[Xophilarus]

I feel like in general there just needs to be some big discussions about a lot of things after this year. Pro has the potential to be one of the most amazing, and great feeling contests out there. Some of my fondest memories involve Pro, but some of my worst do as well. It just is good at really highlighting both extremes, good and bad, which, we need to change so that it is much easier to just see the amazing things about pro. There just seems to be a lot of little issues in a lot of places that has exploded this year. I'm really hoping people can chill a bit, and then after the con, come together for some healthy discussions to figure out the best plan moving forward, and ways to make Pro better all around

[Rider4Z]

If people are looking for constructive feedback why are they looking in a thread titled

OBLIGATORY, ANNUAL, ELITIST REVIEW

This is not a serious place to acquire feedback. It says so right in the title and in the rules on the first post. RULE #4

Don't take the reviews seriously, the person who reviewed the video is probably trolling (like me!)

If you find our jibberjabber dumb that's fine, but at least we're public about it.

It may be an age thing, but we enjoy the callous banter trying to one up each other. If someone doesn't appreciate it that's perfectly fine, but our opinions are nothing to quit making AMVs over. They aren't serious and they aren't personal. Giving a thorough constructive review on ONE video, let alone 100, takes a lot of time and some of us just have too much shit going on outside of AMVs to put forth all that effort into something that may or may not even be read. However I guarantee you any one of us would be happy to give constructive non-sugar coated useful feedback if asked for.


If people want serious constructive feedback why hasn't anyone started a thread titled Serious and Constructive AWA 2016 Pro Feedback Anyone is perfectly capable of this and ignoring this thread entirely if they feel we play too rough.

[CrackTheSky]

I'm just going to give a response here because I have a feeling that irriadin's and Vivifx's posts were aimed at least partly in my direction.

Pro holds a special place in my heart. It was, I believe, the first contest I ever entered, and I love the idea behind it -- blind and peer-judged. To my knowledge it's the only large-scale contest of its kind, and I enjoy participating in it each year for that reason. From a personal standpoint, I tend to edit videos for myself and for my editor peers. I enjoy submitting my videos to the usual types of contests, but submitting to Pro is always something special because I know the people judging my work are the people who understand editing, and can hopefully see the work and thought I put into my videos. With other contests, one of the factors that goes into choosing the videos that will get shown is almost always, "Will the audience enjoy this?" I don't always edit videos that would work with a con audience, but might still be a quote-unquote good video. Pro gives me a chance to have my work recognized in a context that it might not be otherwise. That's not to belittle the judgment of a con audience or trivialize their feelings about the videos they like, but they don't tend to view and analyze AMVs the way an editor would. That's what drives me to enter Pro each year -- knowing that my work is being judged by people who love AMVs in the same kinds of ways I do.

All this is to say that I have always loved and supported this contest for as long as I've been active in the community, so I take it personally when I feel like the quality of videos being entered is less than it should be (which admittedly is a subjective thing). I was especially peeved this year because I saw threads on Facebook with people complaining about what they perceived to be a lack of quality in this year's contest, and in the same post or one immediately following would admit that they just threw something together so they could be in the contest. This is not okay in my book -- and so when I see a ton of videos that are clearly low-effort, it rubs me the wrong way. I don't know who made what so I can't claim that every "low-effort" video (from my perspective) was made "just to enter Pro", but it doesn't change the fact that there were plenty of obviously troll videos, and plenty more that were clearly not up to snuff with just basic editing techniques and common-sense things (such as using scenes with credits -- I'm sorry, but that would have been DQ'd from literally any other contest).

As such, I had a strongly negative reaction to plenty of videos in this contest -- very strong in some cases. Almost without exception these were the videos that I felt were either troll videos or were reducing the integrity of the contest by showing little to no creative effort or had enough glaring editing flaws that I couldn't in good conscience call them Pro-worthy.

In my feedback for those videos I didn't care for, I tried to provide succinct reasons that I didn't like the video. In the case of troll videos, the editor didn't care enough to really try to make a worthy entry, so I didn't bother to provide them with any kind of in-depth feedback. Those editors probably weren't looking for or expecting any anyway. Given that I don't have the time or patience to go through and do a breakdown of each and every video entered in the contest, most of my feedback is to-the-point, and in some cases, yeah, probably can come across as harsh. I don't want to discount the emotional element in my reaction to these videos because I think it's pertinent, especially in the context of this contest and the considerations mentioned above; other people may not care, so if I reacted harshly to your video, just ignore any emotional component you might sense (easier said than done, I know). There are a lot of reasons for that, none of which are personal to you specifically.

Finally, I attached numbers to my reviews because that's the way I review everything, AMV or otherwise. It helps me to keep tabs on which videos are worth remembering when it comes to voting. I didn't have to attach them in my public reviews but I did because, I don't know, some people might find that interesting. The number and my comments are closely related, so it's not like leaving it out would change anything. Plus it's what I've done the past three years at least, and I think the Pro contests I entered before then as well.

For funsies, I ran the average score for all the videos I reviewed -- came out to 4.83 (admittedly slightly lower than I thought). 4.83/10 is still right there in the middle of the bell curve. 5/10 is average. A 5/10 video is something that I feel is probably pretty fine, but didn't do anything for me personally. That's where the review portion comes in, because I do want to provide some feedback so you know why I rated you what I did.

Also, if after the contest is done, anyone wants to send me a PM asking me to be more specific in my thoughts for your video, I'd be happy to give thorough and detailed feedback, without the attached emotional baggage. I couldn't do that here due to severe lack of time, I'm sorry, but I wouldn't mind doing it in a 1-on-1 basis.

Ok that was way longer than I expected, sorry for the rant. In the end, it doesn't even matter though, right?

[irriadin]

If people are looking for constructive feedback why are they looking in a thread titled

OBLIGATORY, ANNUAL, ELITIST REVIEW

This is not a serious place to acquire feedback. It says so right in the title and in the rules on the first post. RULE #4

Don't take the reviews seriously, the person who reviewed the video is probably trolling (like me!)

If you find our jibberjabber dumb that's fine, but at least we're public about it.

It may be an age thing, but we enjoy the callous banter trying to one up each other. If someone doesn't appreciate it that's perfectly fine, but our opinions are nothing to quit making AMVs over. They aren't serious and they aren't personal. Giving a thorough constructive review on ONE video, let alone 100, takes a lot of time and some of us just have too much shit going on outside of AMVs to put forth all that effort into something that may or may not even be read. However I guarantee you any one of us would be happy to give constructive non-sugar coated useful feedback if asked for.


If people want serious constructive feedback why hasn't anyone started a thread titled Serious and Constructive AWA 2016 Pro Feedback Anyone is perfectly capable of this and ignoring this thread entirely if they feel we play too rough.

Constructive feedback should be a given in any form of serious criticism. Are all the reviews in here serious? Probably not, but some of the reviews veered towards overt or outright meanness. There's no equivocating it. And regardless of the intent of the first post and thread title, MANY people were very offended by the reviews posted in this thread. So much so that I heard about it, and I have been out of the AMV scene for nearly a year. I've spoken with more than a few editors who are despondent and considering not making videos for pro anymore. What should we tell them, not to take the reviews in here so seriously? "Sorry your feelings got crushed, don't take the reviews so seriously!"

You're speaking for yourself on this matter, and it's fine if you can "take the heat" as it were, but you can't govern the feelings of others and some of the opinions expressed in here ARE hurtful. "Playing rough" should not be an excuse for toxic behavior. The presentation here is too straight to be interpreted at anything other than face value, and I still question the value of shitting on others videos as a form of entertainment. Maybe if it were your OWN video that you destroyed, it would be clear that it was all in good fun.

This hobby is supposed to be fun and give others the tools to improve themselves, but this thread is more about seeing who is the king of shit-slinging mountain.

[Rider4Z]

Constructive feedback should be a given in any form of serious criticism. Are all the reviews in here serious? Probably not, but some of the reviews veered towards overt or outright meanness. There's no equivocating it. And regardless of the intent of the first post and thread title, MANY people were very offended by the reviews posted in this thread. So much so that I heard about it, and I have been out of the AMV scene for nearly a year. I've spoken with more than a few editors who are despondent and considering not making videos for pro anymore. What should we tell them, not to take the reviews in here so seriously? "Sorry your feelings got crushed, don't take the reviews so seriously!"

You're speaking for yourself on this matter, and it's fine if you can "take the heat" as it were, but you can't govern the feelings of others and some of the opinions expressed in here ARE hurtful. "Playing rough" should not be an excuse for toxic behavior. The presentation here is too straight to be interpreted at anything other than face value, and I still question the value of shitting on others videos as a form of entertainment. Maybe if it were your OWN video that you destroyed, it would be clear that it was all in good fun.

This hobby is supposed to be fun and give others the tools to improve themselves, but this thread is more about seeing who is the king of shit-slinging mountain.

I get what you're saying and I hear you, believe me. It is not any of our intentions to punch babies in the face (that's just an analogy).

What I'm trying to say is this thread is like an "R" rated movie.

We like it that way and don't want it to change. If you come in expecting Captain America you're gonna have your ass handed to you and then we hear about it later.

However I'm open to stronger disclaimers so people know to go see Captain America instead of Deadpool if they can't deal. And anyone who knows me knows I'm team Cap so it is not a judgment on you if you would rather keep it PG-13.

Seriously, make 2 separate threads. I'm game. I'll go see both~


EDIT: Well said, CracktheSky.