AWA 2010 - Pro downloads active; Expo 4 days left, August 20

[Pwolf]

I didn't watch them. They're clearly marked as H on the files, so they can be avoided. (people entering with content like that have to be prepared for people potentially not watching them *shrugs*)

TBH, this statement really just urks me. Are you saying that people who enter a Live Action video or people who enter a drama video should also be prepared for their videos not to be watched simply because others who entered the contest don't like that kind of content? Because despite this being about H content, that same argument can be used for any other kind of video that was entered in this contest. The mentality that you can just 'skip' a video purely based on it's content is not in any way fair to the creator who entered the video, or any other entrant in the contest. As a judge (and anyone who enters this contest is one) you are suppose to be unbiased and judge all videos based on their own merits, even if you don't like it. Isn't that the purpose of this contest? You enter with the mindset that your entry will be judged by a group of your peers. I remember seeing very similar comments about the H vids in previous years, and last year there wasn't even enough votes for the H vids for an award despite there being enough entries and Haunter's entry being more then good enough to deserve one. (my video was in the contest purely for shock value, his had a well thought out, edited, and funny story) Sure, maybe no one else thought the same way as I do, but perhaps too many people just skipped the H vids all together?

And to be more on topic with the H content in the contest. You have to sign a waver stating that you are old enough to view said content (or have permission to) when you enter. That to me is also your statement that you will watch said content. After all, if you are not going to watch that content, why do you need to sign such a form? People who enter this contest should know that kind of content is going to be there and be prepared to have to watch and judge it.

/me shrugs

Honestly, I think it's no different then going to a con and sitting at the amv contest to watch action, leave while the drama category is playing, then come back for comedy. People do that all the time. It's not necessarily fair for the editors but you can't blame them for not liking those type of videos. Signing the waver is simply a legal thing, IMO. It no way implies you are have to watch that content. It's just something to make sure AWA isn't liable if someone underage enters the contest and watches them. You can't force someone to watch something they don't feel comfortable watching, that in of itself will probably result in that video not getting a vote if said person watches it. As an editor you have to take that into consideration when submitting a video, I know i do when ever I submit a drama video to a con. I know that a lot of people aren't going to sit through the drama category or enjoy it if they do.

[SailorDeath]

Honestly, I think it's no different then going to a con and sitting at the amv contest to watch action, leave while the drama category is playing, then come back for comedy. People do that all the time. It's not necessarily fair for the editors but you can't blame them for not liking those type of videos. Signing the waver is simply a legal thing, IMO. It no way implies you are have to watch that content. It's just something to make sure AWA isn't liable if someone underage enters the contest and watches them. You can't force someone to watch something they don't feel comfortable watching, that in of itself will probably result in that video not getting a vote if said person watches it. As an editor you have to take that into consideration when submitting a video, I know i do when ever I submit a drama video to a con. I know that a lot of people aren't going to sit through the drama category or enjoy it if they do.

True, but many people are expecting to get a fair chance at winning something. There really is nothing to stop any of us from not watching video. But unlike what you say (where people can get up and leave for one category and then come back later) the other videos aren't labeled as to what kind of content they have. So I can't just skip all the drama and romance videos and watch everything else. I was a little surprised because this was the first year where the hentai submissions were labeled.

Edit:
The other thing I should note is that just because the video was labeled hentai doesn't meat it's pornographic. Video #56 used Perfect Blue which contains mature footage, but I wouldn't classify it as pornographic.

What'll probably be best is for Kholaras to just make an official ruling, Ye or Nay, on whether we're required to watch all the participants. This should clear up any debate on the issue really.

[BasharOfTheAges]

I guess it'd all boil down to whether or not by entering the contest you're agreeing to be a fair and impartial judge or not. If you are, you're watching and scoring everything and if you don't want to do that you shouldn't be entering. If not, there really isn't anything stopping you from up-voting your stuff and your friends stuff and down-voting everything else. In fact if there isn't an understanding of fairness and impartiality, i'd suggest you're encouraged to do just that.

[kholaras]

Every year I contemplate tacking on the suggestion, urging, or even desperate plea that ngsilver wroteup to encourage people to actually watch ALL of the content. This year especially so because by providing individual files to download I'm sure some people didn't even download them all. Watching all of the vids is not a new problem, but at least with the iso's or burnt discs you couldn't claim to not have them there in front of you. Now it is a conscious and premeditated decision to skip. I labeled the files this year (and they should rightly be more of a 'H'eavily prejudiced against being shown to a 17- crowd, or 'L'ightly vs explicitly hentai or language/violence) just to give some warning as to what ground you were trudging into. Having them interspersed across the discs was potentially more fair but there were complaints that you couldn't view the selections in mixed company without knowing, ahead of time, what you were coming up on.

We can make whatever policies and requirements regarding the contest but ultimately have no way to enforce it. We can't go to every house and make you watch every video. We have a hard enough time getting people to participate in the nomination and voting process.

This is YOUR contest folks. I'm just here to execute the mechanics of it all.

[Nya-chan Production]

Wait, "L" means Lightly inappropriate? Like... Ecchi? And things like Sleping with Hinako or vid #1 aren't in it and songs that say "fuck" are...

Oh wait, US convention...

[kholaras]

As I said, it's just a slightly alternative way of interpreting the L's and H's. As SailorDeath said, the Perfect Blue vid isn't hentai, but we can't show it to a general crowd (it'll have to go with the 18+ material). Stuff with L's are in the strong PG-13 type range for whatever reason, but this year it's mostly language (though this would also include violence usually). As stated, this was just a first pass classification, stuff is subject to go up or down depending on the judgement of folks higher up the totem pole that liable for any complaints that could be made.

[CodeZTM]

I didn't meant to start AWA Debate 2010.

[Nya-chan Production]

Okay, my ratings (with Dorry [bad mood version] to help out - comments made because of her are on newline and start with asterisk [*], wrote it all myself, though, unless I quote)

1 - Supposedly funny but misses the spot. This footage can be used better. Also pretty much falls apart after the intro. 1/5

2 - Great idea with great execution - didn't get boring at all for me, mainly because of great playing with details and never reusing scenes. Also the sync and lipsync was top-notch, if I had to guess the maker, I would say haunter103 :> 5/5
* - Maybe a little boring if you can't really get into such stuff.

3 - The starting effect and the one in the middle were unnecessary (and the latter one was poorly made as well!), the song had faster pacing than the editing and the whole video was kinda "Two people in love and a video... and?". If there was a story, it was badly told - I haven't seen the anime and the AMV was telling me nothing else than that the guy liked her and she was beautiful but nobody noticed. Have I heard this somewhere already? Still, I think both the anime and the song had greater potential. 2/5

4 - Beautiful short OA clip... the "censored" stuff in the end amused me, I admit. A little philosophic, maybe (Ceci n'est pas une pipe). For shortness 3/5
* - Yep, pretty much abstract.

5 - I curse you, "unknown editor". I wanted to edit this double song and now I won't get the idea of editing the latter half to RoE, which is what you're probably doing at the moment! If not, can I do it, please? Sincerely yours, Nya-chan Production. P.S.: It kicked ass, great work! 4/5
* - Sometimes too much fading, obviously and doesn't make much sense for anyone who hasn't seen EVA - just gives the feeling.

6 - As a wise person once said, "You have seen one DN video, you have seen all of them". With heavy spoilers. Good sync and editing isn't all - 2/5
* - Quoting: "Your everyday run-of-the-mill youtube video, only with better video quality"

7 - Cool intro and outro. Heavy spoilers. But as for the rest... it's so dead and without a story that one gets bored after 30 seconds, almost five minutes is overkill. 3D rendering might be better for you. 1/5

8 - Watched the original and this is better than the original, IMO. Still, more of an AMV Hell part. For good adaptation of the original I give 3/5

9 - Pretty nice combo, but the quality was reeeally low, even for Dragon Ball series footage (blended footage!). Also some of the lyrics autor just didn't know what to do with, pretty obviously. 3/5

10 - Pure moment of epic. Great song, great editing, great fit. 5/5

11 - Lots of unnecessary lipflap, bad quality, random scenes, missed opportunities to lyric sync... had some bright moments but this song had WAY better potential. Also wrong title. 1/5

12 - Another KnT vid, this way better, but still had two issues - one is completely accidental sync, misses the beats like... always. The second thing is too much relying on lyrics sync, especially in the end - you should provide us with a story, you did and then you did NOT closed it, just went for lyrics sync. Unless you wanted it left opened, in which case you did it fairly wrong, smile isn't a way to end a story as such. 3/5

13 - I beta'd this Nice effort, though I don't like this kind of songs in general. Probably too short scenes for someone who doesn't know the anime, but a good idea nevertheless ;x Sometimes a little confusing scene selection. 3.5/5

14 - ... izzat Disney? >< My prejudice aside, it was pretty cool, though the lipsync just kinda fell apart after the intro, so it became pretty stuttery. Still fairly nice, just not my cup of coffee. 3/5

15 - Oh my god, was that cheesy, missing 90% of beats and really weak. Try harder the next time... maybe Akagi. 0.5/5

16 - ... out of sync, lipflap, orphan frames. Cool song + "Cool" anime =/= cool AMV. Rather the opposite, at times. Oh, and WTF was it about? 0.5/5

17 - After cleaning my monitor for the third time I finally understood that it's some filter in the video. WHY? Take it away, please. Bonus points for beat sync, lyrics sync, effects, lipsync, story(?). Minus points for missing beat sync occasionally, not very clear story, cheesy effects (why were they there?), sub-par lipsync (also helps remembering that syncing guy to girl's voice looks weird), white flashes, etc. Has a space for improvement. Fortunately quite short. 1.5/5

18 - Uhhh... what? Where was the end? Also the start could've been more dynamic, the filtered foreground doesn't save it. For the mood 2/5

19 - Thereš's nothing good about this video. Nope, can't think of anything. It just doesn't work, whatever you aimed for. 0/5
* - The opening was good, went downhill from there.

20 - Very solid editing and lipsync. Unfortunately the concept of written text, lyrics sync and editing from openings in general didn't work for me. I know you can do better ;x 3/5
* - Actually funny in a way, dance mix.

21 - If we take away the weird filters in the start and the end it's pretty cool song. Lyrics sync (in a way), the beat sounding like a machine, solid editing, etc. So, pretty good job. 4/5

22 - Good idea but not enough scenes, so the sync lacked a lot at times. Should've waited for the next part (in a year?) or use different source. Bonus points for Queen. 3/5

23 - Cliché at its best. Haven't seen the movie, so it's kinda random for me at times, but still kinda nice, gives the nice/scary feeling. 3/5
* - Nice audio/video choice.

24 - Clever and provoking, though something was missing sometimes, can't really name it, but it just seemed... incomplete. 4.5/5

*to be updated later on*

[SailorDeath]

I didn't meant to start AWA Debate 2010.

Don't worry about it CodeZTM. Debates like this are commonplace in the amv community. Without these discussions then problems like this would never get addressed.

[godix]

Honestly, I think it's no different then going to a con and sitting at the amv contest to watch action, leave while the drama category is playing, then come back for comedy. People do that all the time.

And how many of those people are judges? In fact, the few cons with audience voted awards I know of specifically ONLY hand out ballots at the start and ONLY collect them at the end. If someone leaves early or arrives late, they don't get to vote because they haven't seen the whole thing.

It's like the Olympics, the viewers may go 'Ugh, free form parallel bar jerk off. Screw this...' and turn the channel. But you kinda expect the judges are sitting there watching the whole thing. If they don't, that's just not fair to the contestants. Besides, that's what they signed up for when they said they'd judge after all.

OTOH if Code (or anyone else who skipped the videos) doesn't vote for anything at all, then no problem. He's just a viewer and as you say, viewers skip shit all the time. When he entered he agreed to be a judge. He was warned ahead of time there may be hentai vids, and if he's familiar with past Pro contests then he would have known 'may...' actually means 'definitely will...' But what the hell, as long as he doesn't cast a single vote then it doesn't matter since there are 59 other judges who are willing to treat the entries fairly and watch the whole thing.

As a total side note and to repeat an important point mentioned already, H does not automatically mean porn. 56 (the Perfect Blue one) is marked H and clearly isn't just 'SEX! LOL!', although, the other H's are. The L's definitely shouldn't be dismissed and skipped as porn, I don't think any of them were marked because of sex.