How would you define a worst contest? Are you comparing AX AMV to other AMV contests at other cons? What are your parameters for what makes a contest good or bad? How would you compare AMV at Anime Expo which is typically a limited contest to say AWA which is gargantuan? Is a contest good based on how well it was run by the staff or bad based on what your subjective opinion of the videos that made finalist were? If this was the worst contest you've ever seen how would you rank Anime Expo 2006 when two finalists in comedy used the exact same audio or one finalist in drama had skippy audio? What about Anime Expo 2007 when three categories got lost and only the AMTV/experimental/catch-the-rest category was screened at the actual contest?I can agree with the upbeat category.
Now, I'm going to say here and now that I'm a bit tired so I have yet to weed through the rest of these posts but I have something to say that I think will anger a few people. Deal with it.
With the exception of Vlad's video and the Pale Cocoon video, I've never seen a worse contest.
This entire gripe sounds a lot more like an issue of semantics on what makes an action video "action". If the cause you're trying to champion here is waving a banner for more specific requirements and detailed definitions of what should comprise an action video then not only will I see your "action definitions" I'll raise you a drama category that could technically be broken down into evoking separate emotions like love, fear, awe, anger, etc. Otherwise I don't see any relevance in your picking apart certain action entries based on your own subjective (yet unstated) definition of what an action video should be. Additionally I can't help but think that your bone to pick is not with the creators themselves but rather with the contest judges and staff that either "allowed" the "bad" entries to get in or messed up the AR of videos that might otherwise have been okay.Action: This category was by far the worst. I'll only go over a few entries due to the fact that they were all pretty forgetable.
“The Good Ship Lifestyle” - While the song itself drove me crazy, I'm not going to let that affect my opinion of it. The editing wasn't bad but it was by far a drama video. WHERE WAS THE ACTION?! Maybe Usopp running with screens sliding behind him is action? Like I said, the video wasn't bad but it was just the wrong category entirely. Not to mention a mixture of bad aspect ratios throughout the video with correct ones.
“Spin On Simon” by Solomon Smith - Once again, where is the action? I guess poor lip syncing, bad aspect ratios and people talking about making it to the big time is action? This is one of those videos that would go into an "Upbeat/Fun" category if anything. There just wasn't any action.
“Fate/ Eternal Inferno” by Millenium Strife - Not only was this just a poor video but it is a total troll. The friends I was attending the con with had seen it multiple times YEARS before in their local AMV contest. Now, I know that judging through piles of videos isn't exactly fun or easy, but I believe the least you could do is double check your finalists to make sure they haven't been submitted to every damn con on the circuit for years and years. While it's up to the creator to pull something like this I always thought contest trolling was bad for everyone involved. The other entries lose out to an old video that's won other places and the audience gets to see an old video that has been submitted everywhere else they've gone.
Death Note Rhapsody has been discussed ad nauseam in the aftermath of the con as well as in the last 5 pages of this thread. We all agree.Drama: Now this category actually had an very nice entry....THAT LOST TO A COMEDY. THAT right there is where this category failed the worst. How in the hell did you let a blatantly obvious COMEDY video into DRAMA and then worst of all...let it BEAT the only good damn drama video in the contest!? I mean really?
“Death Note Rhapsody” by BaitMaster - THAT! THAT IS THE VIDEO! What the hell guys? What the hell? Not only is it VERY poorly edited but it's in DRAMA. :/
“Amor Fatali” by TearX (Areeba Khan) - No complaints about this video, it actually should have won given that it WAS DRAMA, NOT UPBEAT and it actually had a point other than "guy face, girl face, guy face, girl face, we're showing you pictures of their faces so you should care about these characters"
I'm just going to stop there with drama since none of the other entries stood out in the least.
Furthermore, the rest is a rehash of the same argument as action. You say Amor Fatali was the only real drama video, I liked it too, but until you specifically define and give an account of what your standards are, your opinion is not just subjective, it's subjective without any rational.
Here you're doing better with defining your claims. I agree that good visual gags that go along with the music are a recipe for success. I disagree that a funny song can carry laughs on a black screen.Comedy: Now this category...
“We Need You” by Vlad G. Pohnert - I must say, I love this video. I was actually laughing out loud and not for terrible technical problems along with bad editing like I was for the other entries. Vlad, you are a veteran and please don't take this as me trying to suck your cock or anything, but this was just a great video. The visual gags kept up with the audio and it was just overall a major win
Now for the rest of comedy...It was either upbeat or just a terrible video that relied solely on the audio to be funny. Half of the entries you could have played with the screen totally black and still you would have gotten the exact same amount of laughs. The "Robots" video was cute. That's all I have to say.
Take The Assumption Song video with FLCL and Lullaby with Ranma 1/2. The songs themselves were different types of humor, but the video execution went in very different directions. The FLCL video visually played up the "bait and switch" aspect of the lyrics first showing scenes of what the listener expects the lyrics to be, then cutting quickly to what the lyrics actually were. The Ranma 1/2 video went with the very loose theme that Nodoka is noticeably absent throughout most of the series and that Genma is not portrayed as a normal or responsible father. The creator runs with this concept in the hope that the audience can draw the connection and dresses up certain scenes with visual gags to link it directly to the lyrics. IMHO it's an adequate concept with average execution but it definitely would not have been as funny with what you simply suggested.
Let's take it a step further and look at Code:Roll and Left 4 Wired. Both of these videos relied on a certain level of understanding of internet memes. Code:Roll played up the homosexual undertones of both the series and the song while Left 4 Wired required an understanding of both Lain as a series and Left 4 Dead as a game. Even the song used in Left 4 Wired would've flown over most people's heads if they didn't play Left 4 Dead almost religiously. In both of these videos the songs wouldn't even be funny unless you had prior knowledge to something unrelated to the video further disproving your claim!
Comedy creators take a great risk when they edit themselves into a comedic corner where only very specific subgroups within the audience will understand the joke they're making (code:roll and left 4 wired) or when they run with a loose concept and edit to make it work (Genma's Lullaby and The Assumption Song). Even "We Need You" could have turned out mediocre if Vlad had just gone with the starship troopers recruitment concept and not linked so many different series into his greater theme. What if the audience had never seen Starship Troopers?
My point in all this is that comedy is not an exact science. Different people find different things funny, humor ranges far and wide from slapstick to high-brow situational to physical comedy and on and on. I've watched enough comedy videos to appreciate all the different types that are out there and long enough to know that while very few comedy videos are great, just because they aren't great doesn't mean they're terrible.
That seems like a convenient solution to actually paying attention and watching videos. Make all of your judgements of videos on what amounts to a technical typo (that might not even be the fault of the creator) and immediately dismiss everything else. I have a hard time deciding whether you're just being arrogant or lazy. Either way, it reflects on you very poorly, especially as someone who's trying to portray herself as "substance over style" type of editor.Pro: I take back what I said about action...pro takes the cake for the WORST category of all.
I mean really guys? You call yourselves "Pro" yet you can't even get a motherfucking aspect ratio correct? Jesus Christ! It's not that difficult! It's either fullscreen or widescreen. You either have bars on the top of your entry or you don't. You don't just say "Hmm...this requires me to check a couple extra boxes in my encoding program...I'm just going to stretch everything to hell and make all my characters look like they're from newer Clamp series!" It really is pathetic when you sit there and watch a category and decide on the winner of it based on which video was the least laughably terrible.
There's a simple solution to your obvious discontent. Become a judge at AX AMV. At least in that kind of setting you'd actually have some power and influence to affect what gets shown to the masses and you'd actually be doing something constructive with your opinions rather than coming off as an editor with the "I'm better than you" complex. And if you're really as qualified to judge videos as you'd have the rest of us believe you should have no problems getting on the staff to make those decisions.On the whole, I felt terrible for the audience the entire time. The turn out was staggering and they had to sit through shit for the most part. No wonder AMVs have gone downhill nowadays when there is nothing but crappy <a href="http://www.animemusicvideos.org/forum/v ... ochsack</a> videos being shown to the masses. While I think I will actually submit something next year, since it looks like all you have to do is have a combination of an anime the judges like with a song they like and a mildly ok video. This was one of the most disappointing contests I've ever seen.
I'm not attacking you for not liking videos. Hell I even agree with a lot of what you expressed and we disliked a lot of the same videos. What I am attacking you on is your apparent attitude that your OPINION is somehow more well-informed than the rest of ours and that it gives you the right to talk shit at other editors and creators. There were plenty of videos that I didn't like at AX this year. Doesn't mean I'm going to call them shit or terrible. There's nothing wrong with criticizing a video you didn't like, as long as you can rationalize your feelings and express it in a way that doesn't make you sound like an arrogant editor who's too good to tell everyone else why specifically you thought X, Y, and Z videos weren't good.Now I'm prepared for the massive waves of people to attack me for not liking either their video or their bestest buddy in the whole wide word's video, but damn it, when you make a video and you put it out there for the public to see you have made it subject to their opinion. You can't just sit around with your hands over your ears yelling madly to block out whatever bad they have to say.
I went to the contest. Staff did a great job on making things run flawlessly, editors (with the exception of a couple) did a miserable job of putting on a show. I can only hope that with a con this big they'll start getting good entries to show to all of those poor people that pay their good money to attend the con and watch videos.
Furthermore, I'm as big an AMV fan as the next person but even I'm not so ignorant to suggest that people only pay money to attend cons to watch AMV's. I can only hope that people attend an anime convention because they want to, not because they were coerced into buying a pass to watch bad videos. If you feel like you wasted money attending Anime Expo because the videos in the AMV contest weren't up to YOUR subjective standards, then you have much larger issues than just your AMV attitude. I always look forward to AMV's the most but it certainly has never and will never define my con experience. Maybe I'm crazy because I actually hang out with friends, attend panels, workshops, play games, shop, and a multitude of other fun things, but thanks for including me in those group of "poor people" anyways who "pay their good money to attend con" to "sit through shit for the most part".
You make an excellent point when you point out that people who make AMV's for public screen subject their creations to public opinion good and bad. I say the same goes for what you say and how you say it, and I say get over yourself.
Thank ya.
