Things can always go wrong out of one's control, but there are a LOT of people out there in the AMV community that could of helped to prevent this kind of showing and prep (how they were shown, the rules, the size of the room AND winners selection) There is quite a bit of experience in Vancouver alone in relation to this, but they either never asked or brushed people aside.
Honestly, think of it like this, if the cosplay contest was run with someone who did not know anything about cosplay and it was poorly executed, how do you think the cosplayers would react (and they are even more vocal). Most creators spend a LOT of time on thier AMVs to make them look good and so why would not a contest (even a first one) spend the time to atleast respect the entries in the best means?
To me it's the lack of effort that I have the issue with and not the intention.
Vlad
foenanko wrote:I'd just like to add my 2 cents here as politely as I can- I don't want to offend anyone. That being said, I've attended many conventions and watched the AMVs at all that have offered them. I've attended cons that have been running for 10 or more years that have had a myriad of issues- bad audio/poorly equalized speakers, AMV finals that have run too long and been cut off before all the videos have been shown (including not showing videos that won awards in the judges' placement!), severe interlacing, lowered frame rates (making the action and effects categories look like a muddled mess), and more. I've entered most of these contests, and been screened in most of these contests. I hate it when the video and audio quality are bad- it sucks and it's painful to see your video screened (or your fellow editors, even) with less than optimal settings or downright flubs in the encoding. I recently attended a con where the compiled finalist video file crashed just seconds into my video and I watched the audience, uninformed of what was going on and assuming the screening was broken/over/something literally pour out of the place. That was hard to take. And each of these things happened at cons that are long-standing with AMV coordinators that have been, at the least, experienced in other con video screenings.
AR is a new con- this is their first year. Editors got free day passes, so if an editor only wanted to see your video screened (other than travel expenses), they weren't coughing up 40 bucks to see a bad playback of their video. The rules stated that the equipment hadn't been finalized yet, and the resolution everything would be played back wasn't known. Should that have been fixed? Yes. But people came, watched, and enjoyed the show. If you go to the official AR boards, there's people on there clamoring to know where they can find this or that video that was shown despite the apparent quality issues (of which, I might add, I've seen no mention of on the AR forums and have been checking in on regularly since the event.) I hope that the coordinator hops on at some point and addresses these issues, and I hope that next year's screening is better, but it's hardly the end of the world.
