The AWA 2015 Professional Awards Video Review Thread

[jingoro]

I don't think the awesomecore award is a good idea and can potentially be pretty derogatory. While I know there are some people who would love to win this award based on the video they made specifically to be awesomecoreish, handing out an award because their video was so bad that it ended up being entertaining could turn out to be unintentionally mean and hurtful.

I agree, but I felt given the prevailing discussion I would include it, and see what the response was before I killed it as derogatory. Not saying I will... honestly I expect y'all will do that for me.

[Warlike Swans]

Thank you for opening up the category nominations. ^_^

[MycathatesyouAMV]

Theres like absolutely no reason trailer/parody should be divided because it gives the parodies a category to be conjoined with, that otherwise really wouldn't have much to compete it. Plus the amount of trailers this year was low, and the two are similar enough to be combined.

[Shin-AMV]

Here are my reviews. indicate favorites or exceptional vids (I had to hold myself back cause otherwise the list would be saturated with tacos).

103: Good sync, especially fun lyric sync. Mixed feelings on the mix of 2d/3d animation but I could deal with it, although the Guardians of the Galaxy scene felt really out of place though.
111: This is a pretty intense and serious Free video that does more then just show them being silly bishies and put an interesting drama twist on it and gives it some depth
117: This has a great message and is tells a great story.
135: Lol, this is pretty amusing, especially the Katy Perry parts.
154: Felt really slow paced. This would have benefitted more from a lot more aggressive cutting to mix things up and fell less like certain scenes were just placed on the timeline and let run for awhile.
164: too bad there isn't a longer version of this song, its pretty amusing but ends too quickly
172: Felt like there was a disconnect between the song and the video for most of it.
178: I dug this, you did a good job with the amount of footage you had to work with.
182: Too many segments felt like they were just left to run and would have been more impactful if it were cut up a bit to match sync and flow more.
185: Was expecting sailor moon set to the ant man trailer at first, but it was a pretty solid fan dub trailer. Some scenes could have been chosen to be more impactful to up the adrenaline a bit though.
204: This was pretty solid.
278: This feels like a corporate tech demo and while impressive, I'm not sure how to evaluate it in terms of a music video contest.
282: was a fairly solid video, but something about it didn't make it stand out to me.
308: lol amusing combo
310: I would have liked it better if it dropped the stock overlays.
314: It was fairly ok, I think you needed to hit the sync harder with more impactful scene selection where the song kicks it up on the choruses
326: The atmosphere is this video is fucking goooooood
352: I dug this, but this needs more peaks and valleys in terms of pacing and use of effects, everything felt pretty sped up/fast all the way through and there are moments that it would have paired better being slower.
383: This was pretty good, but its hard to make a FLCL vid feel fresh and I kept having strange moments of deja vu where it felt like I had seen this video before.
387: This was trippy. In the good way though. I dug it.
404: Lololol. Yes!!! This was good.
406: Pretty solid I dug it.
410: The pairing to me didn't work.
423: I think its fairly well edited for the most part
436: Pretty good character profile.
442: This was slick as hell. Great scene selection and sync.
459: This isn't terrible, but feels really basic.
471: This was well done and a good combo.
473: Was a fun video, there was good and clever scene selection from some of the lyrics, but a few of them felt flat.
480: lol wut.
485: This was an ok video, felt pretty standard though.
487: This video was pretty sweet for most of it but the last 20 seconds or so kinda felt uninspired and trailed off until the fade to black tho.
501: This video would have benefitted a lot from the ken burns effect, lots of static/still scenes.
506: The song works with bacanno, but this didn't really stand out that much to me otherwise.
520: mixed feelings on the combo. On one hand it works, on the other it feels kinda awkward. Probably cause of the male voice female character thing.
523: This video captured my feelz. Good good times.
524: The internal and lyric sync are pretty awesome.
542: This just felt awkward as a pairing. It either needed a different source to be taken seriously or to just really go all out to make it silly and hilarious.
548: The combo is good.
581: Good storytelling.
584: I dug this video, but the intro part kinda threw me off and it took about halfway the first viewing to be like yo I dig this. Subsequent viewings I just skip the intro and its like fuck yeah this is sweet.
586: I have mixed feelings about this video cause I dunno if this is like an homage or something. The technicals are cool and the visuals are sweet, but its been done before with the same anime. Basically Lollgerjoj's videos had an orgy and this is the offspring kind of thing.
588: decent video
592: This video has so much potential, the concept is good but the technicals and storytelling need a lot of work, it felt really confusing as to what was actually going on at times.
603: God Bless Murica. Good video.
604: uhhhhhhhhh. vegetables.
608: cute video.
611: I didn't really get the source combo until the very end of the video. I appreciated the boob sync tho.
613: This was interesting, but it had trouble holding my attention.
615: This was excellent.
623: Yo. You can Bang Bang all over me. Solid vid.
626: Really slow buildup but once it gets going its pretty good. This anime looks pretty sweet.
641: This needed a lot more work in terms of technicals, pacing, and overall editing.
656: Good sync for the most part.
668: This had really good atmosphere and was really well edited.
674: too many reused scenes.
679: Pretty solid overall. I dug it. Some of the technicals, especially with the lip flap removal could have been tweaked a bit, their mouths ended up straying around a bit.
690: This was ok. The scenes with the table at the mall or cafeteria really kind of took me out of the video though.
696: I dunno what this is, but I wanna see the original source now lol.
704: Not bad, decent atmosphere but pacing felt odd to me sometimes.
771: ummmmmmmmm. Sure ok.
773: Not enough sync
779: This is unneccessarily long and drawn out.
803: lol. fun character profile.
820: Video is ok, think it could have really emphasized the femme fatale theme better since it seems to stray around that general area.
844: Hot Daaaaammnnn. This was really solid and entertaining.
879: Solid and well made trailer.
889: I couldn't tell if this was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek humor or actual melodrama.
895: This had a good pairing and I love Naruhina but the technicals needed work.
913: The visuals lacked the intensity the song required towards the end.
925: Shut the fuck up fatty! This was good.
949: direct and to the point.
957: so much slow buildup for not a lot of payoff.
964: The atmosphere in this video is great. I think this had the strongest storytelling in the contest as well.
966: lol the scene selection in this video is pretty great the tongue and cherry sync and the dog flying at the camera at 'you're fucked' was pure gold.
977: This was a pretty decent video.
987: I dug this alot, but the lip sync choices were mixed for me.
999: This was a pretty straightforward and solid video.

[Obsidian Zero]

Thanks for the category nominations

[The Wired Knight]

Fast rundown on my opinion of every non-standard catagory

Best live action: okay with it as it also encourages more non-anime entries; also I consider editing with live action fundamentally different than anime as there are a lot of things you can't do with it that you can in animation
Artistic endeavor: I like it but am okay scrapping it - reason being it's very amorphous as to what people consider artistic
Character profile: Too many videos fit this conversely and I don't see the need to make a seperate award for it
Series profile: Don't need it, just about any single anime video is a series profile (as only so many deviate from the source in story or tone)
Parody: A staple and I'm fine with it
ORiginal animation: Would be okay if there wree more that fit this award but it seems too obvious as is due to the lack of competition
Storytelling: Always okay with this one as making a coherent story within a video does take work especially when going beyond what the original story was
Best friendship: Is this rewarding the friendship or the video or a friendship video? Sorry I hate this one
Best upbeat & Best Dance: Like both but can see it being combined into one as all dance and upbeat overlap (it's not like we have people making waltz videos for this award) - keep Dance, skip upbeat as dance is more clear
Best technical: Okay with keeping it as editors are savvy enough to recognize skillful or clever editing and want to reward it when the video won't win in another category - I do like awarding videos for something that shows a lot of care and work into it even though it is not a winner in say drama or comedy
Most fun: I like it but if we're looking to condense then it has too much overlap with upbeat and again should be scrapped as comedy videos generally would win it
Video that made me buy the show: Although a good complement to editors I see no need to make it its own award
Mad Max Award: Scrap it - it's a funny joke but doesn't need its own award unless you want to give people a shiny nickle who made a mad max video
Best short: Short series? Short video? No this is pointless
Best sync: I'm not sure how to define this one, does it mean scene to lyric? Editing to beat? Both? Although I'm usually okay with it, again if we're looking to condense I say scrap it.
Pyschadelic: Scrap, like some others this is too amorphous
Most drugs: See above
Best Trailer: I'm voting for it but Jingoro has a solid point in that it does fit into parody - me I'm for it still as trailers often do fit their own category
Best non-anime and american anime: See my opinion about best live action, though I think we can do with one and not the other for fear of getting duplicative.
Best awesomecore: I assume this is in here as a joke?
Most atmospheric: See amorphous complaint
Best mood: Again, amorphous

[bennettamv]

I don't think the awesomecore award is a good idea and can potentially be pretty derogatory. While I know there are some people who would love to win this award based on the video they made specifically to be awesomecoreish, handing out an award because their video was so bad that it ended up being entertaining could turn out to be unintentionally mean and hurtful.

I am not in this contest. But as a viewer I think this would lower the standard for the other awards. It puts the bad videos as equal to high quality videos.

[BasharOfTheAges]

I don't think the awesomecore award is a good idea and can potentially be pretty derogatory. While I know there are some people who would love to win this award based on the video they made specifically to be awesomecoreish, handing out an award because their video was so bad that it ended up being entertaining could turn out to be unintentionally mean and hurtful.

I am not in this contest. But as a viewer I think this would lower the standard for the other awards. It puts the bad videos as equal to high quality videos.

Wasn't "awesomecore" the agreed upon safe word when "WTF" was deemed offensive? We gonna keep moving those goalposts? It's about weird videos, not bad ones - that's a strawman.

[bennettamv]

I don't think the awesomecore award is a good idea and can potentially be pretty derogatory. While I know there are some people who would love to win this award based on the video they made specifically to be awesomecoreish, handing out an award because their video was so bad that it ended up being entertaining could turn out to be unintentionally mean and hurtful.

I am not in this contest. But as a viewer I think this would lower the standard for the other awards. It puts the bad videos as equal to high quality videos.

Wasn't "awesomecore" the agreed upon safe word when "WTF" was deemed offensive? We gonna keep moving those goalposts? It's about weird videos, not bad ones - that's a strawman.

Well when I Google it this came up http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... wesomecore . However I can not think of a better name. So you have a point there.

[BasharOfTheAges]

I mean, it can't be that offensive if they've let Todd and Chris run a panel about it for how many years now? I wouldn't think the VAT staff would be that cruel if they thought they were actually being cruel at all.