OTAKON: BASIC AMV Rules for 2007

Org Profile · Post by **Vlad G Pohnert** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 12:23 am

the biggest problem with the pre-screeners is that if the contest has a lot of entires, different set of people see different tapes and thus you end up with judging if each tape with diferent criterial... That in the end makes it kind of not fair as you'll never be able to have the same group watch 100+ video in one sitting (yea, maybe a few totaly AMV loving people, but not everyone!

They did that at AX 2000, but 6-7 hours into the show, there was only a small hand full picking what gets in!

Quite honestly, there is a lot of effort put into video by creators, and it's only fair that a contest tries it's best to accomidate as fair judging as possible. in return.. THAT is why I was NEVER a fan of the pre-screenings, and they are not a fair system for each video. The only reason Otakon still gets a reasonable amount of video in the first place is becasue of it's large audiance, not because of how great the contest is run. I personally am not a big fan of the AMV Head coordinator as he rarely posts anywhere, not does he really keep any contact, so it's unknown to us how he hears about this feedback except from others... That's one reason I've not submitted in a while... In the past, Matt would always stay in touch and via e-mails, posting, his effort and dedicated really showed. I'm not saying there is NO dedication or effort, but the top guy is invisible... so my Feedback is: Get him on these discussions (unless John, you are the head guy now, in which case this this only appies to the past two years)

The suggestion thread is a good start to making the contest as good as it was..

Vlad

Illia Sadri · Post by **Illia Sadri** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 1:07 am

BasharOfTheAges wrote:Do any other cons actually do open prescreenings? Where did this idea come from? Just curious is all... from what I can tell, most cons that actually do prescreenings do so by a pannel.

Well one reason why many don't is honestly location. You can get people together to do it if it is relatively close. However the fact remains that well... creators are scattered. There's a few concentrations but such as in my case with Tekko's contest which is Pittsburgh convention, but I am in WI. I know of exactly one person who is remotely close to me in location which is DW. So that makes it difficult to even contemplate.

Besides, Vlad has a point in it takes a special person to sit through that many vids. Trust me I have done it. It is a very daunting task.

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 7:12 am

Vlad G Pohnert wrote:the biggest problem with the pre-screeners is that if the contest has a lot of entires, different set of people see different tapes and thus you end up with judging if each tape with diferent criterial... That in the end makes it kind of not fair as you'll never be able to have the same group watch 100+ video in one sitting (yea, maybe a few totaly AMV loving people, but not everyone!

I've been under the impression that, in the past 3 years (I didn't go to prescreenings before that), each of the three locations (King of <s>Town</s> Prussia, NYC, College Park) has shown all the entrants, even if they weren't all on the same day: at KoP they're done all in one sitting, but at College Park they're usually spread out over 2-3 weeks. But unless there's a problem with one of the tapes (like there was in 2004; thank goodness for overnighted hard drives!

), no videos get excluded from any one location.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong; I've never actually been to the NYC or College Park screenings (and probably won't, even though I live within 10 miles of NYC now).

Adv1sor · Post by **Adv1sor** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 9:05 am

I think that the prescreening method employed by Otakon produces one of the best and most well received AMV shows.

Consider your answer to these two questions.

1. Do AMV editors make the best AMV judges?
2. Are AMV shows for the editors or for the fans?

My answers are 1, No and; 2, for the fans.

Prescreening let the most people possible select the AMVs for the show. It’s not perfectly fair because not everyone involved in the prescreening will see every AMV. But isn’t it still better than having a few editors make the selection?

And as far as deadlines are concerned, what difference does it make how far the deadline is in advance of the con so long as you have ample notice of that deadline?

Illia Sadri · Post by **Illia Sadri** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 10:31 am

Yep that's why every year a couple vids are in the wrong category. And lots of people, no matter what, won't make note of any potential issue like that. Also why most amv contests have to keep things in categories.... if they are not organized nobody in a fan vote would be able to distinguish what is the best video in a genre. Large groups as a whole tend to be a bit lazy.

Org Profile · Post by **Vlad G Pohnert** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 5:24 pm

Adv1sor wrote:I think that the prescreening method employed by Otakon produces one of the best and most well received AMV shows.

Consider your answer to these two questions.

1. Do AMV editors make the best AMV judges?
2. Are AMV shows for the editors or for the fans?

My answers are 1, No and; 2, for the fans.

Prescreening let the most people possible select the AMVs for the show. It’s not perfectly fair because not everyone involved in the prescreening will see every AMV. But isn’t it still better than having a few editors make the selection?

And as far as deadlines are concerned, what difference does it make how far the deadline is in advance of the con so long as you have ample notice of that deadline?

And I've never saide that editors only make the best judges.. HOWEVER, what I pointed out was that having random small to large groups of people on different dates judge gives uneven results. A video making it in or not will depend on which showing, who is in the room, the anime, song and so forth...

And how is this related to the fans?? How is a small room full of a handfull of people (and correct me if I'm wrong, but a small amount of people actually go to the pre-screenings relativley) actually define "The Fans".

Video are for the FANS, and that is what overflow rooms at the con are for in which Fans CAN watch the all the entires if they want, and Otakon is doing this so I fail to see how the pre-screening make it any better for for the fans...

Yes, you are right about the deadline part, howevever, as most contests are heavily based on the summertime and thus most editors create videos for that time, moving the dedline too early might mean liss entires.. that up to the convention to decide if that is what they want or need to ensure there is enough time to do what is needed.

Vlad

ReligionX · Post by **ReligionX** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 1:45 am

Scintilla wrote:
dwchang wrote:I don't know anyone who *enjoys* watching 6 - 8 hours of AMVs all in a row (and let's be frank, the majority being less than spectacular)...
Umm... *raises hand*

I'm going to second that one. I like even like sitting through the videos that are less than spectacular. There's nothing quite like, "there's a 3 star... There's a 3 star... There's an--Oh my god, I want to share this with people." Even though some of the videos I voted high for didn't make it in, and some of the vidoes I didn't think would make it, made it into the final AMV Contest, I knew that's how a pre-screening would work.

I was an AMV fan years before I became an editor. I become a fan of AMV editors after a while. I'm a total fan of editing techniques in general now. I love this controlled chaos of AMV editors fighting about this Otakon Contest. It makes me happy to know that everyone cares enough to take the time to voice out. It somehow makes these AMVs better to know that i can go back and point to someone fighting to get a bunch of clips set to a song into a contest. It's like, "This is my fan-art, and you should buy it." Does anyone else get nervous walking into the Artist Alley? You want to look at the artist's stuff before you get suckered into a conversation with a horriffic artist.

Why do you people make AMVs? Is it really for the fans? Aren't we all just trying to play God? It's all art is--playing God. Making something out of nothing. There's no pay off for making AMVs. We're all a bunch of Gods that are trying to be worshipped. Hahahahahaha. Heh.

There really isn't a hazy line between Comedy AMVs and Fan Parodies, but we're playing with house rules. I love house rules. You always fight about house rules with the new people until you shut them down with a majority vote. Not many casual card players here, I take it? The best part about new people, is they are new, and have different ideas. This can be good. I'm all for ""Fan Parody AMVs"" if that's what you want to call them.

I like the pre-screenings, personally. I feel like Mr. Smith going to Washington. But if there are people up in arms against the pre-screenings, I can't say that they're wrong either. Everyone wants to be in the contest. That's why they're submitting an AMV in the first place.

Is the pre-screening an ideal method? Who honestly knows? Should the Popular Vote be used instead of the Electorial Votes? Yeah, they probably should. Do I have a say in it? Sure! Does my opinion on the subject actually matter? Nope! They're not my rules. If i want things my way, I'd make my own contest.

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:37 am

It's not really about the prescreening being a bad process, it's the fact that it causes the deadline to be pushed back a LONG way, and a small group of people can easily come up with the same if not similar results in a shorter period of time and can be blamed in the majority of the contest ends up sucking.

ReligionX · Post by **ReligionX** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 1:21 pm

BasharOfTheAges wrote:It's not really about the prescreening being a bad process, it's the fact that it causes the deadline to be pushed back a LONG way, and a small group of people can easily come up with the same if not similar results in a shorter period of time and can be blamed in the majority of the contest ends up sucking.

Oh. I must have misread something. Just pretend that Otakon is sooner than it actually is, or submit your video to Otakon 2008. They do take videos that are up to 2 years old, provided that they've never been submitted anywhere to compete.

And just do what everyone else does and blame Otakon Staff by means of John Westbrook. For everything. No, I'm just kidding. But at the same time, I'm not. Hahaha. Hmm. We love you John.

How on earth do you people pay your bills. Honestly. Deadlines.

hackerzc · Post by **hackerzc** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 2:47 pm

lol, I'm just going to sit back and watch this one...