Kunicon 05 - Complete Disappointment

basterd!! · Post by **basterd!!** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:32 pm

First off let me thank anyone who volunteered to help make this "convention" enjoyable for all anime fans. Thank you for your effort!!

That being said words can't desribe the disappointment i experience at this "convention" with reguards to AMV's. I had heard of all the problems that had occured at the miami kunicon in dec of 2004. I had heard of the lost amv's and how their upload server got hacked and of the playback problems that had occured even once the competition started late. And how 99 percent of the people didn't know who won the grand prize and how people who won for best action and such didn't even know until the results were posted weeks later.

I figured "well that was their first con and they've promised to make sure things go right for the next one. I trusted them. BIG MISTAKE on my part!!!

I'm a 29 year old engineer who spent 7 months worth of weekends completing what will probably be my best video, simply because i really put my soul into this particular anime. Anyways i finished it a week before the Kunicon 05 st lious deadline. I express mailed it to them to make sure it was recieved on time. Knowing about all the problems that had occured in miami i sent them 2 discs. 1 with the video encoded in standard mpeg2 and a 2nd disc with the video encoded in windows media player 9. i wrote them to please use the mpeg2 video unless some problem came up with it. I thought they were probably going to remaster all the videos onto a dvd anyway and thought i'd go ahead and submit to them in mpeg 2. Keep in mind that they were accepting basically anything. Divx, Mpeg1/2, windows media 9, ect.

Then i even emailed them asking them weither i would recieve confirmation if my video was recieved. a few days later i recieved a reply that yes my video was recieved and i should consider myself entered. ok cool i thought. I even thought that i would give this "convention" an exclusive and not release the video until it had played there. I had never had a video played in front of an audience before and for a month my "happy thought" was looking forward to hearing a few seconds of applause after my video was shown. In addition i thought i had an excellent chance of winning best of show. But win or lose i just wanted to see my video shown in front of people. i even thought that i would write on this forum how everyone should make the effort to go see there vids shown in front of audiences instead of just emailing them in.

Fast forward to the weekend of the convention. I took 3 vaction days off ( i work weekends) and brought along a friend and drove 4 hours to st lious. Additionally i encouraged members of my local anime club to go just because this was a relatively close con for us and kansas city has no cons.

Anyways i get there and have a good time with friends, mostly because the con was in my opion a C- rating on events and showings. but i had come 75% just to see my video shown. So I'm sitting waiting for the contest to start with a couple of friends next to me. A staff member comes up and quickly mumbles something to the audience of around 300 people that due to lack of entries the contest prizes and awards will be postponed to the next kunicon in may. I was angered by this. I wanted to compete. But i quickly accepted it since win or lose i just wanted my video to be shown.

Finally the lights dim and the vidoes start......sort of. One video is played ok but the 2nd video is played halfway through and then cut off. 1 minute delay. a new vid is show and cut off after 20 seconds. another minute delay. a video is shown with no audio. 5 minute delay. there were a few more videos shown for the first 25 minutes that got cutoff. In my head i'm going "oh my god...is this a joke? "i feel terrible for the creators of the videos. then i notice they start playing the videos off of a playlist in media player. some of the videos play, those that won't are simply skipped. it seemed like all the videos that were playing had the divx logo in the lower right hand coner so it looks like the computer could play divx ok but nothing else. then suddenly windows media player is playing no video but i hear my introduction audio playing for my video. I'm screaming in my head "NOOO!!!" 2 seconds later my video is skipped and an inuyashi video of low vid quality is now playing.

I can't really describe how angry i was. My friends could see i was visibly upset and said they were sorry but at least my video wasn't butchered like some of the other videos. So my happy thought had been destroyed. I felt really betrayed. The amv crew hadn't even bothered to check to see if the videos would play on the machine they were setup on!! They couldn't even be bothered to download the neccessary codecs for the videos? It would have taken like 4-5 minutes to check to make sure the 40 or so videos they wanted to show would be able to play. I was so angry i can't even express it to you.

They ended up also showing the winning vids from miami 04. so the creators of the metropolis objection, fire freely, and olin you guys should know that the crowd really liked your videos. it seemed like they really liked olin i heard a couple say of olin, "oh that one's the best"

I managed to make the most of the rest of the convention "no point in ruining everyone else's fun" besdes i had taken time off of work and spent hundreds of dollars to be here. But i was looking forward to hearing those few seconds of appaulase. they would have lasted me years.

However complete and utter incompetence on the part of the amv organizers ruined this covnention for me. maybe once it was decided they wouldn't give any prizes away they decide. "who cares if the shit plays or not". Well mr. organizers i was certainly someone who cared. and not to sound conceited but i'm certain my video would have entertained the audience for 5 minuted and after seeing the other videos my vid definately would have had to hace been considered for a prize. but then again maybe all the videos that were messed up and skipped over were of high quality. I'll buy incompetence for 1 con, but 2 in a row? I'd hate to think that vids were purposely not shown or as in miami "lost".

This experience has taught me that it doesn't matter weither you make a video of equal quality to U4ia or a generic drangon ball z vid. If the people playing the vid are completely incompentent and uncaring no one may end up even seeing your vid.

Take my advice send you vids into any other contest except for this one. and certainly don't go to a kunicon "convention" unless its in your home city and you have nothing else to do. But if you must submit a vid, make sure to do it in every conceivable format and send multiple copies of each to various staff memebers and bring copies to the event and ask before hand if your video is going to play alright but bring a copy of codecs just in case because Kunicon staff members are simply too incompent ( or corrupt or lazy) to ensure that stuff gets done right.

dokool · Post by **dokool** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:39 pm

I think you should post this to the Kunicon forum.

basterd!! · Post by **basterd!!** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:02 pm

well kunicon isn't yearly, but has several a year. i was making sure people knew the st. lious one revieced an F same as miami.

greenjinjo · Post by **greenjinjo** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:04 pm

Nah, there are several Kunicon's a year.

http://www.kunicon.com/community

EDIT: And I read your post wrong.... sorry. But there is the forum link, you should post that whole thing.

dokool · Post by **dokool** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:08 pm

My point is that Kunicon (the big company that is running all these cons) needs to be made aware of their failings so that either they can scale back to the point where they can run a con that doesn't suck, or try to fix the problems.

basterd!! · Post by **basterd!!** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:21 pm

you're 100 percent right! i'm writing an email to the amv contest coordinator, juan garcia. He is coinincidentally the same person who confirmed that my entry had been recieved in the first place. I'm going to ask him how i can possibly not advise other amv creators, as well as normal con goers, to avoid entering or going to this con?

It's really unfortunate. I wanted so badly to support any con that occurs anywhere near me. Now i just want a new con to replace kunicon.

dokool · Post by **dokool** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:25 pm

basterd!! wrote:you're 100 percent right! i'm writing an email to the amv contest coordinator, juan garcia. He is coinincidentally the same person who confirmed that my entry had been recieved in the first place. I'm going to ask him how i can possibly not advise other amv creators, as well as normal con goers, to avoid entering or going to this con?

It's really unfortunate. I wanted so badly to support any con that occurs anywhere near me. Now i just want a new con to replace kunicon.

Yeah, but post in public too. I like watching Kunicon staffers try to cover their asses when people criticize the con

greenjinjo · Post by **greenjinjo** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 11:31 pm

dokool wrote:I like watching Kunicon staffers try to cover their asses when people criticize the con

That provided hours of entertainment

basterd!! · Post by **basterd!!** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 11:33 pm

where at? on their forums? or on these forums?

dokool · Post by **dokool** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 11:37 pm

basterd!! wrote:where at? on their forums? or on these forums?

Their forums. Loudly.