mirkosp wrote:it depends on how the video is made - if it resembles a single video like it could have been made by one person, except with more people's efforts combined, it's a collab, if it's clearly a track-based project, then it's a mep.
This is my view on it basically. In a collab each editor works with the others and they all work on the whole video. There is no clear separation of 'this is my part, that is yours'. The video comes off as unified rather than a collection of parts. In a MEP, the song/songs are broken into parts and each editor does their own little segment. They usually don't even see, much less work on, any other part than their own. The final video comes off as very segmented; usually even a casual observer can tell offhand where the transition from one editor to the next is. The problem with this definition is there is no way to automate what goes where. Someone would have to sit down and watch every single video with more than one editor to determine if it's MEP or collab. Plus there are solo vids that come off with a MEP like segmented feel, especially if they're blipvert style vids like Doki's Hellø Fairy for example.
To make things simple, in the past we've gone by simple number of editors. ROS5 shows why that doesn't always work; there were five editors on it yet the video came off as a unified whole, a collab IMNSHO. I know I have seen vids edited by two people that had that clear segmentation that I think defines MEP, although none that were good enough to actually remember the vid name so I can't identify them.
This year GQ tried to fix those issues by going with # of songs. I think it doesn't produce better results though. No Excuses was pretty clearly segmented, although the segments were very short. Next year the MJ Mep will qualify as collab if the rules don't change and that is clearly segmented as well. Meanwhile it's easy to imagine a collab with multiple songs, if nothing else consider a unified collab video that uses a different song for credits and lists that in the profile.
However there's one other thing to consider, the history of the org.
2009 was the first year there was both Best Collaborative Video and Best Multi-Editor Project, which is where the concern for classification originates. Prior to this year, there was not been both a Best Collab and Best MEP category in the same year and the terms were used interchangeably.
In 2008 it was called Best Collaborative Project (AMV Hell 4 won, with 66 editors and one song according to the vid info, which means under this years rules it would not be considered a MEP).
In 2007 it was called Best Multi-Editor Project. Also, years ago MEPs used to compete in the regular categories. In 2005 that produced a result of 4 out of the 5 finalists for Best Dance were MEPs (
scroll down for the finalists in dance). IIRC the VCA dramas that year, it was felt that 36 editors voting for themselves got some MEPs to the finals at the expense of solo edited vids. I think the reason the only single editor vid won was this backlash against MEPs beating out solo videos to the finals. As a result, the following year MEPs were not eligible for regular categories and the definition of MEP was based on # of editors.
So, in the end neither # of editors or # of songs produces accurate results in defining MEP vs Collab in my opinion. Having best collab and best MEP as seperate categories is pretty recent. Prior to that, the concerns weren't about what style a video was, but simply how many editors it had. Jasper tired expanding the categories some last year and GQ tried a different definition this year due to the old definition having some problems. Next year I suggest scraping recent changes and reverting back to the way things were. There should be a Best MEP category but there should not be a Best Collab category. Above X amount of editors and it can only compete for Best MEP. Under that amount of editors and it's treated like a regular video and competes in the regular categories.
