TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

[Manganate]

Nio: Calm down dude...

If i were you, i'd download some of these videos and watch em yourself before reading into it :\ especially taking the view points of the critiques on this forum, some may be skewed. judge it for yourself

True, I probably should download the finalist and see for myself, but I do give some weight to certain people's opinions so I feel like it would be a waste of time >.>


Pwolf

Which is fine for you. I however, never let anyone make my decisions for me, no matter how much I trust or know them.

If you want to judge the videos based on the opinions of one poster who basically trashed the whole contest without rationalization that's your prerogative.

If you have preconceptions about the videos that do make it in based on your own personal stance towards the contest as a whole that's a personal issue as well.

Nobody is without bias and to suggest that anyone is objective is arrogant self-deceit.

I have no problems with any of that, my point from the beginning has been, don't throw you weight around on the forum like you're supposed to be somebody and basically cuss out the entire body of videos. And especially don't do that if you're not going to backup or rationalize what you're saying. Radical_Yue doesn't seem like an unintelligent person, I'm sure if she tried she could've explained her stance much better. She didn't and I called her out on it. Not the end of the world. She herself even admitted to being prepared to receive attacks for disliking certain videos. I guess she wasn't expecting someone to agree with her on alot of her points but call her out for being a bitch.

[XStylus]

Yes, true, but we are talking about multiple videos with problems and a general consensus that the majority of the videos sucked. Unless every video entered into the contest was horrible, i doubt that's a valid excuse. Don't get me wrong, I agree with what you are saying, I just have a hard time believing this is the case

Disclaimer: The following my opinions are my own and are not reflective of the opinions of the official AMV coordinators.

The following info wasn't to be disclosed out of respect to those who entered AMTV, but I think it's become necessary in order to drive an important point.

AMTV had a grand total of 8 submissions.

Yeah, you heard me. That means almost every vid submitted got in. In fact, it almost was every vid, but the judges felt one vid from action was deserving of AMTV status, so it got moved.

The truly sad irony is that this is the category with insanely strict judging. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean shit if you don't have enough vids to make it competitive. It also quite obviously means that it doesn't matter if the panel of judges were a group of veteran AMV creators or a group of chimps.

Now that's not to say the vids that made it into the contest were crap by ANY means (many of those vids would have easily been forces to be reckoned with in other categories), but I'm sure those entrants would have been more satisfied with their participation if it had been more clearly competitive.

Comedy was also shallow as well, but not remotely as shallow as AMTV. We didn't exactly have the luxury of being picky. Thankfully though, the few that were submitted were very good. Comedy is hard to do and is traditionally a low yield category, but that just means that there's a decent chance for those brave enough to at least try. SO TRY!

Bottom line, where ya'll at? Where's all these killer submissions I hear being entered at AWA, Otakon, and elsewhere? The contest is running nearly trouble free now, so what more must be done? (Methinks the "troll" rules of other cons play a part, but not this much.)

I recommend that the lot of you stop complaining and start editing. Us judges aren't idiots, and we know a well made vid when we see it. What you saw was the best we got. If you're unhappy with it, then you're unhappy with yourselves.

As Steve Jobs says, "Real artists ship." Kudos to the artists who did, and a pox on those who are complaining.

[The Wired Knight]

Damn, half a day and suddenly this thread jumps 4 pages. It's hard to follow what the hell happened since I'm checking this close to 1 am.

I agree that AX's contest has been lacking as a whole in the last few years compared to other cons. Frankly speaking I think it's because far too many editors gave up on AX after teh 2002 and the 2007 fiasco (07 was LB I think). AX is huge, it still gets a lot of entries to my understanding but now the regulars don't enter as much save for a lot of locals and the devoted. I consider myself in both those catagories and will continue to submit to aX. That said I don't think the contest holds the prestige it once did because the overall quality of videos has suffered over the years.

I regularly play a ton of AMVs at a new years party my friends have every year. Generally it's a compillation of videos from cons around the year except AX. (No bias, I just don't play AX videos because we all live in southern california and most of us go to AX and hence have allready seen those videos). Each year I get the same response from everyone and that is that they are wondering why AX doesn't get the same variety and quality of entries year after year. Is this a difference in taste? Probably not, but I do think it is a difference in the level and amount of competition. There will always be AMVs we all consider crap, I'm not going to name any but it's true, every contest you go to you will almost always inevitably find something you dislike and wonder how it got where it did.

That said, AX seems to suffer from this problem as a whole year after year. Those of us that regularly enter, honestly we can't do a damn thing about it, we enter each year and stuff gets selected, but I don't like seeing other editors rag on AX for quality and voting concerns when the smalll competitive pool means less chances of good videos making it in.

frankly speaking, the audience is the same everywhere. f you were to let teh audience judge AWA Pro for example you probably would get radically different results than we do. Hell, look at you-tube. Outside of being flooded with thousands of terrible AMVs, you will notice 90% of them actually recieve incredible reviews, audiences are eaisly pleased by simple things, not just in terms of AMVs but all media. Often it is easy to look past flaws in AMVs if you are a lay person who has not edited or seen many others as you are unaware of some of the easily fixed technical difficulties and can be dumbfounded by certain effects you cannot pull off yourself.

Hell, when I first started making AMVs back in 98 I remember actually being impressed by stupid beat matching. And that's one of the easiest things to do. (Course then again I was starting on two vcrs so bit different technically). We are dealing with two problems for AX, very small competitive pool and easily impressed audiences that like fanservice (of all kinds). The later cannot be fixed, you aren't going to be able to take the audience and tell hem how to vote( nor would i relaly want you to). However, inc ases like Death Note Raphsody, I think the judges that are deciding the finalists really should take the typical audience more into account when picking finalists as they are relatively predictable.

[MisterFurious]

AMTV had a grand total of 8 submissions.

I hope this will finally put things in perspective, and quiet some of the bitching about quality. It's unfortunate you had to reveal such privileged information, especially since those creators who were in Pro may now not feel so good about making it into the finals.

That being said, if you only got 8 entries for 7 slots, is it worth it to keep the category going?

[XStylus]

AMTV had a grand total of 8 submissions.

That being said, if you only got 8 entries for 7 slots, is it worth it to keep the category going?

That's a decision Michael will have to make. I loved the idea of the category personally, as I love trance-like vids like Euphoria and practically anything Nostromo made, which is kinda-sorta the inspiration for the category IIRC. However, people obviously haven't stepped up, which is sad.

[Minimoto]

AMTV had a grand total of 8 submissions.

I hope this will finally put things in perspective, and quiet some of the bitching about quality. It's unfortunate you had to reveal such privileged information, especially since those creators who were in Pro may now not feel so good about making it into the finals.

That being said, if you only got 8 entries for 7 slots, is it worth it to keep the category going?

Well maybe more ppl will step up to the plate with this new revelation.

[Ryvannis]

AMTV had a grand total of 8 submissions.

I hope this will finally put things in perspective, and quiet some of the bitching about quality. It's unfortunate you had to reveal such privileged information, especially since those creators who were in Pro may now not feel so good about making it into the finals.

That being said, if you only got 8 entries for 7 slots, is it worth it to keep the category going?

This really saddens me to be honest, I thought there was actual competition to get into the category and knowing this now just gives puts my efforts down the drain. I probably could have half-assed my AMV and it would have got in anyways. So much for that.

[MisterFurious]

Well maybe more ppl will step up to the plate with this new revelation.

Unfortunately, the reality is that this revelation probably means more people will enter Pro next year, thinking their chances are better of making the finals.

[Minimoto]

Well maybe more ppl will step up to the plate with this new revelation.

Unfortunately, the reality is that this revelation probably means more people will enter Pro next year, thinking their chances are better of making the finals.

Well, more to choose from? Even with this knowledge, I know I still don't have the confidence to enter anything but drama.

[XStylus]

Well maybe more ppl will step up to the plate with this new revelation.

Unfortunately, the reality is that this revelation probably means more people will enter Pro next year, thinking their chances are better of making the finals.

I agree. I do have some ideas on how to resolve the problem that I want to sit down with Michael and talk about, but I don't think AMTV can thrive as a standard seven vid category.