Ohayocon 2010 AMV Contest EXTENDED DEADLINE & FTP SUBMISSION

[Ashyukun]

It's taken me a bit of time to get everything together, but I've finally got the rules updated and ready for release. At the moment the details for hopefully taking submissions online are not in place- while I DO hope to online submissions as an option, for the time being you're much better off planning on mailing in your entry in case it doesn't work out.

Ohayocon 2010 AMV Contest Rules
Please read through all the rules before entering!

Entry Requirements:
• All videos must be in the hands of the Contest Coordinator by January 9nd, 2010. You have until MIDNIGHT on that Saturday night to get your video in.
• Only videos created after January 1st 2008 will be accepted as competing entries. All others will be deemed exhibition entries.
• Each editor may submit only 2 entries to the contest.
• Only 1 video per category, per creator, will be allowed to compete.
• Videos that have competed at a previous Ohayocon AMV Contest will not be eligible to compete.
• Entries may not contain bumpers, title screens, MTV style credits, or any other form of identification. We will be creating our own uniform bumpers and we will not remove them for you. Videos that contain any identification will be deemed exhibition only and will not compete in the contest.
• The running time for videos may not exceed 6 minutes or be shorter then 30 seconds.
• Videos must contain at least 50% anime or video game footage.
• By submitting your video(s) to this contest you authorize us to screen and distribute it under the Ohayocon AMV Contest Title. All physical media (CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R, ect) submitted becomes the property of Ohayocon and will not be returned.
• Entries may be disqualified for the following reasons:
◦ Objectionable content in the song or video
◦ Bad audio or video quality
◦ Subtitled footage (adding your own custom subs is allowed- but no fan/commercial subs)
◦ Failure to adhere to submission rules
◦ Lack of entry form
◦ Or any reason Ohayocon AMV Staff deems necessary.
▪ If you are unsure if your video would be disqualified due to the above rule e-mail the contest coordinator (amv@ohayocon.com) and we can view the content of your video and make a decision.
• Exceptions to the rules will be made on a video-by-video basis- but there had better be a pretty good reason.
 
Entry Format:
• Entries will ONLY be accepted in the following formats:
◦ AVI
▪ HUFFYUV
▪ LAGARITH
▪ DIVX
▪ XVID
◦ MPEG
◦ MPEG-2
◦ H.264
◦ x.264
• Entries MAY need to be converted to a different format for playback. The AMV Staff will make every effort to not degrade the visual and audio quality of the submitted videos.
• Videotape and DVD formatted entries will NOT be accepted (This means you should not burn your video to a DVD so that it will play in a DVD player, instead burn as a data disk.)  WMV, RM, MOV, OGV, and MKV files will also NOT be accepted.
• All videos should include at least 1 second of black space before and after the video.

• Digital Video File format specifications:
• Videos will be played on a large projection screen. As such, high quality will be expected. For the best results submitting a video that has at least a 640x480 resolution is required (or 640x352 if you are working with widescreen footage.) Submitting videos smaller then this (including using source smaller then this) will degrade the visual quality of the video, which may lead to disqualification.
• You may submit your video with compressed audio, however, your video may be disqualified if there are any problems converting the audio if you do not include an uncompressed wav along with your entry.
• If you are submitting the video via mailed physical media, you are encouraged to submit your lossless source file (HuffYUV, Lagarith- if it's uncompressed… you have more hard drive space than necessary…) in addition to your encoded file. If we end up needing to re-encode for any reason, it will look much better if we're doing that encode from a lossless source. Do not just send the lossless file- do a good quality compressed encode of it (MPEG2 or h.264 are good), just send along the lossless file AS WELL if there is space on your media.
• Aspect Ratio: The playback solutions we're considering should respect flags for standard and widescreen aspect ratios, but (especially if you're submitting on a data DVD) we would recommend including both a straight widescreen and a letterboxed version of the video if your video is edited in widescreen format.
• If you have any questions: ASK.

Contest Information:
• The contest will last 2 hours. In the event that we receive more videos then can fit in this time frame we will have to cut videos from the contest.
• Videos cut from the contest may be shown at an overflow showing of the contest.
• A listing of entries that made it into the contest will be announced at least within the week of the contest.
• The following awards will be given:
◦ Best of Show
◦ Staff Pick
◦ Best Action
◦ Best Drama
◦ Best Romance
◦ Best Comedy
◦ Best Upbeat
• In the case where a lack of entries are present in a category in order to compete, those videos will then be added to a similar category. Ex, Romance added to Drama, Upbeat added to Action.
◦ 2 or more videos will be required in each category for the category to compete.
• You do not need to be present to win. However the fastest means of receiving your award will be to either be present or have a proxy at the con to pick your award up for you.
◦ If you will have a proxy at the con to accept your award(s) send an email to the contest coordinator with the name of your proxy.
◦ The convention will mail out awards after the con to those who did not pick them up at con.
▪ The convention regrets to inform you that this courtesy can only be extended to entrants in the United States. All international entrants will have to send SASE (or cash for postage) in order to receive their award.

• You may submit entries to the following categories:
◦ Drama: Videos in this category seek to evoke emotional responses from viewers by the successful combination of music, video, and editing which usually involves dramatic subject matter or dramatic elements from the anime.
◦ Upbeat/Dance: Music Videos in the upbeat category are uplifting and have a beat that one can groove to.
◦ Comedy: Whether parody or just wacky content, videos in this category can be pretty successful as long as someone thinks it’s funny.
◦ Romance: Videos here are much like drama, except they focus on the relationships between two people. The aww factor plays heavily in this category.
◦ Action: Videos will focus on action whether that is fighting sequences, motions of characters, or fast paced colorful imagery. The key word here is adrenaline.

• The Ohayocon AMV Staff reserves the right to re-assign videos to a different category if we feel the video is more appropriate there. If this is deemed necessary, you will be informed ASAP and given the opportunity to explain why you think it belongs in the original category. If after this we still believe it is more appropriate in another category, you can either accept the category change or ask that the video be removed from the competition and shown as an exhibition-only entry.

Entry Submissions:
 
• All entries must contain an entry form. Those submitting multiple entries will need to submit a form for each video. The entry form will be announced when it is ready (should be within a week).
• We are working to try and provide an online solution (FTP) for you to submit your videos, but at the moment the details have not been worked out- so for now, plan on it having to be mailed.
• Send your video and printed entry form to:
◦ ATTN: Ohayocon 2010
◦ Robert Babcock
◦ 2157 Larkspur Drive
◦ Lexington, KY 40504
• Please make sure to include a printed copy of your entry form with your snail-mailed entry.
• The following media types will be accepted: CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-DL, DVD+DL. These discs should all be burned as DATA discs- if they are authored discs, they will be rejected.
• No form of magnetic tape media will be accepted
◦ Remember that all media submitted will not be returned. Do not send us your master copy.
• Label the disk with your name, the contest, and video number(s) that are on the disk.
• You may put multiple videos on a single disk.
• If there are any questions, please email us at amv@ohayocon.org

I will be posting additional information (such as the finished entry form...) as it becomes available. If you have any questions you can contact me via the listed email address, on the Ohayocon forums (I'm working on getting an AMV-specific sub-forum created), or via PM here on the 'org.

Good luck, and I'm looking forward to everyone's entries!

[ngsilver]

:shiftyeyes: these rules look really familiar.....

So you're the new guy this year.... good luck is about all I can say.... I'd offer to let you use my database system for taking entries if I didn't have it taken down to work on updating it in preparation for ACEN this year. If you want a listing of last year's videos/winners and info let me know.

I'll see what I can work up new for ya.

[Ashyukun]

Anything you've got would definitely be useful since I'm basically starting from a clean slate (rules aside... why mess with something if it works ). The database would be useful, but I'm working on an alternative as well since I don't have the capacity to really set up online submissions on my own.

[ngsilver]

/cross post from ohayocon forums

OK folks, here's the link to download the entry form for this year's contest:

Each video submitted must have one of these filled out and submitted along with it. Again- EACH VIDEO, not each person, needs an entry form- that means if you submit two videos and only one form- well, the video without a form would be DQ'd (if you didn't get the form in on time after I pointed out the mistake).

It's unfortunately not an editable PDF form- I don't have the software necessary to make one of those- so you'll either need to print it out and fill it out (which makes sense since you need to sign it anyway...) or use Photoshop or the likes to fill it out and scan in your signature. If you fill it out by hand, it needs to be legible. Granted, I can read bad handwriting pretty well owing to my own being truly disastrous, but please try and make it readable.

As always, if there are any questions, please feel free to ask.

Here's the form, but edited by myself so that you can freely type in it and then print it out to sign:

Ohayocon 2010 Editable Contest Entry Form

[Ashyukun]

Thanks Nate!

There's less than 30 days left until the deadline now, so hopefully everyone planning to enter is getting their video(s) finished up!

[Ashyukun]

There is now less than one week until the entries for the contest need to be in my hands! And with one week to go I have... a pitifully small number of entries. So if you're on the fence about submitting this year, stop debating about it and just send in your entry!

[ngsilver]

I've got a vid ready, I just can't drop it in the mail until tomorrow. You might get more if you could offer FTP or some other online submission format.

[Ashyukun]

Oh, I have little doubt we'd get at least a few more entries, but unfortunately it's just not ended up working out to get one running. It's not completely set in stone that the kinks won't get worked out, but betting on it and waiting is more likely either going to result in people paying too much to overnight their entries in or simply missing the deadline...

[Ashyukun]

So, the official deadline to have entries in my hands for the Ohayocon 2010 AMV Contest is tomorrow.

However, as at least some of you have to have noticed, the weather over the last few days (and for the next few as well) has been far from hospitable over the region where both I live and the con is to be held. As such, I'm not going to be anywhere near stringent about that deadline- I don't have any intention of excluding entries from those who have made their best effort to comply with the rules but that the weather may have interfered with. If you have any problems or need to work out anything regarding the submissions, please don't hesitate to either PM me here or email me at amv@ohayocon.org.

[Ashyukun]

So, the deadline for submissions has passed, and by and large the mail should have gotten caught up from any delays caused by the weather- and unfortunately we simply do not have enough submissions to have what I would consider as being a proper AMV Contest with what has been submitted so far. As such, the deadline will be extended for another week- entries will have to be in my hands by midnight a week from today (January 18). If you were on the fence about entering or couldn't finish up in time- you've got another shot at it. If you know anyone that was thinking about entering but didn't, talk them into it. Anyone who has already submitted their videos will also be allowed to get revised versions to me if there are any tweaks that you wanted to make but ran out of time.

Secondly, we were finally able to get a way to do FTP submissions running, though it ended up being after the original deadline. It's nowhere near as elegant as we'd like, but it does at least exist. I would have liked to have had it running from the get-go, but circumstances beyond my control kept that from happening. If you wish to submit a video via FTP, contact me at amv@ohayocon.org for the information. You will need a filled out electronic copy of the entry form along with your video itself. Also note that lossless or near-lossless submissions (DV, HuffYUV, Lagarith encoded) won't be accepted over the FTP for the simple fact they're just too big.

If you have any questions, either contact me at the amv@ohayocon.org address or via PM here on the forums. Thanks!