Anime Expo AMV - Farewell & thanks for the memories

[Yuusharo]

Well they couldn't have won an award in any previous contest so that made it worse as well.

Uh if that's the case, what's "bury a friend" doing there? Assuming it's the same video that won at Sakura Con...

Ruh roh

[Rider4Z]

It got 2nd place overall at Otafest too

[Ileia]

Friendly reminder that “Bury A Friend” is a song title and even a cursory YouTube search of “bury a friend” “amv” returns quite a few results. Just, yknow, before conclusions get jumped to.

[XStylus]

Friendly reminder that “Bury A Friend” is a song title and even a cursory YouTube search of “bury a friend” “amv” returns quite a few results. Just, yknow, before conclusions get jumped to.

Nope, I've gotten confirmation that it's the same video.

Thank you for informing us about the matter.

Our team was already aware that "bury a friend" won an award at SakuraCon 2019 for Best Drama. The creator informed us about it in their submission application. The same video also received a runner-up mention in the Artistic Category at Anime Next 2019. It would certainly be an embarrassment for us not to accept this well executed project into the 2019 Anime Expo AMV Competition.

These creators work very hard on their AMV projects all throughout the year. To automatically disqualify an AMV because it recently won an award at a previous contest weeks prior to our competition accepting submissions seemed unfair to us. The creator was gracious enough not to submit their AMV for consideration in the Drama Category in our competition, instead, decided to submit in a less competitive category. Now if the AMV had won an award at SakuraCon 2018 or any other contest from previous years prior to 2019 then it definitely would be held in violation.

With that being said, our team made an exception and gave "bury a friend" a chance. It was carefully reviewed, judged, and ultimately it was selected to continue on as a finalist. We are proud to host this AMV along with the other finalists for this year's competition.

[Scintilla]

Your entry must not have won any awards at other live events or anime conventions in the United States.

Are you freaking kidding me. This was about as unambiguous as you could get (emphasis mine).

[PieandBeer]

edit: its come to my attention that the AX coordinators didnt even make a thread this year so this is just me yelling at the clouds hoping they see it haha

yo its fine if you wanna get rid of the anti-trolling/freshness rule given the quality and quantity of videos you got in, but don't give us a bullshit excuse.

AX coordinators, you were put in a shitty situation and we editors sympathize with you. however, you have to understand that there is a level of trust that exists between contest coordinators and editors. editors want to know that you will follow your own rules and that there's nothing shady going on behind the scenes so we know our editing and submitting efforts won't be for nothing. since you're new coordinators, you need to build that trust with us and i'm gonna be real, ignoring your own rules to let in a video that has already gotten recognition and framing it as respecting "creators working hard" is nooooot how you do it. We all work hard. We all have to follow the rules.

Not dunking on the editor, because i'm sure the video is great and getting into AX is/was an awesome feeling. I just think acknowledging that you got less vids than you anticipated and had to adjust your rules to ensure quality vids got in is a way better look than trying to sneak by saying it won /weeks/ before entries were open and hoping we don't mind. like that scenario is a super common occurrence in the amv community. that's the nature of all major cons with award rules, it's not an exception. again i'm not crusading to get the video taken out of finals, because i don't think its the editors fault beyond not reading the rules closely. it's the responsibility of the coordinators to not have this situation happen or at least own up to it when it does.

also just adding in case you don't know. the reason why a lot of well-known editors didn't enter is because of how AX treated the contest, not because of any grudge against you guys! we wanna see a great contest at AX, but it's tough when we see the con treat the contest so poorly and set you guys up to fail D:

[Vlad G Pohnert]

wow... I had a video once that someone called out the freshness rule on I missed and I had to pull it out of the finals to be fair. In the end you need to be as fair as possible especially if you going to have a freshness rules that spells it out clearly.

I've never met the new coordinator, nor do I know anything about him so It's hard to comment. However I am concerned about thew response he gives and what message that sends. Another think I do not understand is how putting it into another category (really?) makes it OK in regard to the trolling rule for not winning a award prior.

Shame really, AX's contest was respected by fellow creators. All one can now hope for is the current coordinator keeps it there. I also wonder how the contest was judged within the past two weeks from from the deadline (just curious).

Vlad

[Castor Troy]

AX is too cool for the rules.

[Tigrin]

Now if the AMV had won an award at SakuraCon 2018 or any other contest from previous years prior to 2019 then it definitely would be held in violation.

[Kazemon15]

A contest that can't even follow its own rules? This is gonna be fun...