Post
by VicBond007 » Wed Aug 11, 2021 7:42 pm
Still getting the energy to make ye olde official post, but figured I'd jump in before rumors started spreading.
The categories were squashed due to a lack of qualifying submissions that could be placed in those categories WITHOUT making the category lopsided.
When we judge, the 16 of us individually rank each video from 1-5. Those votes are then averaged and that gives the video a score. There is no "passing score". The scores are sorted highest to lowest, and I keep scooping videos off of the top until we fill a 2 hour list (after title cards). This obviously creates a "minimum" score, but that minimum score shifts around from year to year (it's not like: "score 3.0 or higher and make finals!")
The score is a heavily-weighted suggestion, but unlike the Youtube algorithm, it's not the end-all qualifier, there's still a human using those scores to make a decision (me. I'm the human). For instance, if we only had 2 categories, and there were 20 drama and 15 romance, I might start removing the lower scoring drama qualifiers in favor of some higher scoring non-qualifying romance videos, just to balance the contest better. This is almost always how "best non-finalist" is determined. It's usually one of that videos that scored "high enough" to get in, but had to get cut to even out the categories. If I didn't do this, the romance/sentimental category would usually be an hour long because for whatever reason, those videos tend to score higher than videos in other categories.
HOWEVER, I'd only "rebalance" from a pool of videos which scored CLOSE to making finals. If I have to reach too far down the pile, the quality of the final product could suffer, and that's basically what happened this year. We got some outstanding trailers/upbeat videos, but not enough to create a fair category. We would have had to cut much better videos in other categories, to make room for videos that wouldn't stand a chance.
The categories were NOT cut due to budget issues. If that were the case, AMV Theater would have been cut entirely because our department (and I think a lot of programming) had their funding cut to $0 so that Otakon stood a chance at coming back in 2022. AMV Theater 2021 was paid for by AMV Theater staff, and that includes the contest trophies...which were purchased before the final videos were decided (since we pushed the contest deadline past the "safety" deadline for trophy reprints). So, not only were they in the "budget", I have the awards for both non-existent categories at my house.
I didn't WANT to cut the categories (it royally screwed up the timings in the intro, and the last thing I want to do is MORE WORK!) but it was really the only way to put on the best 2 hours that we could.
"With free bagels we can live like Kings!...Kings who have to pay for their own castle in order to get the free bagels!" - Omar Jenkins
of the Seventh Bond, in the darkness of his lair, perched comfortably atop his pile of AMV prizes, and slept until the next Otakon was nigh, and he could claim yet newer and cuter prizes to add to his collection.
For me that just means he couldn't beat my video in Trailers again for another con.