Anime Boston - Con Rundown

[dokool]

Hey all, just got back into my dorm after an AMAZING two days in Bahston, Mass. I'm gonna start this rundown w/ the AMV stuff, then talk more about the con in general.

Winners - Anime Boston 2003 AMV Contest

I can't remember the titles of all the vids, but at least I do remember most of the song combos

Best Novice - Ruroni Kenshin OAVs/Hoobastank - Crawling In The Dark
Best Journeyman - Trigun/Garbage - When I grow Up
Best Master - Lain/Mirage (forget the artist, but the video was Mirage)
Best Action - Ruroni Kenshin/Garbage - Push It
Best Drama - Uber Depressing Video (She, the Ultimate Weapon/I Believe by those dudes)
Best Comedy - Fight! (Hello Kitty/Mortal Kombat)
Best of Show - Fight! (Hello Kitty/Mortal Kombat)

Much kudos and congrats to Tom the Fish for one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen. I know James of Dark Guyver Studios wasn't happy with the results, which I can understand, as they were pretty mainstream, but I'll let him air his grievances. As far as my grievances...

The Evangelion/Excalibur vid was amazing and deserved either best Action or Novice. The second Grave of the Fireflies vid (Dreams was the song, I believe) got ripped as well, it was much more cohesive than the first GotF vid. The Berserk vid got shafted as well, as did James' NTHT/Modest Mouse vid. I do agree with him (James) in that the results were very mainstream. Two Kenshin vids and two vids with music by Garbage. I think what dissapoints me is that I know that with some effort, I could do as well as any of the vids (except for Mirage, which will need more After Effects mastery)

The AMVs: Do's & Dont's panel went well, though I don't think we gave nearly as much advice as we needed to. Perhaps next year, whoever's running it should ask ConStaff for 1.5 or 2 hours. Much thanks to Greg (NeilPeartnoy), Lyndsey (kiarrens), Kai, Tom, and my co-host, Rob (Ashyukun). I handed out over half of my AMV cds after the panel, and stayed behind afterwards and ended up getting a great seats for the ADV panel =)

At the Clubhouse, me, Greg, and Lyndsey were standing outside the room for 15 minutes, b/c we thought that the MIT club meeting was spilling over. Then we asked who the people inside were with, and it turned out to be Kai, Tom, and another guy (can't remember his name). That was... slightly embarassing, but it was cool.

Random things I'm just gonna throw out there:

The ADV panel was absofuckinlutely packed. When they announced that they'd picked up Azumanga Daioh, this guy behind me just SCREAMED, it was hilarious. "YEAH!!!!" Then he kept screaming. Then I turned around and said something like "Guys, I think he came." That shut him up REAL fast.

Then the ADV guy asked us to figure out what the next announced release would be. I instantly threw out "Evangelion remastered!" He hit play.

Evangelion Episodes 21-26: Director's Cut. Rawk.

Magical Shopping Street Abenobashi looks interesting, as does Kaleidostar.

Greg and I both got Tiffany Grant to do our voicemail as Asuka. *swoons*

If you people think that dealer room was small, I can't even imagine what a REGULAR dealer room looks like.

s-CRY-ed looks cool as well.

Cosplayers under the age of 15 should not be allowed to expose more than their arms, 1 inch above their knees, and their head, and should be given a 2-pound minimum for clothing. Case in point, the Yuna from FFX-2. 13 years old and a centimeter or two away from being child pr0n. That said, I was so impressed with the quality of cosplay that I may even do it myself one day. No idea what character i'd do, though.

There's a lot more, but overall, I had a blast. Finally, an announcement:

Third Lens Open Productions will do something for O--

::runs to website, checks deadline, realizes that I'd only have about a week after school ends to make the video I have in mind, which will definately take >1 week::

Okay, Third Lens Open Productions will not do something for Otakon. But we've got plans. Big ones.

If other posters spur my memory, then I'm sure I'll post some more stuff here. In the meantime, I want to thank everyone who was there for making my first 'con experience an amazing one.

-DOKool

[Lonley Driver]

I had a great time at Anime Boston too and I got to meet some of the people behind the AMVs. I wish I knew there was a clubhouse, I would have stopped by and introduced myself to some more people.

I thought the AMV panel was good, but it was a little unorganized, and it definitely could have been longer. I thought the most interesting part was the demo of AE and how Ashyukun did his Star Wars trailer. I've been on the fence as to whether or not to buy a copy for myself.

As for the winners, though I was dissapointed I didn't win, I thought the right videos got the right awards, and I wasn't surprised by the results. It would be fun to see the runner ups though. Anyway, overall I thought the whole con was a lot of fun.

-David

[mckeed]

Well.....i was kinda bummed when i got the email that my video went into the finals that it was easter weekend....damn familily holidays. Now i'm even more pissed that it won best drama. That video was one of those things i had to make when i saw Saikano.

The Artist is Blessed Union of Souls btw. How was the rest of the drama category? What was the general reaction to the video? Did ppl like my the added audio from the series?

[spike8986]

I had a pretty fun time at the dance and makeing a total ass out of myself. Half you people dun know who i was but i was wearing a darkguyverstudios shirt and i made the hugest ass out of myself EVER! but i did have made fun. Which is all the really matter.

i thought the amv contest was bullcrap. People won with vids that i seen better Dbz linkin park vids to. No offense to anyone.

[TaranT]

...(except for Mirage, which will need more After Effects mastery) ...

Sorry, I don't use After Effects . Mirage was done entirely with an old version (v2.0) of Video Vegas.

AB sounds like it was good time. Used to live in Cambridge myself. Springtime on the banks of the Charles was always the best.

And Fight! sounds completely outrageous...downloading now.

I've updated the contests lists with the AB contest results (see below).

[Freako]

beh ..... AB was pretty good for what it was .... an overcrowded con. Waiting in line for the dealer room??? Needless to say, after 2 hours in registration , I skipped out on buying anything. so ill go down my list i guess


-13 years old??? (damn i feel like a pervert now)
-Line for a crowded, armpit smellling dealer room? NOT a good idea.
-too many video rooms, not enough AMV overflow. (the great thing about otakon is that you could basically find some AMVs to watch no matter what time of the day it was)
- Tristen Citrine needs to leave her husband and come live with me. (damn baby)
-13 years old ?????
-the hotel staff looked like they were deer in the headlights of a Mack truck. (someone double booked a wedding in the lobby for saturday, LOL ... needless to say .. things did not go well.)
- did I mention 2 hours to register (in the dumbest set-up I have ever seen, -wait in line-get badge-go back further to a new line to get it laminated.) wouldn't be so bad if they had put the lamination center AFTER the registration entry.
- 13 ??????????????????????????????????????????
- after an event starts ...... you can leave .... but can't come back in ???? WTF kind of a rule is that ?? (what if i have to pee?)
- VIP seating in the balcony , WHEN THERE IS NO ONE SITTING UP THERE!!!
- no video taping the AMV contest ?? F U
- 13 ???????? 13 ?????? 13 ??????
-no offense to anyone who entered the AMV contest ..... but i only watched like 7 vids ... most were unwatchable.. (who the hell thought that an 8 minute video set to the score from "the Goonies" would be good? ... well guess what ? YOU WERE WRONG.)
-Voltron still kicks ass.
- Tristine !!!! Email ME !!!!
- seriously though .............................. 13?



con approval rating : B
Not bad for a first year con .... but definately a long way to go. Im not gonna give props to the AB staff, because im sure they are getting all sorts of praise now . Instead Im going to give MAD props to the staff of Hotel, who (despite the lack of tipping) managed to keep things moving relatively smooth. We probably won't see you next year .( Im betting they will not be allowed back). BUt Thank you.


Freako
Assailant Studios
.

[Red Wolf]

I've updated the contests lists with the AB contest results (see below).

Dude, I didn't even know that site existed. That would have been real useful to me last year. It is safely bookmarked now

[dokool]

-13 years old??? (damn i feel like a pervert now)

Yes, 13.

-the hotel staff looked like they were deer in the headlights of a Mack truck. (someone double booked a wedding in the lobby for saturday, LOL ... needless to say .. things did not go well.)

The final total for registered people was over 3,800. They were expecting 2,000. I loved the deer-in-the-headlights look of the hotel staff and the non-AB patrons more, though

VIP seating in the balcony , WHEN THERE IS NO ONE SITTING UP THERE!!!
- no video taping the AMV contest ?? F U

Yeah, the "press seating" was woefully underused. And due to the gray legal area of AMVs, not taping the contest is COMPLETELY understandable.

-no offense to anyone who entered the AMV contest ..... but i only watched like 7 vids ... most were unwatchable.. (who the hell thought that an 8 minute video set to the score from "the Goonies" would be good? ... well guess what ? YOU WERE WRONG.)

I counted 4 false endings. I think eventually the audience wanted so much to believe it was over each time, which is why they clapped. The One Piece videos both used thte same cuts, which is kinda why it got old fast.

[Ashyukun]

OK, assuming we're all thinking of the same girl- and I didn't see a whole lot of Yunas all told, the one who probably couldn't bend over for fear of her top violating public decency laws, was THIRTEEN? Damn. I find it extremely frightening and wrong that a girl less than half my age (and I"m not that old) dresses that skimpily and looks that good. I'm beginning to think Minor cosplayers should have to wear special tags or something- I seem to remember someone saying that one of the Mai cosplayers (wearing an extremely accurate representation of the costume...) from Katsu was only 15.

As for the rest of the con, I thought it went extremely well. Admittedly, I did not have to deal with the whole registration problem- I was tech staff. The con just simply was not wholly prepared for the nearly 4,000 people that came. The coordinators just didn't expect that big of a turnout for a first-year convention. The had the attendance stats for the other large cons on hand at the 'gripe' session... AX didn't get 3,800 people until their sixth year. For as many people as were there and as much as was going on, I thought it went extremely well.

There are almost always lines for dealers rooms... there's not much you can do about that. Just like lines for everything else. As much as lines suck, they beat mob scenes rushing the doors.

I missed the whole wedding thing- OUCH. Of course, if I'd ended up with that happening for my wedding I likely would have badgered the hotel staff to get the con to comp my wife and I badges for the day, pull my wife's hair up into Odango and stick a crescent moon-shaped sticker on her forehead and cosplay as King Endemion and Queen Serenity.

I'll keep my mouth shut about the actual tech running of the main AMV contest showing- largely because, well, I was the one running things for it Major props to Pat for the AMV DVDs the contest was run off of. They were quite cool.

Overall, I enjoyed the contest, and could not wholly argue with the winners. Especially not Tom's "Fight!". It was seriously wrong and thus extremely funny and good. As for the apparent 'popularity' of the winning videos- you have to remember, this was and audience vote based contest. People- especially those not really skilled at the nuances of editing and AMVs as we are- will be more likely to vote for what they like over what may be better edited. It's the nature of people. And to an extent, I think we're guilty of it as well. I know Dan is a big Eva fan, so it's not a real surprise he really liked the Eva/Excaliber video (which is not me saying I didn't- I did). Conversely, this contest was the first I'd seen a single frame of One Piece. Even the long song aside, I had a hard time getting into either one, because what was going on was pretty much lost on me. Of course, I've not seen "She the Ultimate Weapon" either- but that video I did pretty much get.

I was very pleased with how the panel went. I would have loved more time, and assuming we do it again next year, I may ask for it. But I think we still managed to go over a good amount in the time we had. I had a lot of fun running the panel, and hope I didn't hog too much of the time talking myself.

As for there not being AMVs running all the time- maybe next year, if/when there is more room. I would be willing to put serious money on the con not being in the same hotel next year as well- not because of them not wanting us back- but because it wasn't big enough. Registration closed down at noon on Saturday because we had reached the capacity of people that fire codes would allow us to have. Next year I am sure it will be someplace with a lot more space.

There were actually AMVs shown in one of the video rooms yesterday afternoon, as there was a problem with one of the DVDs and I got asked to drag my laptop in and play random AMVs for the remaining 2 hours or so until the room was supposed to close. It drew in far more people than had been watching the DVD that had been playing. I am sure next year there will be a few DVDs of AMVs on hand to use as filler and possibly more AMV showings in rooms.

Next to finally, we were told after closing ceremonies that CNN did a segment on Anime Boston on Saturday night, and most of us didn't even know they were there...

Finally. Thirteen??? Damn.

[sherlock hemlock]

Heya everyone,

Well here's my thoughts on Anime Boston. Sure yeah signup lines sucked. I came in on thursday to pick up my pre-registration, took about an hour and a half to two hours. Bleck. Glad I got it out of the way though.

AMV wise, I did vote the FIGHT video as best comedy (where can I download that btw ) but I would have rather seen somthing else win for best of show. It seems kinda anticlimactic for one video to win 2 categories. The Lain video was a shoe in for best of class as there were only 2 possible candidates. The one piece vids dissapointed me, as I'm in love with the series. The bigest dissapointment was the Eva to Chop Suey one. When I heard the song I instantly felt that it was like the Shinji Theme, but I expected the video to play more on the interpersonal psycological aspects of Eva... So the person made a video of Evas fighting. Sigh.... Also, having seen the Saikano series, while the saikano video was good, the series horrified me and the video just didn't stress the right things at the right times. I guess what I mean is that the video seemed like it was trying to emphasize that sometimes love isn't enough to make things work out and to survive, which could be applied to the themes of the series which was very emotionally powerful and sad. I felt like the video didn't do that aspect of the series justice enough.

The dealers room was well... Yes crowded but also not enough dealers. Mostly each dealer was offering completely different things, which sorta kills the shop around aspect of things, or when one dealer runs out of somthing, you might still have a chance to find it kinda thing.

Gaming wise I played some Soul Calibur 2. I dunno um... seemed kinda weak to me. I guess I'm just bad at it cause I hate to just write off anything soul calibur. I got in some good games of magic though and that was nice. ^_^

the cosplay show was a slow motion train wreck! The guy couldn't pronounce anything correctly, the acts weren't ready and most of the time when they were ready it was horribly cheezy and badly put togeather scit wise. Some of the costumes were inredible, but the jokes oh the jokes! honestly, most of the more impressive costumes were worn by people I saw walking around the convention who weren;t in the show. Although, seeing that beautifuly constructed Gundam thing not be able to get down the stairs... priceless.