rogueintellectproductions wrote:
Scintilla wrote:Well, I'd been under the impression that, since instituting the different categories, 2004 was the only year they'd given a Best of Show award.
Wow, I guess I never paid attention to the contests before that. No, check that, I didn't pay attention to the ballots - though I think I still have them dating back to 1997 in a box somewhere.
From Pyson at the AMV panel on Saturday morning- the contest initially didn't even have categories. Eventually it became obvious that the comedic/upbeat entries were winning consistently, so they split it up so the serious and non-serious were separated. And then the action editors complained the the comedy was always blowing them away, and creators of dramatic videos that sappy, feel-good romance videos were unfairly paired with them. As such, the contest evolved over time into the 5 categories we have now, which seem to have worked pretty well despite some anomalies (trailers, for example, were dodged as a problem by classifying them as fan parodies and not AMVs).
There was not a 'Best of Show' award under Pyson (assuming my memory of this is right) because a) it was assumed- and demonstrated last year quite well- that Comedy would pwn the rest of the categories much of the time, b) it set Otakon apart from most other contests, many of which
do have Best of Show awards, and c) not having a 'Best of Show' means 5 editors walk away at the same level- 'Best of Show' makes one person really happy and 4 (usually Best of Show wins its category too) less happy. Honestly I like it better without the Best of Show, and am glad it was decided to go back to the more 'traditional' method this year. It really is hard to fairly compare between all the very different videos, and I think it's better to recognize people for being outstanding compared to videos of a similar intent (romance vs. romance, comedy vs. comedy, etc.)
Would have needed another DVD, though.
