Judging AMVs: a rigorous approach

Therax · Post by **Therax** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 10:55 am

I hear a lot of complaints about the state of AMV's:

Too many "clips" videos.
Too many "special effects" videos.
Too many "series-of-the-week" videos.

What I've taken way from hearing all these complaints is this: AMV's are getting more-and-more one-dimensional. There's a tendency to make an AMV that does one thing really well (be it a punchline or a new way of using a filter) to the detriment of everything else.

I think part of the problem is the audience voting system. "One-trick" videos play really well in a convention setting; audiences latch onto a single characteristic that defines a video, and vote based on that. "Oh, that was the Samurai Shamploo video," or "that was the one with the manga overlay bit in the middle."

Another contributing factor is the "Balkenization" of categories in contests. "It's a Comedy video, so as long as it's funny, it doesn't need anything else." "It's an Action video, so the story doesn't matter." "It's a Drama video, so it's okay if the timing is sloppy."

Personally, I like well-balanced videos. Sometimes these can be hard to categorize: videos with strong stories and plenty of effects and combat. Action or Drama? "Character profile" videos that can be funny, sad, and action-packed all at once.

I want videos that excel in all aspects. What do you want, and what makes your "perfect" video?

This question doesn't arise in isolation. I'm trying to start up an AMV Contest aimed at rewarding well-balanced videos, rather than "one-trick ponies" that stick in the mind of a convention audience:

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/phpBB/v ... hp?t=73087

I've been hoping for more feedback, because I'm not aware of anyone having tried to do something like this before. Do you think this is a direction that could lead to "better" videos winning contests? What do you love or hate about the judging system?

This is our community, we have the power to make it better.

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 11:00 am

Well, the first option to prevent bad audience judging is to have only a single audiance vote award and have the rest of the awards given out based on merits that a pannel of judges decide. Most audiences are sheep and will vote for some of the most god-awful pieces of crap because they like the song or are into the series. The best way to solve the problem is to seperate the ignorant masses from the awards.

AMV_4000 · Post by **AMV_4000** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 11:14 am

BasharOfTheAges wrote:Well, the first option to prevent bad audience judging is to have only a single audiance vote award and have the rest of the awards given out based on merits that a pannel of judges decide. Most audiences are sheep and will vote for some of the most god-awful pieces of crap because they like the song or are into the series. The best way to solve the problem is to seperate the ignorant masses from the awards.

But Penut Butter Jelly Time Set to Azumanga, although poorly edited, RAWKS!! Its getting my vote!

Linkin Park Set to Naruto also gets ALLL of my votes!

lets not forget ANY SONG set to FF7 Advent Children... These are ALL great video.. i dont care if they look like their being streamed from youtube and edited in 20 seconds.. they full of wins!!

in short i agree 100% to what you say.... Just go watch NTB...

AMV_4000 · Post by **AMV_4000** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 11:16 am

sorry for the dbl post, but did i mention ANY video that rips off AMV hell?? THOSE RULE!

JudgeHolden · Post by **JudgeHolden** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 12:54 pm

BasharOfTheAges wrote:Well, the first option to prevent bad audience judging is to have only a single audiance vote award and have the rest of the awards given out based on merits that a pannel of judges decide. Most audiences are sheep and will vote for some of the most god-awful pieces of crap because they like the song or are into the series. The best way to solve the problem is to seperate the ignorant masses from the awards.

But, are the Judges as many cons really any "better" than the masses. Honestly, I don't know. Just like an audiance, the judges come in with their own perconceived notions on AMVs and favor that "type" of video (whatever it may be). Anyway, that's my take on it at the moment.

JH

shumira_chan · Post by **shumira_chan** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 12:55 pm

Therax wrote:I've been hoping for more feedback, because I'm not aware of anyone having tried to do something like this before. Do you think th\
is is a direction that could lead to "better" videos winning contests? What do you love or hate about the judging system?

I think you should do without the contest aspect
altogether and simply post the detailed feedback
results. On the flip side, how can the submitters
judge the credibility of your panel? I'd be interested
in seeing your judging criteria in action on some
well-established vids. Say, how would your panel
review what it considers to be Caldwell's best and
worst videos?

JudgeHolden · Post by **JudgeHolden** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 12:55 pm

That should be "at many cons" .... Grrrrr

CodeZTM · Post by **CodeZTM** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 1:01 pm

Judges and members of the audience both have their prefrences. If they hate Ouran Host Club, they are not going to vote for it. I know from experience: Anything that has Berzerk in it automaticlly meets my recycle bin (except that segment in AMVH3). What you need to do is this: find a well-balanced team of judges that love a vareity of things. Then again, that's way too optimistic, huh?

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 1:29 pm

Well the trick is chosing the least biased judges.

Barring that, I'm sure there's a very detailed rubric you could generate that has questions in place that detect bias and change the values of the judge's scores accordingly. You have to assume everyone would be honest, or you'd have to have each judge hooked up to a polygraph machine durring the whole process and that gets expensive.

AMV_4000 · Post by **AMV_4000** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 1:30 pm

where as i do agree with what your saying, most audiences of amv showings have people who dont edit and dont watch amvs, the point i was trying to make is, i would rather be judged by someone who knows about amvs, someone who isnt just saying i like the song i like the anime, the editing sucks, but they win anyways... i would rather be judged as the song and video arent to my preference, their high quality, the editing is spot on, the effects are used nicely not distastfully, their not overused and the video is a good, well edited video!

some cosplayers who go in an amv room who's only introduction to amvs may be through youtube might think that a video is the best thing in the world (and if you've seen the reviews for some of my crappy videos that i put on youtube, you would agree) but when in reality its just like every linkin ball z video out there... I was trying to say that the judges were better then the masses only because if your going to judge an amv contest, i would expect that you know atleast SOMETHING about amvs...