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The joys of Telephony
2003-07-24 17:39:40
Among other things I've been doing lately I've been working up Openings & Closings for the tapes of music videos we'll be showing at Otakon 2003.
For those who are interested this means two for the Contest and each of the seven tapes comprising all the submissions received for the Otakon AMV Contest (over 180). That's 16 little mpeg2 files ("little" being a relative term, used here for humorous effect) plus half a dozen assorted category bumpers.
Right now my computer at home is dilgently stuffing them all into a 56K modem on their way to Georgia. I set it up to grind away at this tedious process this morning on my way to work. Most probably it won't get all the way through the list before the line craps out, but the files are "small" enough (by amv standards anyway) that having to restart the upload will not mean a total failure but partial success. So when I restart it tonight when I go to bed, it'll just mean queueing up the tail end of the list again.
Note to self: move to someplace where cable modem is available. -
Milepost in the Rear-View Mirror
2003-06-30 13:35:03
Whoof. The Pre-Convention AMV Screenings for Otakon 2003 are over. One more 'Final' task to check off my list of 'Things to Do Before' that is completed.
It's a big deal for me because running the pre-screenings is a lengthy process that requires a lot of attention to detail, almost more than producing the AMV Contest itself. Over 180 AMVs have to have been received, acknowledged, digitized, and then put on tapes so they can be evaluated, all in just 4 weekends.
Hats off to Quu of OtakuVideo (Patrick Bohnet) for pushing himself to get the 7 tapes of AMV submissions done just in time, every time. Thanks to the AMV makers who sent in their AMVs in the first place, and showed up to give their honest opionions about the submissions in the second place. Gratitude to the Anime Clubs and Otakon Staff who hosted the pre-screenings when they could have been out playing in the sunshine.
Now it's time for me to get back to work and tally up all the evaluations, weed out the DQs, and get the contest tape made and checked, and re-checked. -
The Count
2003-04-14 19:04:46
The Count is 6, and the Star Force has 47 days to return from Iscandar.
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Final Otakon (for Matt, anyway)
2003-03-25 23:32:29
Otakon 2003 will be my last year handling Otakon's Anime Music Video Screenings & Contest.
Ten years. That's how long it's been since Otakon started out as a tiny little anime convention in Middle-of-Nowhere, Central Pennsylvania. That's how long there have been AMVs at Otakon. That's how long I've been involved with the AMVs at Otakon.
The first three years I just helped out Mitch and Bill with the AMVs: kibbitzing about the submission rules, previewing entries, duping tapes... whatever needed to be done. After the third year I asked for the responsibility of handling the 1997 AMV contest myself, and was given it.
Since then every year I've tried to improve something about the contest: better-looking slates during screenings to identify the entries, adding an opening & closing segment to the contest tape, doing the master tape on SVHS instead of VHS, lobbying for bigger video rooms for the AMV screenings at the con, adding multiple categories to the contest so that more people could win recognition, putting a history of every year's AMV submitters & winners on the convention's web site, adding a recap at the end of the contest to help voters remember their favorites, making overflow screening tapes & getting them shown at the con so that everyone's AMV could still be seen, running off dozens of dups of the contest for the submitters who really wanted them, AMV panels. Whatever needed to be done.
Since then anime has grown, fandom has grown, and Otakon has grown. The con has moved from State College, Pennsylvania to Baltimore, Maryland and has seen its yearly membership grow from 350 in 1994 to 12,900 members in 2002. And as the con grew, so the music video contest grew with it. The 1994 AMV Contest had 15 AMVs in it (three of them non-competes from staffers to make the contest bigger) while the 2001 contest set an Otakon record of 155 AMVs submitted for consideration. While the bulk of submissions come from Maryland and Pennsylvania and New Jersey, there are submissions from many other states, and even other countries in recent years.
Over the years the AMV Contest has given me precious opportunities to meet and even sometimes befriend the people who made the AMVs that meant something special to me, and made me decide that devoting my Springs, Summers, and Autumns to an AMV Contest was a worthy and worthwhile endeavor. In particular, Duane Johnson, who I first knew of only as a guy who made great music videos, then later as a talented and decent friend, and finally as a dedicated collaborator in producing Otakon's last several AMV Contests.
So my time has been well-spent, I think. But it's been a a lot of time and there's been a lot of stress involved in the spending of it. A lot of distance covered in all that time. Now it is time for me to make my final bow, accept the applause, boos, or indifference people see fit to bestow, and then hand over the responsibility for Otakon's AMVs in 2004 to someone else.
Otakon's theme for this tenth anniversary convention is Nostalgia, the wistful remembrance of past times that is both fond and bitter-sweet.
It's just a coincidence, really. -
<Don't Think That We're Not Trying>
2002-03-25 15:55:32
I'm still new to this whole web site thing, so I've been kind of slow in using all the nifty features Phade has incorporated into A-M-V.org.
It's superstitious, but whenever I run across a new piece of software, there's this hesitancy I have to really unleash all the features at once. There are trust issues at the root of it all, but that's an issue for another entry.
Despite all the hesitancy, I've managed to do a number of things so far: create my own userid, get logged in, make a profile, read & post to some forums, and start my own journal. I'm getting the hang of this.
So finally I got around to using the actual main feature of this site: entering an anime music video into the grand catalog. Marking my territory. Standing up to be counted. All that kind of stuff. Even found out that the song I had used hadn't been done before by anyone else here, so I can justify a little Happy Dance the next time I feel in the mood.
The experience was kind of like wandering around the edge of the pool wondering just *how* cold that water is and then, after jumping in, realizing that thinking about it didn't make the water any warmer. On the other hand, I also think that anybody who volunteered to taste-test potentially poisonous berries in a tribe of wandering hunter/gatherers didn't last very long.
Final result is, now that I've thought about 'My First Video' for the first time in a couple of years, it makes me realize just how long it's been since I finished a personal video project; something not directly related to staffing at Otakon. At least it's something that I can fix myself.
After I get all that stuff done for the con.
JOURNAL: Cybermat (Matt Pyson)
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