JOURNAL: ErMaC

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  • Seijikin = Brian of Anime Expo's AMV Contest... 2002-07-10 19:51:00 [16:38] ErMaCStudios: Hey
    [16:38] seijikin: hey
    [16:39] ErMaCStudios: I talked with James on sunday before I left
    [16:39] ErMaCStudios: and he said he never had gotten an answer from the judges as to why they DQ'd my video and not the Excel Scat one
    [16:39] ErMaCStudios: has there been any discussion regarding this?
    [16:39] ErMaCStudios: I would like to know why it was disqualified
    [16:41] seijikin: you were disqualified for content. The judges did not feel excel scat crossed their line. Each video was judged on its own merits.
    [16:41] seijikin: we'll be going back to our judging instructions and cleaning up a number of things but that doesn't mean your video would not be disqualfied again.
    [16:42] ErMaCStudios: I do not plan on entering it again anyway
    [16:43] ErMaCStudios: but I feel that judging the video based on criteria that were not outlined in the rules beforehand is not fair
    [16:43] seijikin: that is a decision which is completely under your control
    [16:43] ErMaCStudios: the point of rules of such a kind is to remove any sort of subjective decision from the process. If the judges made a subjective decision about which videos went in then the rules were inadequate.
    [16:44] seijikin: I will not argue this point with you the judges made their determination
    [16:44] ErMaCStudios: the fact that Excel Saga had a penis shadow, and a pulsing penis (both from ep 26 of Excel Saga which was not even shown on Japanese TV) makes me question their methods
    [16:44] seijikin: the judges did not make a subjective decision, your video was not compared with any other video which was disqualifed for contest
    [16:44] seijikin: perhaps that is true, does that mean your video should have made it? no it means that excel scat should not have made it
    [16:45] ErMaCStudios: I'm not saying it was compared. But based on the video alone, it did not break the guidelines as outlined on your site, which talked about being "EXPLICIT". There is nothing explicit
    [16:45] ErMaCStudios: the fact is I mailed you ahead of time to clarify this point
    [16:46] ErMaCStudios: and to then have the judges grade upon standards which were not outlined ahead of time seems unfair
    [16:46] seijikin: and I told you then it was the determination of the judges did I not
    [16:46] seijikin: All Videos must conform to standards of decency. Videos containing excessive
    violence, explicit sexual behavior, or excessively explicit lyrics will be disqualified.
    Reasonable violence, brief nudity and adult language are allowed in context and
    moderation. Standards are determined by the Special Judges in consultation with the
    Anime Music Video Contest Coordinators. Any and all decisions made by this body are
    final.
    [16:47] ErMaCStudios: And the standards did not fit the results, is what I'm saying
    [16:47] ErMaCStudios: er the rules
    [16:47] seijikin: You'll want to reread your definition of explict and excessive
    [16:47] ErMaCStudios: excessive wasn't listed under sexual behavior
    [16:47] ErMaCStudios: only explicit
    [16:47] ErMaCStudios: I read very carefully before submitting
    [16:48] ErMaCStudios: Explicit: Fully and clearly expressed; leaving nothing implied.
    [16:48] ErMaCStudios: I think the whole POINT of my video was ambiguity
    [16:48] seijikin: Fully and clearly defined or formulated: “generalizations that are powerful, precise, and explicit”
    [16:48] ErMaCStudios: there is nothing that is shown, EVERYTHING is implied
    [16:50] ErMaCStudios: Anyways, my point is that the judges decisions were not outlined ahead of time. It is unfair to write down these rules, and then disqualify a video based upon standards not posted. I have no way of being able to read the judges mind to determine what their "Standards" are. These should be posted ahead of time
    [16:50] ErMaCStudios: I followed the standards as posted ahead of time
    [16:50] ErMaCStudios: there is nothing explicit
    [16:50] ErMaCStudios: and there is nothing that lists excessive under sexual content
    [16:50] seijikin: ermac, this conversation is over, just as I said in our previous conversation the decision has been made. If you have constuctive critisms beyond what we have discussed that do not apply to a video which as already been disqualifed your welcome to bring them up.
    [16:50] ErMaCStudios: yes
    [16:51] ErMaCStudios: Have the judges follow the damn rules next time, not their own rules of decency
    [16:51] ErMaCStudios: that's all
    [16:51] *** seijikin signed off at Wed Jul 10 16:51:11 2002.
     
  • AX 2002 Report 2002-07-08 05:42:54 After a long 8 hour drive home (4th of July weekend traffic up the 5 freeway) I'm back and since my internal clock is so messed up I figure I'll write my report now.

    If you want to get right to the AMV parts scroll down to the spacer like this: -----------

    July 3rd

    I flew down Wednesday at Noon and stopped by my apartment to pack the last of my stuff. I'm moving all my stuff up to my parents place in NorCal (where I sit now) for the time I'm in Japan starting at the end of this month. I spent about 3 hours loading everything I could into my car and throwing out all the garbage that I couldn't or didn't want to take. After all this, I headed off to Long Beach. I parked in the Hyatt structure because no one was working the booth and thus it was free! Yay. Had to move it later, but anyways...

    I go to get my badge since it's about 6:20 and I don't have to be at Rock Bottom for the AMV creators get-together for another hour. Registration went fast, although it still puzzles me why the Paid Pre-Registration line moved slower than the other two lines... But I didn't have to wait very long anyways and got my badge. I headed down to grab un-labeled/un-inserted DVDs to finish up with Brad later and head to Rock Bottom.

    At Rock Bottom I got to meet a buncha people. Apparently I'm fairly well known amongst the newer AMV creators, which is nice. Brad shows up with my first batch of 20 finished DVDs and I managed to distribute somewhere between 10 and 15 to all the creators. The meeting itself is great. The food was decent (albeit overpriced) but the best part was hanging out with everyone including Troy, Sean, Vlad, Brad, Tim, Ben, Peter, Carlos, CasterTroy (whose real name I am unable to remember), and a bunch of other people whose names escape me at the moment (the girl who did the parody dub, the group of guys sitting at the table including the guy who dressed up as Vash the next day).

    We chatted for a good two hours when we finally decided to head out. Ben and some of his friends went off to see Men in Black 2 but I had to go with Brad to finish prep on my DVDs. Back at his hotel room we cut the covers and put the labels on the batch of discs I had brought with me to bring my total DVDs that I brought to AX to 38. Brad thought I was crazy for bringing that much. Muhauhahhaha.

    Vlad and Vanessa come up to the room eventually and we have a good time looking over the photos they took from their trip to JACON. Some great stuff. After that Vlad and I went back to his place to see if Tim had arrived (Vlad and Tim were rooming together, those wacky canucks). Sadly he hadn't, but I got to see Vlad's Otakon video in all it's full glory on the TVs in the hotels (which weren't that bad, although they didn't have stereo jacks for sound). I must say I can't see how his video WON'T win at Otakon. And after seeing some of the Drama entries in the Finals at AX I seriously doubted the integrity and/or credentials of the judging staff...

    Tim finally showed up around 12:15, and we chewed the fat for about an hour. Lots of fun, Vlad and Tim are both great guys and being able to talk with greats like them is always thoroughly enjoyable. I then headed back to Ben's hotel room, where he was letting me crash that night as my other room was not available yet (I was staying with some people but the room was only rented Thursday-Sunday). Again big thanks to him. I had some guy in his room (please forgive me for forgetting your name!) say he really liked my "I Pray" video, which is the first time I've like EVER been told that in person. Usually people always like Closer or The End of Me, but this guy went right for the heart. Thanks, dude, you have no idea how much that compliment meant to me.

    July 4th

    I get up so late that I miss the opening ceremonies for the most part, which sucks because I wanted to see Youko Ishida and the ParaPara girls, but oh well. What that did let me do was get into the Dealers room before anyone else and entirely avoid the line! w00t!! I must say the dealers room at AX kicked much ass, although the amount of bootleggers there was disturbing. I mentioned their existence to the folks at the Pioneer booth and they said they'd try to do something, but the fact that ALL of them were still there on Sunday spoke volumes of AX's policy against bootlegging. I was not pleased in that respect...

    Anyways, the Wherehouse Music booth in Pioneer's area was selling the ParaPara MAX CDs for only $20 a piece!! I was like OH MY GOD that's cheap! I bought PPMax 3, 4, 5, and Mecha Max. They didn't have Bishoujo MAX so I had to go to the Anime Jungle booth to get that (got it for $28). Pioneer is the Japanese publisher of the albums so I figure that's how they got 'em so cheap, and probably why Ishida-san and her cohorts were at the Con. Also I found a Read or Die folder which is just too uber-kawaii for words. Chibi-Yomiko!!! *ErMaC melts* Those were my only purchases on the first day.

    Thursday afternoon I wind up hanging with some friends for a good chunk of the day, then heading to the Arcade room and playing some DDR MAX2, which was rather lackluster I must say. They were using a DDR USA machine modded to MAX 2, but the problem is the USA machines have inferior dance pads attached to them (they take more force to activate and dip + move when you step on them, they aren't solid). Still managed to do pretty well, but the lines were so horribly long that it just wasn't worth it, especially not for $1.50 a game!

    The whole day I'm trying to get a hold of the person whose room I'm supposed to be staying in. My friend Kevin knows her and gave me her Cell Phone # but had apparently given it to me wrong so I couldn't call her. I was worried about not having a place to sleep! Finally he returns my call around 10PM and I figure out where I'm supposed to stay. Whew.

    Earlier in the afternoon I had met up with Nic Neidenbach and Troy, and we had gone out to eat lunch. You wouldn't believe how eager Troy was to talk about his video, he was really excited, but Nic and I both pleaded with him to let us have the experience fresh when we saw it at the contest.

    July 5th

    It was the best of days, it was the worst of days.

    It begins with me waking up late again (see a trend here?). I go down and get something to eat with some friends and hit the dealers room. One of my friends bought this really nifty Chinese silk shirt and I had to get one of my own. It's very nice, but feels a bit too much like wearing Pajamas at times. I also bought a NERV T-shirt that day.

    ------------------------

    I head to the panel after the Dealers room. The Panel was by far the high point of the entire con for me. Troy ran an absolutely fabulous panel, which he managed to get extended to 3 hours long (which was much needed as we found out) and it was a real blast. He had some great questions prepared, and I got to show a couple of my videos and had a really fun time chatting with the other creators on the Panel. Note to Eric: Dude, you are f%#$ing awesome, stop beating yourself up! =) Only problem was I was the first one on the Panel and so I always was answering questions first, which wound up giving me the most talk time since on at least a quarter of the questions the other people on the panel would say after me, "Yah, I agree with what Justin said," or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

    I managed to distro ALL of my DVDs at the panel. That means THIRTY-EIGHT of my DVDs are now in the hands of fellow creators and other AMV fans (one guy even bought one for his Anime club on club funds, I wound up giving him my very last copy that I was planning on keeping for later because it was for a good cause). I was very pleased. I still lost about $40 by my calculations on all the DVDs, but that's a loss I can live with.

    During the panel one of my friends made a McDonalds run, which was a damn good thing because of what happened later. I ate a nice Double Quarterpounder w/Cheese that had gotten a little cold from sitting there uneaten for an hour but that's life. Still was tasty.

    We all then headed over to the AMV Competition line. The whole thing is packed and there's no sign of people going in anytime soon. I meet up with Brad and Tony while I'm there. Apparently they're having troubles with the final master tapes, which was just unbelievable. It's not like they had to wait until that day to make it, right?

    Anyways, to cut a long story short: People begin stripping outside to pass the time, a paper airplane manages to pierce the projection screen inside, the Guests of Honor manage to start a wave, and the contest is cancelled and moved to Saturday morning at 8AM. I'm pissed. I go off with friends to Southern Hills Golfland down the 22 freeway to drown my sorrows in some real DDR. We come back after a couple hours and then go to sleep.

    July 6th

    I don't even try to wakeup on time for the AMV contest. I'm so f%#$ing pissed and disillusioned I just figured I'd show up for the Comedy category since I figure it'll be the best. I arrive at the theater around 11 and they aren't even done playing the Drama videos yet. Apparently they retroactively added a new "Fun" category, which was bad because they hadn't TOLD anyone about it, but good because Ian's Shameless Rock Video won! Congrats Ian.

    After seeing some of the Drama videos, all the Comedy videos, I must say I was disappointed with the videos in the contest. I kept asking myself why mine didn't make the finals (I later find out that one of them was like #11 on one of the lists, just missed the cut). Also, even though my Initial D video was disqualified for content, there are two other videos in Comedy with MUCH more explicit situations which were not disqualified, which really frustrated me. I would talk to the James (one of the coordinators) about it later, but that's for later in the report.

    The one saving grace of the contest: An Action video won Best Action, a Drama video won Best Drama, and a Comedy video won Best Comedy. There will be little to no arguing over whether or not the winning videos belonged in their respective categories. However, I almost feel sorry for the winners because of the way their awards will be tainted by the contest. At the end of the videos showing, like half the audience left before the final audience vote, and to begin with less than 2/3 of the original audience from Friday returned to see the Saturday showing. I'm half glad my videos didn't make the finals.

    After the contest Tony and his friends, along with Tim, Vlad, and one of my friends and myself all head to Rock Bottom again for Breakfast/Lunch. We chat a whole lot about the contest, AMVs in general, the con, the con staff, etc. Very good conversations all around. I head back to the dealers room afterwards and wind up buying like 8 pins, two more tshirts, some manga, and like four more CDs. Then the dealer's room closed.

    I headed back to the room with the people I was staying with and we hung out for a while. Some of them went to the Masquerade but I really didn't want to go and was still so internally pissed about the AMV contest that I wouldn't've been able to enjoy it, anyways. I wound up going to Golfland again with one of my friends after we go to eat. When we come back we meet up with our other friends at Karaoke and hang out. I went up and sang Call Me Call Me from Cowboy Bebop, very well if I do say so myself, except that 1/3 of the way through the song their speakers cut out and I had to start over, which was a big problem since the song is very straining on my voice (it's at the very top of my range) and so in the final chorus I begin to crackle and lose my voice. Grumble. We went back to the arcade down in the Hyatt and we messed around, I wind up playing two more games of DDR, then I go back to the room and sleep.

    July 7th

    I wake up at Noon. I'm not feeling great due to the massive amounts of germs I've been exposed to during the Con and my escapades at DDR and Karaoke last night, so I decide to just hit the dealers room and then pickup Ian's award for him since I was his proxy. I managed to make it into the dealers room, and I bought Gasaraki vol 8 on DVD since that was the last one I was missing, along with one more pin that I found somewhere, and the Groundwork of Evangelion The Movie Volume 2 artbook (to go along with my volume 1).

    After that I head down to the Vid Tech staff and I meet Tony and Troy who are both already there talking to James. Apparently James is just as puzzled about me not making the finals and being disqualified as I was. He says he doesn't know how the Excel Scat video wasn't disqualified (it featured two very un-ambiguous penis appearances) and he hasn't heard an explanation from the judges as to mine was disqualified. I find out that the awards were handed out during the Masquerade of all things, and they don't know where the awards are right now so they would just mail it to Ian. Hopefully it actually does get mailed and not lost like Joe's award did last year.

    I then go back to my hotel room, pack up, and begin the drive home.


    Reflections:

    While I never set foot once into a single video room, from what I heard the whole con was just screwed up. Projectors were breaking, showings were cancelled, panels were cancelled, CONTESTS WERE CANCELLED AND MOVED TO UNREASONABLE TIMES, grumble... The only three high points of the whole con were the Dealers room, the AMV Panel, and hanging out with my friends and the other AMV creators.

    The actual contest itself had been run poorly from the start. The fact that they ran into field order problems the night of the contest shows how unprepared they were - James admitted to me that they hadn't even watched the videos on a real TV monitor until then, only computer monitors. If this were so, how the heck could the judging have been accurate? After seeing Vlad's video not getting into Drama, and seeing some of the videos that were not disqualified, I have severe doubts as to the suitability of the judging staff. The whole contest was plagued by one thing - a lack of time. The VTech staff just could not run the whole con's technical aspects as well as run the AMV competition. They just did not have the man power, nor the experience, and this is what was at the root of all the problems with the contest like the late deadline, the bad judging, the delayed contest, etc. It was unprofessionally handled, and I feel sorry for every single AMV creator whose video got in the finals and wound up getting screwed.

    Since next year I will literally be within driving distance of AX (and will be able to carpool with at least two other people) I will most likely still go, however whether or not I will invest any interest into the Contest at large is totally up in the air. I would rather save my money to fly to Anime Weekend Atlanta than spend my time at AX.

    I think I can sum up my whole feelings about the AMV contest in three words:

    I miss Shaun.
     
  • The Waiting Game 2002-07-01 06:08:33 Been waiting for the AX finalists results but they never came. Why am I not surprised? I hope they'll be up tomorrow.

    Still stuck on dialup. It sucks. I feel the pain of all the poor dialup users out there. You have my sympathies.

    I've replaced by two RAIDed 45GB drives with the new 120GB drive, because on of the two drives (they were Deskstar 75GXPs) or both, I'm not sure, were having some bad sectors where if I access certain files the machine would lock up and the drive would start making this awful churning/clicking/winding sound. I've copied all my data off them and now I'm running two non-RAIDed 120GBs. Sadly, the newer 120GB (it's a Western digital special edition one with 8MB of cache @ 7200RPM) is performing faster than the old RAID0 did! Kureeji.
    The 120's run quieter and cooler than the old 45's. I'm probably gonna see if one of the 45's doesn't have any bad sectors, and if it doesn't I'll stick it in a different machine and use it.
    I really need to defragment my older 120GB drive though.

    I haven't heardfrom the guy who I'm getting hosting with for several days, sadly. As soon as I can get a hold of him I will have links for my videos available.

    Hopefully I'll be able to go to Golfland today and get off some steam playing DDR. Love that game. Sadly I think I may have lost my memory card that I used to keep my scores and edits on because I can't find it and I don't remember what happened to it.

    I need to start packing for AX soon. Man am I gonna blow a buncha money there ^_^ 
  • Why the hell am I awake right now 2002-06-28 07:31:38 I should be asleep. Stupid me. Can't sleep.

    Anyways, bought a new 120GB drive at Fry's today. It was only $150 after rebate so I didn't see how I COULDN'T buy it at that kinda price. That's less than $1.25 per GB! whoa!

    In more depressing news, I'm stuck on dialup. My folks' IDSL modem appears to have died so we're stuck until we can get a new one. I can't tell you how much it sucks going from real DSL to IDSL and now to Dialup. Ugh.

    New site is very cool. 
  • Xvid encodes complete 2002-06-25 05:23:57 I've finished all the reencoding of the videos I'm going to put back online and I'm now uploading them. It'll take a couple days but it should be done soon.

    As for which videos will be online:

    Closer to God 2
    Cowboy Blues
    Evangelion Trailer
    Evil Light (version 2)
    Ghostbusters
    Go Speed Go (Fanime/Otakon/AX video)
    I Pray
    Life is But a Dream
    Lord's Prayer
    Soul of an Angel
    The Anime Polka
    The End of Me

    and 4 other yet-to-be-released videos. 2 of them are my other AX entries, 2 of them will probably go to AWA.

    As for my other videos, most of them will stay offline. I may occaisionally put one up, but they will not be new encodes. These are the videos that I think are my best/most popular ones (cept the new ones of course) and they're the ones I've gone and reencoded and decided to place online. The rest of them are available on my DVDs which I'll be giving away at cons, however I don't want to force people to buy the DVDs, so if I get enough requests I may put one of the other videos online as well. If you really want one of my older AMVs online I may put it up temporarily, but I'm going to be actually concerned about bandwidth this time around so I don't want to have to serve all my videos.

    My older files are still circulating around the net (many of them I've seen on various P2P networks) so they won't be impossible to find, but these new ones are better encodes and at higher resolution (except in the case of Evil Light and Closer which will be 512x272 instead of 640x360 like the fullres ones used to be).

    The new XVid encodes are looking great. Filesizes varry from 23.3MB for Cowboy Blues to 83.3MB for Soul of an Angel. These will be the only versions I put online. That's right: no more MPEG, no more DivX3. However,, to play back the XviD files all you need is standard DivX4 or 5 directshow filters. No need to install anything else.

    I've also changed the naming convention on my files. Now they'll be listed as "ErMaC Studios - Video Title.avi", so you'll be able to tell which files are the new ones by what the beginning of the filename is.

    In non-video related news, God is mocking me. I finally find this great girl and I'm going to Japan in one month. F@#$. Why couldn't this have happened like six months ago, or one year ago?! Why now?!? Arrrgh. 
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