AB 2015 AMV Contest/Fan Works Room Feedback

[LantisEscudo]

Another year has come and gone, and the contest this year is one of the best we've ever had.

First off, I have to say thank you to everyone that came to any of the AMV showings. We packed the biggest hall at the con with 2000+ people at both showings, and almost 4000 ballots got turned in for us to count.

The fan works room in 311 was mostly full all weekend, and all of us that worked in there are over the moon that you enjoyed what we had to show this year.

So now it's time to ask all of you: what do you think we got right, and what can we do to make the contest and fan works showings even better?

[Dragonrider1227]

WOAH Over 2000 people came to the AMV contest both times?

I only have one real complaint. I think you need better communication between the AMV coordinators and the staff and volunteers working at the masquerade. I was told by the AMV director to arrive at the balcony entrance before the seating for my advanced seating so I came a good, 15, 20, maybe 30 minutes before the seating and saw no one. The director turned out to be running late but I didn't know this at the time or how the advanced seating system worked so I asked one of the volunteers and he pointed me to a staff person in a blue shirt. Then HE told me to go downstairs to "Ballroom D" to talk to one of the staff there. Couldn't find Ballroom D so I went to the floor entrance of the auditorium and explained the situation to another volunteer who then told me I need to go back upstairs. As I tried to explain the people from upstairs sent me there, a staff member wearing a blue sash saying "staff" came out, was explained what was going on and gave me a seat on the first floor, front row so no harm was done, but for the future, I think the AMV director and the staff/volunteers need better communication.

Over all, as my first time as an AMV finalist, I thought the experience was great. My only other complaint is that I wished I could've recorded it as my video played on the screen as a way to preserve the moment for posterity. I'm a little obsessed with doing such things but I understand completely why I can't so it's not a big deal.

[Cave]

I kind of wish something could be done about the "Other" category for the type of videos allowed in it. It's so full of comedy videos recently that anything not comedy you know won't stand a chance voting-wise which is a bit depressing and possibly not encouraging to submit to that category. I dunno, maybe I'm the only one who feels this way.

The same could be said for Comedy with "AMV Hell" type videos too.

It would be nice to have Comedy that just uses songs, then a Comedy with AMV Hell/dialogue videos, and then Other. Of course, this is just me rambling, I know it's not able to be done since there's only so many categories and only so much time... and only so many contest-worthy videos.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to go to the Fanworks room at all. How did the Extreme Iron Editor go?

[LantisEscudo]

WOAH Over 2000 people came to the AMV contest both times?

The room seats a little over 2000, and it was full for both. We were happily surprised at that ourselves.

I only have one real complaint. I think you need better communication between the AMV coordinators and the staff and volunteers working at the masquerade. I was told by the AMV director to arrive at the balcony entrance before the seating for my advanced seating so I came a good, 15, 20, maybe 30 minutes before the seating and saw no one. The director turned out to be running late but I didn't know this at the time or how the advanced seating system worked so I asked one of the volunteers and he pointed me to a staff person in a blue shirt. Then HE told me to go downstairs to "Ballroom D" to talk to one of the staff there. Couldn't find Ballroom D so I went to the floor entrance of the auditorium and explained the situation to another volunteer who then told me I need to go back upstairs. As I tried to explain the people from upstairs sent me there, a staff member wearing a blue sash saying "staff" came out, was explained what was going on and gave me a seat on the first floor, front row so no harm was done, but for the future, I think the AMV director and the staff/volunteers need better communication.

We're working on tracking down where the communication went awry and will definitely fix it for next year.

Over all, as my first time as an AMV finalist, I thought the experience was great. My only other complaint is that I wished I could've recorded it as my video played on the screen as a way to preserve the moment for posterity. I'm a little obsessed with doing such things but I understand completely why I can't so it's not a big deal.

Thanks for entering and understanding why we prohibit recording. We're looking forward to seeing your submissions for next year!

[LantisEscudo]

I kind of wish something could be done about the "Other" category for the type of videos allowed in it. It's so full of comedy videos recently that anything not comedy you know won't stand a chance voting-wise which is a bit depressing and possibly not encouraging to submit to that category. I dunno, maybe I'm the only one who feels this way.

The same could be said for Comedy with "AMV Hell" type videos too.

It would be nice to have Comedy that just uses songs, then a Comedy with AMV Hell/dialogue videos, and then Other. Of course, this is just me rambling, I know it's not able to be done since there's only so many categories and only so much time... and only so many contest-worthy videos.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to go to the Fanworks room at all. How did the Extreme Iron Editor go?

Categorization is one of those "no hard lines, only fuzzy boundaries" issues that makes it difficult to have clearly delineated classification. We are taking a long look at how categories are defined and which categories we might add or rename for the contest to be clearer about the content in them. That'll be done over the next several months and will be reflected in the rules for next year's contest.

Extreme Iron Editor went well from what I saw (I was counting ballots for the majority of it). The videos that resulted were pretty impressive, and the games looked silly and fun as usual. Bashar will have to provide details for anything I didn't get to see.

[Dragonrider1227]

WOAH Over 2000 people came to the AMV contest both times?

The room seats a little over 2000, and it was full for both. We were happily surprised at that ourselves.

I only have one real complaint. I think you need better communication between the AMV coordinators and the staff and volunteers working at the masquerade. I was told by the AMV director to arrive at the balcony entrance before the seating for my advanced seating so I came a good, 15, 20, maybe 30 minutes before the seating and saw no one. The director turned out to be running late but I didn't know this at the time or how the advanced seating system worked so I asked one of the volunteers and he pointed me to a staff person in a blue shirt. Then HE told me to go downstairs to "Ballroom D" to talk to one of the staff there. Couldn't find Ballroom D so I went to the floor entrance of the auditorium and explained the situation to another volunteer who then told me I need to go back upstairs. As I tried to explain the people from upstairs sent me there, a staff member wearing a blue sash saying "staff" came out, was explained what was going on and gave me a seat on the first floor, front row so no harm was done, but for the future, I think the AMV director and the staff/volunteers need better communication.

We're working on tracking down where the communication went awry and will definitely fix it for next year.

Over all, as my first time as an AMV finalist, I thought the experience was great. My only other complaint is that I wished I could've recorded it as my video played on the screen as a way to preserve the moment for posterity. I'm a little obsessed with doing such things but I understand completely why I can't so it's not a big deal.

Thanks for entering and understanding why we prohibit recording. We're looking forward to seeing your submissions for next year!

Wow, thanks for replying so quickly.
And yeah, I understand totally. Keeping the ballot works just about as well
BTW one last thing, is there a way to find out how the videos ranked in the voting?

[Sayoria]

In all my honesty:



First off, the ballots were perfect. Stick to those. They were the best ballots we have had so far.

Also (not at the fault of the AMV staff, I am sure) I have noticed a good number of finalists that seemed a bit off in their respective categories this year than the previous. A good number of Upbeat finalists seemed less upbeat and more "comedy" to me. A few other videos as well, but that categorizing is of the editor's discretion, so it is what it is.



In my opinion...

Winning category this year was Action. It's always fun seeing what category thrives, and the fact that 3/5 of the videos in Action won something is enough to prove that Action was solid this year. Not to mention that the action video I also voted on and liked (the Mahjong one) didn't even win anything. I really liked everything in this category.

Losing category this year was Romance. I guess I am too much of a hopeless romantic-type, but I still haven't been pleased with anything since AimoAio's "Enchanted" video in 2012. Since then, I skipped even voting on the categories in 2013 and 2014. This year, I voted on the Arrietty one but even that was just a "I guess I should just vote" vote. I guess maybe I take this category strong, but if the video is too much of a comedy (some comedy is okay) or a breakup song instead of a love song, I tend to have negative feelings on it from the get-go. Unfair, I know, but that's just how my mind works. It still boggles my mind how that Best of Show video won, but my friend told me it was all a "story" thing with the actual anime that I never even saw, so I'll give it that.

Outside of that technical problem on Friday's showing in the first stretch of the contest freezing, it was a great showing.



Iron Editor was fun, but I guess Otakon spoiled me. (Which is rare on any accounts) The Iron Editor at Otakon this year had me pumped for Iron Editor at AB. My friends and I were there from the start until the point where the editors were forced to use their opposite hand to edit. It wasn't really fun for the audience. (At least we thought, that's why we left.... well, that as well as lunch).... Something a bit more engaging would have been more ideal. Team games like family feud, jeopardy, and trivia gets the audience involved.... not just one or two volunteers, but everyone can guess and play along with those ones. One to two people drawing, putting hands in ice water, and answering a question or two about an AMV only gets those one or two people involved, leaving the audience without much to do to join in and have fun. I think next year, the games should be more focused with the whole audience in mind.

[Dragonrider1227]

Oh, I agree on the new new ballot. It's compact, easy to carry, store, I love how the voting section is separate and removable, It's perfect. Don't change a thing!

[LantisEscudo]

Wow, thanks for replying so quickly.
And yeah, I understand totally. Keeping the ballot works just about as well
BTW one last thing, is there a way to find out how the videos ranked in the voting?

We don't like to give out rankings or numbers, because in previous years it's caused a lot of drama. We do mention when voting is exceptionally close to emphasize that everyone's vote counts (for example, Best of Show this year was decided by only six votes), but other than those close races where we only highlight the narrowness, actual rankings and vote counts aren't made public.

[LantisEscudo]

In all my honesty:

First off, the ballots were perfect. Stick to those. They were the best ballots we have had so far.

Thank you. I have to give a shout out to Troy, who runs the contest at Anime Expo and is the Assistant AMV Coordinator at Sakuracon, for pointing us to the print house he uses and the original design. We'd still be using the old ballots if not for him.

Also (not at the fault of the AMV staff, I am sure) I have noticed a good number of finalists that seemed a bit off in their respective categories this year than the previous. A good number of Upbeat finalists seemed less upbeat and more "comedy" to me. A few other videos as well, but that categorizing is of the editor's discretion, so it is what it is.

We give a lot of weight to what category editors submit their videos as. Other than a few hard and fast rules (trailers and commercial parodies were automatically recategorized to Other if they were submitted to another category), the prescreeners only changed a video's category if they felt it was very clearly miscategorized (only three videos were moved by the prescreeners this year). We're looking at how we define categories and what circumstances we'll recategorize videos under for next year already, and the rules for next year's contest will reflect that.

In my opinion...

Winning category this year was Action. It's always fun seeing what category thrives, and the fact that 3/5 of the videos in Action won something is enough to prove that Action was solid this year. Not to mention that the action video I also voted on and liked (the Mahjong one) didn't even win anything. I really liked everything in this category.

Losing category this year was Romance. I guess I am too much of a hopeless romantic-type, but I still haven't been pleased with anything since AimoAio's "Enchanted" video in 2012. Since then, I skipped even voting on the categories in 2013 and 2014. This year, I voted on the Arrietty one but even that was just a "I guess I should just vote" vote. I guess maybe I take this category strong, but if the video is too much of a comedy (some comedy is okay) or a breakup song instead of a love song, I tend to have negative feelings on it from the get-go. Unfair, I know, but that's just how my mind works. It still boggles my mind how that Best of Show video won, but my friend told me it was all a "story" thing with the actual anime that I never even saw, so I'll give it that.

Outside of that technical problem on Friday's showing in the first stretch of the contest freezing, it was a great showing.

Thank you. The strong categories vary from year to year. Action was the award leader this year, but I think every category has been the leader at least once over the years. It all depends on what the editors choose to submit in a given year.

And we did track down what the problem was and made sure it was fixed for the Saturday and Encore showings.

Iron Editor was fun, but I guess Otakon spoiled me. (Which is rare on any accounts) The Iron Editor at Otakon this year had me pumped for Iron Editor at AB. My friends and I were there from the start until the point where the editors were forced to use their opposite hand to edit. It wasn't really fun for the audience. (At least we thought, that's why we left.... well, that as well as lunch).... Something a bit more engaging would have been more ideal. Team games like family feud, jeopardy, and trivia gets the audience involved.... not just one or two volunteers, but everyone can guess and play along with those ones. One to two people drawing, putting hands in ice water, and answering a question or two about an AMV only gets those one or two people involved, leaving the audience without much to do to join in and have fun. I think next year, the games should be more focused with the whole audience in mind.

Thanks for your feedback. I'll make sure Bashar (who runs the event) sees it.

[kiarrens]

I only have one real complaint. I think you need better communication between the AMV coordinators and the staff and volunteers working at the masquerade. I was told by the AMV director to arrive at the balcony entrance before the seating for my advanced seating so I came a good, 15, 20, maybe 30 minutes before the seating and saw no one. The director turned out to be running late but I didn't know this at the time or how the advanced seating system worked so I asked one of the volunteers and he pointed me to a staff person in a blue shirt. Then HE told me to go downstairs to "Ballroom D" to talk to one of the staff there. Couldn't find Ballroom D so I went to the floor entrance of the auditorium and explained the situation to another volunteer who then told me I need to go back upstairs. As I tried to explain the people from upstairs sent me there, a staff member wearing a blue sash saying "staff" came out, was explained what was going on and gave me a seat on the first floor, front row so no harm was done, but for the future, I think the AMV director and the staff/volunteers need better communication.

We're working on tracking down where the communication went awry and will definitely fix it for next year.

Lantis, I went out and spoke to the Hynes security staff at the front doors when I heard over the radio that AMV editors weren't being let in, but in the future it might be best if you used badges like we do for our participants. Let me know if you want to implement that and I'll help you out.

[Luscia]

Also (not at the fault of the AMV staff, I am sure) I have noticed a good number of finalists that seemed a bit off in their respective categories this year than the previous. A good number of Upbeat finalists seemed less upbeat and more "comedy" to me. A few other videos as well, but that categorizing is of the editor's discretion, so it is what it is.

We give a lot of weight to what category editors submit their videos as. Other than a few hard and fast rules (trailers and commercial parodies were automatically recategorized to Other if they were submitted to another category), the prescreeners only changed a video's category if they felt it was very clearly miscategorized (only three videos were moved by the prescreeners this year). We're looking at how we define categories and what circumstances we'll recategorize videos under for next year already, and the rules for next year's contest will reflect that.

I actually noticed that too, in particular in the Romance category. Part of this has me wondering; if the prescreeners think the vid should be moved to another category, but the editor already submitted a 2nd video into said category, does that mean one of the videos is disqualified? Or does it mean the video will not be moved and judged as where it was first submitted? I ask this because when I read that 3 videos got reclassified I began to wonder if my romance video got thought of more as drama (cause I could see it as both).

Overall I liked how the contest was handled and 100% agree with how awesome those ballots were.

[Dragonrider1227]

Wow, thanks for replying so quickly.
And yeah, I understand totally. Keeping the ballot works just about as well
BTW one last thing, is there a way to find out how the videos ranked in the voting?

We don't like to give out rankings or numbers, because in previous years it's caused a lot of drama. We do mention when voting is exceptionally close to emphasize that everyone's vote counts (for example, Best of Show this year was decided by only six votes), but other than those close races where we only highlight the narrowness, actual rankings and vote counts aren't made public.

It did? Wow. Okay, fair enough. I just wanted to know how well my video fared. Maybe it's best I don't know.

[LantisEscudo]

Also (not at the fault of the AMV staff, I am sure) I have noticed a good number of finalists that seemed a bit off in their respective categories this year than the previous. A good number of Upbeat finalists seemed less upbeat and more "comedy" to me. A few other videos as well, but that categorizing is of the editor's discretion, so it is what it is.

We give a lot of weight to what category editors submit their videos as. Other than a few hard and fast rules (trailers and commercial parodies were automatically recategorized to Other if they were submitted to another category), the prescreeners only changed a video's category if they felt it was very clearly miscategorized (only three videos were moved by the prescreeners this year). We're looking at how we define categories and what circumstances we'll recategorize videos under for next year already, and the rules for next year's contest will reflect that.

I actually noticed that too, in particular in the Romance category. Part of this has me wondering; if the prescreeners think the vid should be moved to another category, but the editor already submitted a 2nd video into said category, does that mean one of the videos is disqualified? Or does it mean the video will not be moved and judged as where it was first submitted? I ask this because when I read that 3 videos got reclassified I began to wonder if my romance video got thought of more as drama (cause I could see it as both).

Overall I liked how the contest was handled and 100% agree with how awesome those ballots were.

If a video is moved prior to the prescreening, then yes, their second entry would be disqualified, and the editor would be notified so they could withdraw and replace either of their current entries. We actually did have one instance of that this year.

We don't currently have a documented procedure for resolving the situation of a video moved during the prescreening causing a double category entry, and didn't have any instances of that this year, but we are looking at how to handle that situation right now, and that will be addressed in next year's rules.

This year, we moved two videos from Action to Drama, and one from Upbeat to Fun/Comedy, so your video was not moved.

[Anna-neko]

The little ballot card with the ripping off votes part was GENIUS!
Give whoever designed it a cookie, and plz to be making them again next year

[LantisEscudo]

The little ballot card with the ripping off votes part was GENIUS!
Give whoever designed it a cookie, and plz to be making them again next year

Like I mentioned above, the ballots were originally the brainchild of Troy, who runs the contest at AX and is the Assistant AMV Coordinator at Sakuracon. I've made sure to give him credit every time they come up, because they're awesome and he deserves the credit.

Everyone seemed to really like the new ballots, and they will definitely be returning next year.

[Nemra]

they made counting them so much easier @_@

[drewaconclusion]

I kind of wish something could be done about the "Other" category for the type of videos allowed in it. It's so full of comedy videos recently that anything not comedy you know won't stand a chance voting-wise which is a bit depressing and possibly not encouraging to submit to that category.

So says the wife of a guy who sent a comedy vid into Other last year.

[Bri Chan]

As someone who's been a solid attendee of AB and its AMV contest from 2005, the functionality of this year's ballot rocked my socks off! NO LONGER DO I HAVE TO STEAL A SECOND COPY OF THE BALLOT FOR MEMENTO PURPOSES!

[Cave]

I kind of wish something could be done about the "Other" category for the type of videos allowed in it. It's so full of comedy videos recently that anything not comedy you know won't stand a chance voting-wise which is a bit depressing and possibly not encouraging to submit to that category.

So says the wife of a guy who sent a comedy vid into Other last year. 8-)

I know. But the only reason he had to submit to Other was because it was a dialogue video and not a song video. :x He was intending to submit to Comedy.

[Dragonrider1227]

I only have one real complaint. I think you need better communication between the AMV coordinators and the staff and volunteers working at the masquerade. I was told by the AMV director to arrive at the balcony entrance before the seating for my advanced seating so I came a good, 15, 20, maybe 30 minutes before the seating and saw no one. The director turned out to be running late but I didn't know this at the time or how the advanced seating system worked so I asked one of the volunteers and he pointed me to a staff person in a blue shirt. Then HE told me to go downstairs to "Ballroom D" to talk to one of the staff there. Couldn't find Ballroom D so I went to the floor entrance of the auditorium and explained the situation to another volunteer who then told me I need to go back upstairs. As I tried to explain the people from upstairs sent me there, a staff member wearing a blue sash saying "staff" came out, was explained what was going on and gave me a seat on the first floor, front row so no harm was done, but for the future, I think the AMV director and the staff/volunteers need better communication.

We're working on tracking down where the communication went awry and will definitely fix it for next year.

Lantis, I went out and spoke to the Hynes security staff at the front doors when I heard over the radio that AMV editors weren't being let in, but in the future it might be best if you used badges like we do for our participants. Let me know if you want to implement that and I'll help you out.

I know I have no real power over this but I thought the same thing and wish to support it. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. In fact, you could just write "AMV finalist" in crayon on a piece of cardboard for all I care. Anything that helps the finalists, staff and volunteers.

[LantisEscudo]

I only have one real complaint. I think you need better communication between the AMV coordinators and the staff and volunteers working at the masquerade. I was told by the AMV director to arrive at the balcony entrance before the seating for my advanced seating so I came a good, 15, 20, maybe 30 minutes before the seating and saw no one. The director turned out to be running late but I didn't know this at the time or how the advanced seating system worked so I asked one of the volunteers and he pointed me to a staff person in a blue shirt. Then HE told me to go downstairs to "Ballroom D" to talk to one of the staff there. Couldn't find Ballroom D so I went to the floor entrance of the auditorium and explained the situation to another volunteer who then told me I need to go back upstairs. As I tried to explain the people from upstairs sent me there, a staff member wearing a blue sash saying "staff" came out, was explained what was going on and gave me a seat on the first floor, front row so no harm was done, but for the future, I think the AMV director and the staff/volunteers need better communication.

We're working on tracking down where the communication went awry and will definitely fix it for next year.

Lantis, I went out and spoke to the Hynes security staff at the front doors when I heard over the radio that AMV editors weren't being let in, but in the future it might be best if you used badges like we do for our participants. Let me know if you want to implement that and I'll help you out.

I know I have no real power over this but I thought the same thing and wish to support it. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. In fact, you could just write "AMV finalist" in crayon on a piece of cardboard for all I care. Anything that helps the finalists, staff and volunteers.

Plans are already in motion on this front. We will have a better system for next year, and we'll be certain to communicate it to everyone that needs to know.

[Olson34]

I know i didn't post anything here but, i wanted to thank everyone who come to room 311(Fan works room) this year. We are always looking for feedback from the attendees in what we can improve our show. As fan parodies this year we had the room full for most of the showings. We did experience some downtime with a few showings and will be looking to improve these slots. We are always open to suggestions for next year, as we are looking to improve your experience in the room.

[Dragonrider1227]

Really should have asked this sooner but never got around to it. Sorry. But I've been wondering for a while if now that you have this new compact ballot made to be kept (which are awesome) have any of you considered adding the non competing videos to it to make looking them up easier? I only found the ones for this year because someone thought to add them to their YouTube playlist for the contest. Just something to consider.

[LantisEscudo]

Really should have asked this sooner but never got around to it. Sorry. But I've been wondering for a while if now that you have this new compact ballot made to be kept (which are awesome) have any of you considered adding the non competing videos to it to make looking them up easier? I only found the ones for this year because someone thought to add them to their YouTube playlist for the contest. Just something to consider.

Thanks for asking, but the ballots are already really tight on space. If we add much more to it, we'd have to shrink the text size down even more, and it's already pretty small. Any smaller and people would have trouble reading it, especially in the dim light during the showing.

We do include the Exhibition videos in the list we post here in the forums and on A-M-V.org, though, so you can use the information there to look them up.

[Dragonrider1227]

I was thinking of resizing the ballot more than the text but if that's not possible then that's understandable.

Do you? Don't know how I missed that XD But I will keep that in mind, thanks