Round 5

AMV Theme: The Flashback

• Lost Saviour by @break

Watch on 4Shared!

Round 4

AMV Theme: Forbidden Love

• Zombie Love Song by @break

Watch on 4Shared!

• Your Hand In Mine by @kosukechan

Watch on

Round 5 Details

This section is to inform the participants of the current round at hand. Specific details found here, include a list of the participants, the chosen theme, expected prizes and the judging criteria.

Participants

@break @n1xx

Theme: The Flashback

As we end the fourth round, it is time to move onward by announcing Round 5's theme! Having accumulated nine suggestions, until now, the odds became quite slimmer for the probability of any of them being picked out of my hat. The resulting objective though, has turned out to be none other than The Flashback.

The Flashback: This theme will specifically focus on a flashback of any nature. It can be true to only one character, to a group, or even serve a historical purpose, such as a description of events having occurred at a certain area, in the past. It is not obligatory for the chosen scenes to necessarily be legitimate flashbacks viewable in the anime series. The editor, by his or her own free will, is free to create a new set of chronology-shifting events for a flashback approach, which was not explored, from that angle, in the anime. As a result, the possibilities are plenty and originality is absolutely certain to be present. Unlike the two last rounds, this theme does not hold any emotional objective. However, while the theme is only one, it is possible to combine it with many others, while not forgetting the video's true purpose in the contest.

On another note, as it was mentioned in the last announcement post, the next deadline has been determined, based on how many rounds we have completed, in the last year. Considering that three months have served as sufficient time for a submission in the past, the resulting date has been set to Friday, November 16th.

As a reminder, the deadline is still open for discussion and can be easily moved, if ever it does not fit a participant's schedule. What is important to remember is that a notification should be sent, as soon as a conflict is in sight. I thank you all for your future cooperation.

Expected Prizes

Based on the global approval and positive feedback of the prizes proposed for the third round, the resulting awards will remain the same:

1. First Place: $60
2. Second Place: $40
3. Third Place: $20

Again, prizes may vary at every round. The best prediction I can give is that the sum of every rank's value shouldn't result in anything under $100. It is also important to note that the gift certificates are given in the form of American Dollars(USD) which is the same conversion used for the prices shown on the J-List website.

Furthermore, as this is the third time where this contest features prize distributions, this award system is still very young and obviously open to suggestions. Please do not hesitate to share ideas about how prizes can be reorganized in a far better distribution.

Of course, @VivoDePyre's suggestion from Round 3 still stands. If rounds feature more than an expected number of submissions, prizes, as well as the number of winners, will be redesigned to a proportional and much more fair system.

Judging Criteria

All criteria will remain the same as in the last round, with small precision changes made to only the Theme Representation category.

1. Synchronization(/10): The grade is given based on the editor's ability to have properly timed the audio track with the events in the video.

2. Rendering(/10): This is somewhat like evaluating the overall quality of the AMV, but by only considering the final scaling. As an example, if the frames appear stretched or if the resolution changes from one scene to another, points will be removed.

3. Theme Representation(/10): A flashback is the objective of this round. Evaluations will be based on how well it is clearly shown that there is a shift in chronology occurring, as well as in regards to why it is happening. It is not important to exactly know who or what is the protagonist of the flashback, but it is crucial to express, via video-editing capabilities, the reason of the flashback's significance. Furthermore, it is absolutely acceptable for the editor to create his or her own view on the flashback, by using past, present and future sequences of a series, even if the chosen anime does not hold any flashbacks in its actual context.

4. Originality(/10): As the title says it, this category gives freedom to the evaluators, in what concerns their views on the originality of an AMV. Points will mostly be given out, based on never-before-seen content.

Editing Tips

Synchronization Guide

(Many thanks to @VivoDePyre for writing this complete guide.)

Quick Guide for Syncing to the Beat

1. Get your song of choice onto your computer before anything else. You'll want the file to be in MP3 format, rather than FLAC. If you have software that will let you use FLAC and software to measure BPM, then you can ignore this requirement.

2. Download a BPM counter from http://www.abyssmedia.com/bpmcounter/ and use it to get your Beats Per Minute. Depending on the speed of the song, you may get anywhere from 100 to 180. (If your song is higher than 180, good luck you crazy bastard.) If your song seems like it has a moderate tempo but you get a number in the 200+ range, divide it by two.

3. Now for the fun part. You want to find out some simple units of measure that you need for good synchronization. Rather than plug and pray, we can use numbers to decide how long a clip should be. My song (Baby Please Come Home : Anberlin) is 149.96 or rounded up to 150. Most songs will have a fairly even BPM. To find out how long one measure is, I plug it into this. Let Y = Beats/Minute. (x is simply multiplication sign) Z = Second length of 1 measure

Y/240 = Measures per Second (In my case, 0.625) MPS x Z = 1 or Z = 1/MPS (For me, this comes to 1.6)

This means that if a scene lasts for exactly 1.6 seconds, it will cover 1 measure of my song. The begging of the song has a good section that lasts for two measures, so I need to make a 3.2 second clip.

Now, be wary of how your program splits up the clip. It may do it by frames or by seconds. If yours uses timecode like many do, increments less than seconds are measured in frames. NTSC is lawlzy, and has 29.97 frames a second. You may need to trim a frame off here and there depending on where you got your video files. So now we go back to the numbers. To find the number of frames from the decimal place in your MPS:

100/29.97 = 3.336 Decimal place x 3.336

Mine in this case comes to 6.672 frames, rounded up to 7 frames. However, after doing 2 at 7 frames, I'll need 1 at 6 to keep it consistent.

This seems like a lot of numbers and work, yes. However, after you've figured it all out, it will make your AMV look much better. It will also be much easier to time.

(Note: Check your video files before assuming you have NTSC. The current Japanese broadcast system works on NTSC-J, which is the same framerate. however, film can be captured in NTSC-film, which is 23.97. I am currently unaware how to check for that, but be wary if you are using an anime movie. If anybody has information on this, please let me know.

i shall sign up

I'll sign up.

Also, something I considered while judging last time. Perhaps the prizes should slide up or down with the number of entering submissions. It's harder to win out of 20, but not too bad out of 6. Perhaps the prize should reflect such.

@Inasda I confirm your registration for round 3. :]

@VivoDePyre What I was planning, in the eventuality of quite a high number of submissions(fifteen and above), was to have the judges make a simple choice of immediate favorites, in order to reduce the number of remaining submissions to about half of the initial number. Afterwards, the usual and more detailed evaluation would proceed as it was done for the second round. This way, the top 3 prizes do not need to go through any modifications.

However, if we consider your idea of a number of winners proportional to the number of registrations, it is important to keep in mind that the prizes will also be of a lower value, for each winning rank. As an example, a round with fifteen submissions, could have five winners instead of three. However, the value of the prizes will be separated, resulting in a lower amount.

I am ready to consider such an alternative, if I see that a number of the participants prefer it more than what I first mentioned above(I'll make a poll, if necessary). ;>

hey. i'm in too X3 and if i can remember how to embed videos i would upload my vid now

@Rommel175 Alrighty, I got you registered for the next round!

On another note, I'd recommend for you to wait until autoembed is implemented again on the site, in order to post your video. It's actually quite complicated to apply directly an embed with markdown, since it can depend on so many factors. So, let's patiently wait for the developers. :]

It figures that now that I have the new REM album, I have a great idea for an AMV that would fit angst. Figures, doesn't it? Oh well, I'll try to turn it into a character tribute. Won't be too hard.

@VivoDePyre Indeed, a character tribute is one of the easiest themes to derive from others, since it is possible to represent the story of a person, while focusing on so many other sentimental aspects at the same time(angst, humor, love, etc.).

In any case, I can't wait to watch your entry! :3

houdl i post again to ensure im participating?

@break That won't be necessary. Your name is already clearly mentioned in the List of Participants above, so there's no need to make the precision again. :]

However, I invite everybody else to make the necessary verifications. ~

ah okay^^

soo, no embed stuff yet?

Announcement

After some serious thinking, it has been decided that @VivoDePyre's idea of prize distribution, according to the number of participants, deserves a fair chance. Furthermore, autoembed for Youtube videos has now been implemented on the site!

Fair Prize Distribution

As it has been suggested, the next round featuring fifteen or more submissions will go through an experimental prize distribution stage.

The global idea is to have have a number of prizes that is directly proportional to the amount of participants.

As an example, if this round features fifteen submissions, the number of winners will be of five and not of three. However, due to this, the money of the gift certificates will be separated differently throughout the winners. However, the sum of all amounts will remain the same.

For now, since no AMVs have yet been registered, the number of expected winners are three, with the following J-List Gift Certificate distribution:

1. First Place: $60
2. Second Place: $40
3. Third Place: $20

Calculating the sum of the amounts above, the total results to $120 USD. In other words, whether the prizes are separated between three, five, or more winners, $120 will always be the amount of money that will be used for round three.

However, it is important to keep in mind that the total resulting from the sum of the prizes may vary from one round to another.

Finally and as usual, if questions or suggestion ideas arise from this, please do not hesitate to reply! ;]

Autoembed for Youtube videos!

For quite some time now, autoembed has been back and fully functional! As it was before, it is now possible to paste the link directing to a Youtube video into your posts. In spite of this, it will automatically appear embed, without any direct need for code.

As a result, participants like @Rommel175 who have their AMV already prepared, can now proceed with the submissions. ;>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2PeFS2RTro

just know that i intend to expand and improve this in the coming months.

the intention of this video was to go for absolute minimalism, which i believe is fitting to the character. bored with everything, wanting nothing more than an end, by one mean or another, and furthermore happy that the person to give it to him is the only person that he had a connection to, Shinji. I'm thinking of showing his arc more, and giving more of a view of how bored he is, but for now I think this holds it's own for a little while. I've actually added a few things since i first made it.

IF I CAN'T ADD MORE please tell me ASAP, I'll pull this and set it out when it's ready, but this is the video and song I'm going with until it's satisfactory.

@Rommel175 Thank you for your early entry! I really adore the minimalistic side of it, it's quite original!

IF I CAN'T ADD MORE please tell me ASAP

Even though I have already answered this to you on Skype, I will proceed on giving an answer publicly, in order to also inform the other participants.

Yes, a contestant can modify his/her submission, as long as it is done before the deadline. Once the time for submission has passed, the latest modification will be used for evaluation by the judges.

On an ending note, I will be adding this detail to the rules above. ;>

@Rommel175 once again i cant watch your entry for this round either sicne its blocked by youtube for my country, because of music rights blocked by the GEMA....

@break D@&N YOU GEMA!!!!!!!

again, contact me through youtube, and give me your e-mail, I'll send you the original video. same name as here.