Sakura-Con 2014 AMV Contest - Rules Are Now Up

Æ Member Messages : 571 Join date : 2013-10-17 Age : 36

Vlad G Pohnert wrote:: Hi all,

Once Again, it my pleasure to announce the Sakura-Con 2014 AMV Contest. This year I'll be running it along with Troy (xstylus) as we've been working hard to make the contest even better.

Also back will be the world's largest AMV room with all sorts of awesome stuff along with the playing of as many Contest non-finalists as we have time for on Sunday.

Rules are posted below (or on the Sakura-Con's Web page at http://www.sakuracon.org/programming/amv/documents/2014_amv_rules.pdf)

Submission signups should be available within the next week or so. Looking forward to another great year!

_______

SAKURA-CON 2014 AMV CONTEST RULES
November 3, 2013

OVERVIEW

Sakura-Con’s AMV contest is a chance for fans to showcase their creative talents in the form of music videos. The Contest is open to anyone who wishes to enter, from amateur to professional. You do not need to be present at Sakura-Con to enter, although attendance is strongly encouraged.

Entries will be accepted in two separate groups as follows:

Competition:
These entries will compete against each other in their respective categories. Out of all entries received and accepted, the finalist selections shall be based on the decisions of our judging panel. The list of finalists shall be released prior to the event. Non-finalist entries will not be shown at the contest, but there will be a dedicated timeslot in the AMV Theater where we will show all accepted entries, time permitting.

Exhibition:
For those who do not want to compete and just want to have their entries shown, there will be a separate block in the AMV Theater where your submission may be exhibited, time permitting.

All entries for both the Competition and Exhibition must meet all the general submission rules as stated below. The AMV Contest Coordinator and Judges reserve the right to disqualify any submission that not does meet the General Rules, or for any fair and justifiable reason not foreseen in these rules. PLEASE READ ALL THE RULES CAREFULLY BEFORE SUBMITTING.

Submissions must be received and in our possession by Friday, February 21, 2014. NO SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED AT THE CONVENTION.

SUMMARY OF CATEGORIES

In essence, the Contest may consist of up to seven (7) of the following categories:
● Action
● Drama
● Comedy / Humor
● Fun / Parody
● Romance / Sentimental
● Trailer / Commercial
● Upbeat / Dance

The Contest Coordinators may modify, combine, or omit categories if there are a large number of entries that do not properly fit the established categories, or if a category does not receive a sufficient number of accepted entries.

If the AMV Contest Coordinators and Judges feel that an entry is not appropriate for the category its creator intended, it may be moved to a more appropriate category.

SUMMARY OF AWARDS

Awards will be as follows:

AUDIENCE AWARDS (as chosen by Ballot during the contest screening at con):
• Audience’s Best of Show 
• Best video in each category  

JUDGES AWARDS:
• Judges’ Choice
• Best Artistic 
• Best Technical 
• Best Concept  

We will attempt to ship awards and prizes to those not present at the event. Depending on the destination, we may require you to pay part of the postal fee. We will contact you after the event to make any arrangements.

A proxy may also be named to pick up awards and trophies for any creator(s) not present. If you wish to name a proxy, follow all the instructions on the “Generate Proxy Form” page when logged into Sakura-Con’s 2014 AMV Contest page.

GENERAL RULES

1. Entries are limited to a minimum length of thirty (30) seconds. Entries over six (6) minutes in length will be subject to additional scrutiny and, at the coordinators’ discretion, may be rejected in favor of shorter length entries for time constraint reasons.

2. Only three (3) entries will be accepted per individual or group between both the Competition and Exhibition showings. Each contest entry must be for a different category (e.g. you can’t enter multiple entries into the same category).

3. All entries submitted must be the work of the person or group as listed on their entry form. If submitted entries are found to be the work of another creator (stolen or plagiarized), the videos will be disqualified and the entrant may be banned from participating in future Sakura-Con AMV Contests.

4. Videos must use at least 70% of anime content. This is defined as animation or video game content originating from Japan.

5. Videos must use at least 70% of external music or songs (i.e., not part of the original audio track of the video source) with the exception of trailers or commercials that may be a combination of external dialogue and music.

6. Entries containing significant nudity, graphic sexual content, graphic violence or excessive foul language may be disqualified. As a general guideline, all entries should fall within the equivalent of an MPAA rating of PG-13 or lower (for more information, see http://www.mpaa.org/ratings/ what-each-rating-means).

7. Entries that use footage containing subtitles, text, commercial studio logos or graphic overlays that do not relate to the entry itself (i.e. watermarks. creator logos, etc.) will not be accepted. Exceptions are made if such usage is intentional and clearly necessary to the video’s concept.

8. Entries that include any inextricable credits, bumpers or slates will be automatically disqualified. Sakura-Con will create custom-designed titles with each entrant's name, the entry name and category/number to maintain a professional look throughout the contest.

9. Previously released videos (as shown publicly at conventions, clubs and contests, or downloadable on the internet) must not have premiered prior to July 1st, 2013 in order to be able to participate in the contest.

10. All entries must meet the requirements listed in the Technical Requirements section below.

11. Any Sakura-Con staff working under the AMV Coordinator, and all AMV contest judges, will not be eligible to enter the contest, but may participate in the exhibition portion.

12. You grant Sakura-Con and the AMV coordinators unconditional and unlimited permission to use, copy, share, and exhibit your entry in any way and for any reason, including purposes and usages that may be unrelated to this event.

13. The AMV Contest Coordinator and Judges’ interpretation and implementation of the rules, and contest winners are final. All judging methods and decisions are final.

14. All rules, prizes, and methods of judging for the Sakura-Con AMV Contest are subject to change without prior notice. Though we will attempt to keep everyone up to date via the Sakura-Con website (http://www.sakuracon.org) and the AnimeMusicVideos.org forums, these changes can occur at any time.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

All videos are required to be in at least a resolution of 640 x 480 (720p preferred) and a frame rate of 23.98 (preferred) or 29.976. Audio shall be at a sampling rate of no lower than 44,100 Hz (48,000 Hz preferred).

Accepted Media Formats:

AVI: Lagarith, Ut, HuffYUV, DivX/Xvid
MKV: Matroska container using H.264 video and MP3 or PCM audio
MPG: Mpeg2 codec (be sure to use either MPEG1 Layer 2 audio, or AC3 audio)
MP4: H.264 video compression

We reserve the right to reject any entry sent in any other format. If you have problems encoding your entry into any of the above formats, please contact us at amv@sakuracon.org.

SUBMISSION METHODS

In order to enter and submit your entry(s), you will need to enter all the required information into the online system (found on the AMV Contest page at http://www.sakuracon.org) following these steps:
• If entering for the first time, you will need to create a user account (previous contest accounts will have be deleted). Ensure to enter in all the required information. 
• Under “Submit Video”, enter all the information for each of your entries. Make sure to choose a method of delivery of each of your entry (FTP or LINK).

FTP:
Following the instructions and using the FTP information provided under "FTP Info”, upload your entries as follows:
• Create a Directory to match your submitted studio name (or real name if you don’t have one).
• Upload your entry(s). Ensure they are not over 1 GB and each file should be named with your Submission number  and video title.

LINK:
Videos may be accepted via upload sites (i.e.: web links, Dropbox, Rapidshare, Sendspace, etc) so long as they do not need to be “signed up” to access. Links to streaming sites such as YouTube will not be accepted. When choosing this method, provide the URL link in the space provided.

We no longer accept entries submitted via postal mail, nor will we accept any entries in person.

If you’re unable to get us your entry in any of the above methods, please contact us at amv@sakuracon.org to see if we can work out an alternative method.

i did not know this contest...i think x3

» Big Contest 2014
» MomoCon's 2014 AMV Contest
» Trailer Contest 2014 - 6em edition
» ~Release Everything You've Got Contest~ "Action-2014"
» Level Up 2014 (Rules)