General information
What are AMV’s and what is this contest all about?
AMV is short for Anime Music Video, an artform creating short movies using existing anime or fan made art in combination with (popular) music. The video’s can be compared to regular music video’s which are shown on TMF and MTV. The AMV contest during Anime 2011 is an event where a number of submitted AMV’s compete for the title of ‘Best Anime 2011 AMV’. All rules and guidelines for submitting your own AMV to compete during the Anime 2011 AMV competition are posted below.
If you want to see some actual AMV’s and learn more about them, we recommend visiting www.animemusicvideos.org and registering an account (which is free of charge).
Who is organising this AMV competition?
This year, like last year, the event is organised by Mitch otherwise known on the Internet as 'Niotex'.
When and where?
The AMV 2010 contest will take place during the Saturday of Anime 2011. To either watch or participate in the contest you will need a valid ticket for the Anime 2011 festival. The exact time of competition will be announced on Anime 2010 itself but will most likely be between 12.00 and 18.00 hrs. The contender needs to be present at the AMV event itself.
Who and how will the AMV’s be judged?
Like always we are taking into consideration different methods of judging, but rest asured judging will be fair!
Sounds great, how can I create and submit my own AMV?
Remember, creating AMV’s requires creative as well as a technical skills. A lot of these skills can be learned but will require some effort to master. There are also a couple of rules and restrictions that you have to take into account. Reading the information below will help you get underway.
How can I make my own AMV?
So you want to get started with AMV’s? The before mentioned site www.animemusicvideos.org contains some useful guides which will tell you everything you need to know about making AMV’s. Its forums are also a good place to ask your questions. Be sure to read some guides first, most forum visitors aren’t really friendly towards new editors.
New editors and experienced editors alike should read this guide: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech/. It’s a great starting point but also contains information which will make experienced editors scratch their heads. More guides on the subject of AMV’s can be found here: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/.
Will there be a DVD with all the AMV's on sale after the contest?
Regrettably NO... Dutch law forbids us to do this and acquiring the needed licenses would be very expensive, not to mention undoable (try to acquire 50+ licenses just for the sale of a couple of DVD's takes way too much time). For the same reason we will not webcast these AMV's in any form or manner.
Content specific rules for the Anime 2011 AMV contest
Footage
This contest is an ANIME Music Video contest. The music video you submit should thus predominantly contain anime footage. You are allowed to use live-action footage and footage from movies, but make sure that at least 50% of the music video contains anime footage.
The use of fan made art and manga scans is allowed. You can make your entire video a 3 minute reading of a manga novel if you want, but make it an interesting one, or you will probably not win the contest.
Audio
Using the same logic as above we could state that this is an Anime MUSIC Video contest. We thus strongly advise you to use music (note the ‘advise’ part, if you want you could use a 3 minute long conversation, but we doubt anyone would be thankful for that). You are not restricted to a music genre, everyone’s opinion about ‘good’ music differs, so just use whatever you like. If you want to use audio from an Anime in your AMV you are restricted to using audio from the original Anime release (thus the Japanese audio). Using dubs will not be permitted due to licensing issues.
Graphical content
Anime 2011 is a family friendly festival. Due to this fact, we cannot allow AMV’s to contain excessive graphic violence, pornography or other footage that may upset viewers. AMV’s that do not adhere to this rule will be excluded from the contest. If you're not sure if your AMV complies with this rule you could send it in regardless. All AMV’s will be viewed beforehand and if your AMV does not comply with the rules you will be notified, enabling you to make any changes which might be needed to allow the AMV to compete in the contest. However, you need to make sure you’ve sent in your AMV early enough to give yourself enough time to make the deadline!
Spoilers
AMV’s are allowed to contain spoilers, there are no restrictions in this field.
The 3-minute rule
The most discussed rule of the AMV competition is surely the famed ‘3-minute rule’. This rule basically states that all AMV’s entered in the contest must be three minutes long or less. Why is this? Well, Dutch law basically states that public showings of copyrighted material are allowed free of charge, as long as no more than 3 minutes of the material is shown. Allowing AMV’s longer than 3 minutes to be shown would cause the need of acquiring expensive licenses (if they even can be acquired) making this impossible for us to do without, for example, charge the contenders or the public for this. Since we do not want to do this (and assume the contenders or public doesn’t want this either) we have opted for the 3-minute rule and thus stay within the ‘free of charge’ boundaries of Dutch law. If your AMV is longer than 3 minutes, everything after the 3 minute point will be cut off! Discussion at the forum about this rule is NOT appreciated.
Credits
It is required to add a 5 second SILENT (no sound) sequence naming ALL the original sources/titles, main creators and rights holders of the footage and audio you used to create your AMV. It's only fair to them anyway and a legal requirement. This sequence should be put after your AMV, and should be comprised of readable white text on a black background. Do not put ANYTHING else in this sequence, like your (the AMV's creator's) name or website, as this would possibly interfere with the judging process.
Logo's, other credits and what have you
The AMV is not allowed to show any (including fansubbers) logo's, credits, subtitles, etc. A creditless opening or ending sequence is often provided on commercially available DVD's and BRD's if you need them. Only subtitles made by yourself which are needed for the AMV to "work" are allowed.
Video padding
To ease our work, we strongly urge you to add 3 seconds of SILENT (no audio) black to the beginning and end of your AMV. By ‘black’ we mean footage without sound or picture. You are not obligated to add black to the beginning and end of your AMV. Doing so would however be a lot easier on our end so we would greatly appreciate it. If you used 3 seconds of padding your AMV is allowed to have a total length of 3:11 (three minutes of audio & video, 5 seconds of credits and 6 seconds of padding). If your AMV exceeds these limits the ending will be cut off.
Intro and ending
These are NOT allowed, nor is it allowed to mention the AMV creator's name in your AMV's audio, video or credits. The reason for this is that we don't want anybody to feel that the judges have a prejudice for an AMV creator.
File format guidelines for the Anime 2011 AMV contest
Nowadays there are a lot of CODECS and formats to encode audio and video but we will ONLY accept a few to ensure our equipment plays everything correctly. These will be announced at a later date.
Video Standard
To be announced.
Video resolutions supported
- 720 × 480 pixels
- 704 × 480 pixels
- 1280 x 720 pixels
- 1920 x 1080 pixels
Due to equipment limits, 720p will probably be the best we can do, so unless you are adamant on making a FullHD video, we recommend going for 720p.
Aspect ratio
- 4:3
- 16:9
- 16:9 anamorphic *
*) We can not guarantee using 16:9 anamorphic will be correctly displayed on the specific equipment combination we will be using for the festival. There is no way we can test this beforehand, due to the fact that we rent our equipment. Use at your own risk!
Frame rate
29.97 frames per second (Do NOT use any other frame rate!).
Submitting your AMV for the Anime 2011 AMV contest
Submit Form
For submitting an AMV to compete in the Anime 2011 AMV contest you NEED to use our downloadable AMV submit form. To view and print this (PDF) form you will need Acrobat Reader, which is a free and safe download. To download Acrobat Reader please visit the Adobe website. Your entry needs to be accompanied by this completely and truthfully filled out (and signed) Anime 2011 Festival AMV contest submit form. By submitting your AMV and signing this form you agree to the rules and regulations (including the disclaimer at the end of this webpage) as stated on this webpage. Do not separately send in the form and your AMV, they need to accompany each other when you send them in.
Submit deadline
Your entry must be postmarked no later than the date we will announce on the forum (this means it needs to be posted early enough on that date to receive the date stamp from the post office). So to ensure that you can compete in the AMV contest make sure your AMV is sent in ON TIME.
What happens to my AMV after I’ve sent it?
Once you submit your AMV to compete in the contest it’s ‘gone’. Meaning, if you submit a CD or DVD you will NOT be getting it back. So by all means do not send the only copy of your AMV to the contest.
To prevent repeat performances (ie. AMV's which already have been submitted to other festivals), we have an agreement with those festivals. This means that your AMV and your personal details will be made available to the person responsible for their AMV-competition.
Suffice to say that nothing else will happen to your AMV or your details; we will not make anything public other than playing the video's at Anime 20XX, unless you give us explicit permission to do so.
What happens if my submission gets lost or damaged in the mail?
If your AMV gets lost in the mail or arrives in pieces, there isn’t really a lot we can do about it. Obviously, you will be notified if your submission arrives mangled. If your submission doesn’t arrive at all, you will obviously not get a notification of entry so if you haven’t had a notification within seven days after sending the letter, please get suspicious and contact us!
Will you pay for the CD/DVD I use and the shipping costs?
No, you have to pay for this yourself. Then again, it’s only a few euro's, so it shouldn’t set you back too much. Besides if you win there will be a nice prize for you.
Videotape
This might sound a bit obvious, but do not submit your AMV on videotape. Due to a lack of equipment and time, digitizing the AMV will not be possible and you will not be included in the contest. Besides; who uses videotape in this day and age?
CD/DVD
This is the preferred method. Burn your AMV file to a data-CD or -DVD and mail (regular mail) it along with the registration form. Do not burn a VCD, SVCD or playable DVD; just burn the video file to the CD or DVD like you would copy it to a hard-disk.
Burn your file at a slow speed; 8x at max. This will produce a readable disc without many errors. Burning your disc at high speeds will give shallow dents on the disc, which are hard to read.
Digital submissions
It's no problem for us to download your video from somewhere on the web, but we can't offer an FTP-service for those who don't have a server themselves. Digital video files take up a reasonable amount of bandwidth and our website sponsor actually has to pay for this, so we don’t want to burden them with these costs.
If you have an FTP-server yourself; more power to you. Please provide us with the details so we can download the file from your server. If you don't have a server, you might want to try a public alternative.
However, because digitally submitting your video could happen the same day (not saying that it will happen the same day, but it’s possible) you might think that you can send in your video on the last day of the submission deadline. While you theoretically could do this, please send it at you earliest convenience to allow us to check your video and to get back to you if something's amiss.
Also, do not even think about e-mailing your submission. You’ll end up clogging up our mailbox and make sure we will not let you enter the contest!
The address
The address to submit your AMV to can be found on the submit form.
Packaging
Our experience is that the best way to send CD’s and DVD's is by using a padded envelope or jiffy bag which can be purchased for less than 1 euro at any post office. These envelopes contain air cushions on the inside and will make sure your submission arrives in one piece. Also make sure that the envelope fits through a standard Dutch mailbox.
Attendance
If you want to enter the AMV contest you are obliged to have purchased a ticket for Anime 2011. It doesn’t matter whether this is a Whole-Weekend ticket or a day-only ticket. The reason we only want registered members to compete is to stop the contest from being a nice Internet-driven contest where contest hoppers can dump their AMV’s. We’d like for people to actually enjoy the hard work they’ve put into an AMV by seeing the audience react to it, and we need the editors to judge the other AMV's.
So to put it short, no ticket = no contest. For the same reasons you also need to attend the contest itself (we will check this at the festival).
Number of entries allowed
Only one entry per person is allowed. Due to the increasing amount of AMV's that pop up each year, we may have to decide to put a limit to the number of contestants.
Other questions?
If you still have questions regarding the AMV contest that are not answered on this page, please direct them to the appropriate forum.
Availability
'Whole Weekend' AND 'Saturday Only' visitors.
Location
Archonia room.
Time
Saturday: 14:00.
Disclaimer
Rules and schedules are subject to change without notice. Noncompliance with the procedures or requirements mentioned on this webpage and the submission form could result in disqualification. Loss of or damage to submissions, due to transport or any other reason will not be compensated in any way. Stichting Promotie Japanse Popcultuur has the right to withhold or disqualify your submision from the contest without providing a reason. By submitting material you grant Stichting Promotie Japanse Popcultuur the right to publically show said material on the Anime 2011 Festival and the right to create copies and/or conversions of the submitted material for technical and/or organisatory purposses. To be eligible for a prize you need to attend the AMV contest in person. It is not possible to correspond with Stichting Promotie Japanse Popcultuur about the outcome of the event.