You may submit as many videos as you like, but only one per category.
Methods For Submitting
Please send your videos to: MechaCon Anime Music Video Contest c/o Sennin Productions, LLC P. O. Box 60873 Lafayette, LA 70596
Please Do Not send your submission "Signature Required" or "Registered Mail." Just send it like any other regular mail.
Submitting by FTP
We are now allowing you to upload AMV submissions online to our FTP server. If you would rather upload your submission to the FTP server, please send an email to loki@mechacon.net requesting the login information.
Deadline For Submissions
All entries must be postmarked by July 1, 2008 to be eligible for inclusion in the event. Submissions made online via the FTP server must be uploaded by midnight on July 1st as well. If you are submitting an analog media (tape) for re-encoding, it must be received by June 1, 2007 for us to ensure that it can be encoded in time for the judging. We will make every effort to include videos requiring re-encoding past this point, but we cannot guarantee its inclusion if received after this date.
Format of Submissions
We are accepting the following formats: * S-VHS * VHS * Digital media files on CD-R or DVD-R * DVD-R * SVCD * VCD
While we are accepting these formats, we do so with the strong caveat that if it does not play in our machines it will not get included in the event! We suggest submitting your entry as a digital media .AVI, .MPG.
Information To Include With Submissions
Please include the following information and send it to us with your submission: * The real name(s) of whoever made the video * Any "alias" you wish us to refer to you by * Your email address * Any "name" you may have given your music video * The anime(s) used for footage * The name of your musical selection * The performer/composer of your musical selection
Additionally, for digital media * The format and codec used, if submitting a digital media file * What part of a multi part disc set this is (if applicable) (Part X of Y)
Please leave us at least 15 seconds of silent black leader at the beginning and end of each video. This is a big help when we're compiling each submission onto the master media/playlist.
Content Of Submissions
It's an "Anime" Music Video. That means it should use footage from Anime that has been set to Music. Live action isn't anime. If it is American, then it must be Anime influenced. Same applies to video games. It must be Anime influenced or styled. The Final Fantasy line is a good example.
The intro "splash screens" shouldn't be more than five seconds.
No hentai or highly suggestive content. Keep everything at a PG level.
If your AMV contains any Spoilers, that is it contains a scene or scenes which shows the death of a major character or which reveals a major plot point, please include a five (5) second "Spoiler Warning" before your submission. This will give the viewer enough time to close their eyes and keep from being spoiled with a particular series or title.
No subtitles (unless put in by you the AMV author)
Length Of Submissions
Songs over five minutes in length will not be accepted.
Digital File Submission
If a file is too large to fit on a single media disc (such as a 1 gigabyte AVI file on 650 megabyte CDs), please use a ZIP (WinZip) or RAR (Rarsoft) utility to break the file into manageable parts and burn those to the media, clearly labeling each of them as part of a set (3 of 7 or XXX of YYY). You may combine multiple files onto a single media if there is room. For every video file submitted, please include a text file with the same name (but different extension...use txt) with the contact and video information listed above. Please do not include extra files on the media that do not pertain to the contest.
File Format
We can only accept .AVI, .MPG & .MOV (QuickTime) files.
For frame rate you have two main choices. You can choose 23.97 or 24 frames per second, and either you can encode it with 3:2 upon playback or our hardware will automatically do that if you forget. Otherwise please use 29.97 or 30 frames a second. We actually prefer the fraction values for frame rates.
For file resolution, you must choose one of the follow resolutions, and scale your video up to it: 720x480, 704x480, 640x480. With the vertical resolution is 480, please encode your videos as interlaced, instead of progressive. If your original source is not once of these resolutions, please choose the smallest one that is larger than your resolution. We would suggest 640x480 only for computer-generated video or video that was captured with square pixels; otherwise use 704x480 over 640x480.
AVI
If you are doing your video work on a PC it is very likely that you manipulate AVI files. Though we prefer to get MPEG files, we can accept AVI files (though they will be converted to MPEG files for display purposes). If you send an AVI file with a high compression CODEC on it, such as MPEG-4 or DivX ;-), the resulting MPEG file will not be as high quality as possible. If we can get a CODEC to play your AVI file all should be fine and we can convert based on that. The file has to be readable in VirtualDub, so modifying an AVI file to disrupt "editing" of it will be counter-productive.
CODECs
Please include with your submission a copy of the video and audio codecs used to creat your submission.
The resolutions and frame rates allowable for AVI files are essentially unlimited. We will convert the file to one of the profiles listed in the MPEG section using the same criteria that we suggest. When we resize a video, the choice of maintaining the aspect ratio will be determined on a video-to-video basis.
ASF, WMV, Windows Media
Do not "lock" the files when you are authoring them. Set the bit rate and settings to maximum.
QuickTime
We are now able to support Quicktime submissions.
Flash/Shockwave Animation
No, we do not accept Flash/Shockwave files at the moment.
Real Media Files
No, we do not accept Real Media files at the moment.
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CATEGORIES
AMV's can be entered in the following categories:
Best Action Video
Best Character Profile
Best Comedy/Parody Video
Best Dance Video
Best Dramatic/Sentimental Video
Best Horror Video
Best Trailer video
Best Video Game AMV
Most Original Video
AMV's will be judged on the following criteria: Editing, Originality (For the love God, please no Linkin' Park), Timing, Content, and Quality
Do yourselves proud with your entries. We can't wait to see what you guys can create!
Submitting by FTP