ANIMATION MUSIC VIDEO CONTEST

Anime NYC is thrilled to present our sixth annual AMV contest at Anime NYC 2024!

We are excited to announce a special new feature where EVERY AMV will be captioned by us to provide better accessibility to those who are either deaf or hard of hearing. We wish to spread the love of AMVs even further and we hope that you continue to support us in this new venture! Read below for more details on our standards for captioning!

AMVs selected for our contest will be presented at our AMV Contest at this year’s Anime NYC, with winners announced the following Sunday. Exact screening times will be published with the programming schedule.

Anime NYC is accepting submissions now until June 4th, 2024 by 11:59 PM Eastern. You will hear back on the status of your AMV by the latest July 4th, 2024.

Each video submitted must fall into one of the following categories:

• Trailer
  • AMVs that are set to parody or otherwise utilize commercials, trailers, or other promotional media as the audio source for the video. Note: This does not generally include AMVs that are edited to as a pseudo-trailer for the anime in question.

• Action/Adventure
  • Videos that center on fast paced scenes and exhilarating moments in animation.

• Romance/Sentimental
  • Videos that focus on more emotional sentiments such as romance, platonic expression, character growth, etc.

• Drama
  • Videos that focus on more serious or thrilling moods and stories.

• Upbeat
  • Videos that are energizing, uplifting, and overall fun for the viewer.

• Comedy/Parody
  • Videos that make us laugh, a category that doesn’t need much explaining!

• AMV Shorts
  • A free for all fun for all, we will accept all short AMVs that adhere to our rules that have a minimum of 15 seconds, and a max of 1 minute. TikTokers welcome!

Note: At least 5 videos in each of the above section will be showcased in the contest with audience choosing winners of each category and Best Overall AMV [aka “Best in Show”]

DEADLINE AND SUBMISSION INFORMATION

Deadline: June 4th, 2024 by 11:59 PM Eastern

AMVs must not be posted publicly before October 15th 2023.

A participant has the ability to submit at max two AMVs to two different categories in our Main AMV Contest Showcase. An editor may enter a third video if and only if one of those 3 videos are submitted to comedy or trailer.

• A participant may also send at max 10 AMV Shorts. Meaning an editor has the potential to send at max a total of 13 videos [3 Videos to the AMV contest + 10 videos to the AMV Shorts Showcase]
• These rules apply to even those who are collaborators of an MEP or Collab
• Video Length Standards
  • Our AMV Shorts Showcase has a minimum video length of 15 seconds and a maximum length of 1 minute.
  • For the trailer category minimum video length is 1 minute.
  • For all other categories, minimum video length is 1 minute and 30 seconds.
  • Maximum time allotment for our non AMV Shorts content, no matter the category, is 5 minutes.

Videos should not have been submitted to a prior Anime NYC convention year unless the video in question has been drastically changed in terms of scenes or content for over 50% of the video.

Videos should not be a video that was made for promotional purposes for an industry partner or official, i.e. no official trailers that were made for Netflix, Crunchyroll, or others.

All submissions must be made over a cloud-based file sharing service that is accessible to the public (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.) YouTube or “streaming only” links will not be accepted.

We do not accept submissions via physical media.

VIDEO AND AUDIO QUALITY

Videos should not contain (1) watermarks, (2) TV logos, (3) studio bumpers, (4) credits or texts that are unnecessary to the content or context of the video. Videos will be reviewed and discretion will be utilized on a case by case basis. Furthermore, credits that are separate from the video duration will not be accepted under any circumstance.

Videos should also not contain subtitles that were not created by the editor.

• If the editor provided captions we will only accept captions in .ass (preferred) or .srt format. No hard-subbed captions [unless it was already part of their original concept] as we may alter the provided captions file to fit our contest standards as necessary.
• We do not accept videos whose audio uses artificial intelligence, or AI, to generate vocals or voice lines.

Entries should be of reasonable video and audio quality. Videos that have a resolution and frame rate less than 480p and 23.976fps may be disqualified.

Except for trailer/commercial-style videos and AMV shorts, the audio of each entry should be mostly music.

Videos must be in a format that can be read by VLC Media Player and Media Player Classic.

Files sizes should be kept small. Please keep files to be at max 2 GB.

PARTICPATION AND PLAGIARISM

Videos should consist of clips edited solely by the entrant(s) or group listed on the entry form. Entries found to have been plagiarized from other AMVs may result in disqualification and/or non-eligibility for future AMV events.

In the case of collabs, MEPs, or videos edited by multiple people, each participant and a group name, when needed, must be listed on the submission form.

All video editing and concepts must be your own.

CONTENT STANDARDS

Videos should not contain excessive violence, language, or content that would place it above a PG-13 rating. AMVs are allowed at max 1-2 curse words, however racial slurs and other derogatory language aimed to denigrate or unfairly harass others is barred from the contest.

• Nudity, sexual content, or excessive gore/violence will be considered on a case-by-case basis, but will usually get you disqualified.

Anime NYC now welcomes Animation featured from all around the world, including

• Anime: (Japanese, Chinese, and Korean animated media)
• Video games
• Western cartoons (Avatar the Last Airbender, Arcane, etc.)

SUBMISSION FORMAT

All videos must be submitted digitally via our application form. Submissions received in any other way will be disqualified. Services like Google Drive and Dropbox are free, easy to use, and highly recommended, but please ensure that the URL you provide is a “shared” or “public” link. If your AMV is available for local download on A-M-V.org, you also have the option of instead providing a link to its video information page.

During the AMV screenings at Anime NYC, our audience will vote for their favorites. Only AMVs that received top ratings from our judges will be screened at Anime NYC. For that reason, attendance to a convention is not required to enter its competition, and will not improve your odds of winning or making finals.

Anime NYC will be providing complimentary badges to one Anime NYC Year for finalists who make it into our contest. Once judging wraps up, finalists who made it into our contest will be contacted.

The audience at Anime NYC will choose what they consider to be the best video in each category as well as the best video overall “Best in Show.” Other awards include, not chosen by the audience are, Judge’s, Director’s, and Coordinators choice. Awards will be given out during the results screening or through mail.

For us at Anime NYC our goal is always to spread the love of AMVs far and wide. We understand there may be hesitations of videos being altered or tweaked without the editor’s input so we wish to go in-depth on what we will be captioning and how to alleviate those concerns. Tentatively we will also be showcasing the contest both captioned and un-captioned. Keep note that matters are subject to change as this is a new venture for us.

For AMVs that make it into our contest, we will be captioning everything that we believe necessary for a deaf or hard of hearing person needs in order to have the same or similar experience as one who can hear with no issues.

Each video will be slightly shrunken down and subtitles will be located in the “blank space” either above or below the video. Currently, we are exploring which option would be beneficial to our audience where seating is on a leveled ground. Captions located at the top of the video may better support visibility, however the bottom is the universal standard of captioned media. Nonetheless, the reason for shrinking down the video is to prevent subtitles from covering portions of the video.

Below you will find examples featuring our more common aspect ratios 16:9 and 4:3 showcasing the placement of where these captions will be potentially located. Other aspect ratios will follow styles similar to what you see below, but please keep in mind that everything is subject to change as we explore this new venture.

16:9 Example (3840 x 2160, 1920 x 1080, 1280 x 720)

4:3 Example (1440 x 1080, 720 x 480)

For every AMV that contains a song with audio lyrics, those lyrics will be transcribed into captions that will be placed in the aforementioned [tentative] location. Whenever possible we will be basing our captioning off of official sources that contain the lyrics of the song or audio in question.

• We will only caption one verse / one line at a time to prevent overbearing the scene / video with words.

Character dialogue that the audience is expected to understand will be captioned. Examples include the character speaking English, or using common Japanese words that should be decipherable to an audience of fans.
e.g. “sayonara,” “ganbatte,” “gomenasai” and others, will also be translated or the romaji will be kept intact.

Character dialogue that the audience is not expected to understand will not be translated/captioned to maintain the editor’s integrity, Examples include comedic videos that falsely translate the dialogue to serve the intention of the video.

Sound effects which are meant to be the focus in an AMV will also be closed captioned. Example captions include “Door slamming,” “Tire-screech” and others. This also includes character dialogue that is not meant to be understood/translated, but is intended to be indiscernible (such as “incoherent screaming” or “shouting in Japanese”).

If an editor wishes to caption their AMV themselves and send us their subtitle track, we will gladly take them! We will accept .ass (preferred) or .srt files. We will not accept these captions if they are “hardsubbed” onto the video, unless it was already included as part of the editor’s original concept. We may alter the provided captions file to fit our contest standards as necessary as we wish to make every video have a consistent style of captioning and placement at our convention!

Note: any of the above details on captioning may be subject to change, as we are currently investigating many different ideas to create the most enjoyable contest for all our audience members!

Got it? Great! Throw some clips together and tell us a story!

Questions and comments can be directed to: [email protected]