AMV News

[Turbo]

AMVNews.ru holds the third thematic contest of Level Up series. The main idea behind the contest is to join forces of pro and novice music video creators and make them work in pairs. Partners exchange experience, and novice gains new skills in video making from his/her "elder" teammate, thus increasing his/her level drastically. As the previous contest showed (2009 and 2011), this concept draws much interest of creators as well as of viewers' audience.

In case you have some questions concerning, you can contact the contest orgainizers via the private message: KaWaii, Norlack, Turbo.

Thе contest is opened for pairs of AMV makers, Pro (experienced and acknowledged creator)+Novice (a beginner without significant achievements). A team’s goal is to create a small AMV through joint efforts, with the assumption that Pro doesn’t do editing and does not work on effects but does what he/she can to support the Novice technically.

Novice’s duties include:

1) Project settings adjustment
2) Clips cutting
3) Editing
4) Making of effects
5) AMV encoding and making of preview

Pro’s duties include:

1) Thinking the AMV concept over together with Novice
2) Software using advice
3) Advice on effects making
4) Help in searhing for sources
5) Beta testing
6) Advice on video encoding
7) Video upload and filling in the site form

Contest schedule

1) Registation of pairs till December 31st, 2011
2) Submission of videos from February 1st till February 20th, 2012

Supplementary rules:

1) If a participant is a prize winner (in any category) of AMVNews, AKROSS or any other good known contests, he/she cannot register as Novice
2) A Pro can participate in several teams (but no more than 3)
3) You can register as Pro, as Novice or as a pair Pro+Novice
4) Pro is oblidged to provide links to his/her videos. Novices are recommended to do so, because Pros rarely choose totally unexperienced Novices.
5) As the number of Pros is rather limited, we recommend Novices to contact a Pro you want to work with directly (via private message, for example) with a request to participate in contest together.

Signing up for the contest

You can register in a special topic on forum

You can sign up as an individual participant, in this case you must choose one of the following groups:

1) Novice group – can participate only as Novice
2) Pro group – can participate only as Pro
3) Unsure – leaves it to the contest organizers to decide what group to sign him/her into.

Or you can register as a pair formed on previous agreement.

Registration as an individual participant does not bind you to anything, it’s just a preliminary list. When your name appears in the list of participants, it is only to show the other contestants that you wish to take part in the event. There will be no random pairs of participants. You must define your partner and register for the contest as a pair up to the deadline, which is the 31st of December. Videos will only be accepted from registered pairs.

The contest will be held only if there is no less than 10 videos accepted from registered teams.

Prize fund:

The prize is to be divided in equal parts between the members of winning team:

1 place – (1500+1500) roubles + 2 diplomas
2 place – (1000+1000) roubles + 2 diplomas
3 place – (500+500) roubles + 2 diplomas

Video Requirements

Contest video can be made either of anime movies, anime series and Japanese videogames or of manga. Other footage is accepted only if it makes no more than 50% of the video. No restrictions on music styles. Videos premiered after February 1st, 2012 are eligible, as well as videos made specially for the contest. The contest video is eligible for participation in other contests. Each team is allowed to submit one video only. You must know exactly the title of anime/videogame used for your video, as well as the title of the music composition and the name of its performer.Unkown music and animes/videogames are not allowed. The length of contest video may not be less than 1 minute (without credits). It is not recommended to use pieces of a video somebody else created in your work. In case such pieces are used, they should be listed in credits among other sources, without exception. An obvious plagiarism is strictly prohibited and is to be banned from participation. AMV News and/or the contest title must be mentioned in the video, how exactly to mention is to the team’s choice. A line in credits should be enough.

A video won't be accepted, if:
1) There are significant compression artifacts.
2) Footage is of poor quality
3) TV resolution of full version is far too low (320х240 or 352х288)
4) There are hard subtitles or logos not justified by artistic intent.
5) Broken aspect ratio or interlace is visible in most parts of the video.
6) There are black bars on the top and bottom of the video (if those are not used in any way during most part of the screening)
7) There are violations of Russian Federation legislation, in particular concerning the incitement of ethnic hatred.

Video format/encoding:

Each contest entry must be submitted in two variants: full version and efficiently compressed preview version.

Video codecs allowed for the contest: Main: x264. Reserve: DivX, XviD
Audio codecs allowed for the contest: Main: AAC. Reserve: MP3, OGG
Containers allowed: Main: MP4, MKV (for full version). Reserve: AVI
It’s recommended to use AMVSimpleGUI (for main large version of the video) or MeGUI to encode the video, see the following articles:
http://amvnews.ru/index.php?go=Pages&in=view&id=8
http://amvnews.ru/index.php?go=Pages&in=view&id=34
http://amvnews.ru/index.php?go=Pages&in=view&id=7

- Full version is to be compressed at the rate of no more than 25 MB per minute of the video. If HD-sources are used, the limit can be extended to 40 MB per minute.
- Preview version: file size strectly at the rate from 3 up to 4 MB per minute; resolution width 480 pixels. Encoding combination x264+AAC+MP4 is highly recommended.

Recommendation: If you submit an HD-version of the video, it is suggested to add a standard definition version as well.

How to enter your video:

1) Videos can be submitted from February 1st through February 20th, 2012 only by Pro of a registered team. A Novice may add the video only in case that Pro had posted his/her approval via private message (but it's highly reccomended that Pro add the video).
2) Fill in the application form located here: http://amvnews.ru/index.php?go=Files&file=add.

Choose “Level Up 2012” as one of the categories. Make sure there was a site message "Thank you, your video has been added successfully" after the upload. Here you can see whether your video was added to the list for moderatorial check.
Then you’ll either wait yours turn to see the AMV on site or you’ll get a private message from administrator requesting to correct the deficiencies found during the check. Your AMV moderatorial check status will be posted in special topic. If any questions arise, contact the administrator via private message.

Jury

There will be two rounds of voting via the on-line form on the site. All Pros of all registered teams take vote, as well as the members of a specially chosen jury. If a team’s contestants do not take vote, a small fine will be imposed on the team. Registration of jury members will start later in a special topic.

Nota bene

Contest organizers reserve the right to change the contest date, as well as to change/add some details owing to unforeseen circumstances.

Contest banners

The vertical:



The horizontal:



Posters: