AMV News

[COAF AMVs]

Colorado Anime Fest is returning for its third year in 2018! We had 2,500 attendees last year and we expect to continue growing this year. (Check out our website for more info if you haven't heard of us before.) We are accepting submissions for our AMV Contest now.

Submissions are open until end of day on March 4, 2018.


Categories

There are six categories for the COAF 2018 contest:

• Positivity: Your happy endings, words of encouragement, and unicorns go here.
• Intensity: Action, suspense, wild digital effects, conflict!
• Drama: Epic sagas, loss, triumph, and dramatic gophers of the more serious type.
• Romance: Make us feel the love tonight.
• Comedy: Weird. Funny? Surprising!
• Trailers: Now playing at an AMV contest near you… (Fake commercials also fit in here.)
In addition, we will award two other prizes: Judges’ Choice, chosen by our panel of AMV judges, and Best In Show, chosen by our attendees.


Content Restrictions

We try to run a clean show. All videos submitted must be PG-13 or below. This means we want NONE of the following: panty shots, exposure or fondling of ‘private parts,’ gross or gory dismemberment, profanity (swear words,) or themes likely to insult or disparage by race, social class, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality – because that’s NO FUN for anybody.

Also, you can make your own subtitles, but you should remove subtitles from your source material. You must also remove any broadcast logos and any other commercial logos (such as DiVX) from your video. (One exception to this rule is if the AMV is a parody of incompetent video editing…)

Finally, it’s not a music video if it does not have music through at least 80% of the video (except for the Trailers category).


What counts as anime?

Anime is animation created first in Japan by Japanese artists and studios, including Japanese games. All entries must have at least 90% anime by frame count. Compositing anime onto other stuff makes it count as anime.


Submitting and Video Formats

Submit the form (linked below) with a link to your video.

Videos must be downloadable as standalone video files (e.g. not YouTube) and accessible without a paid account. We recommend download pages from or AMV fan sites such as AnimeMusicVideos.Org, AKROSS, AMV News, etc. where possible. We can also download from SendSpace and similar free services. (We're happy to make alternate arrangements as well if need be.)

Link us to the best quality you can provide because we run our contest in 1080p and we want to show off your hard work as best we can. The minimum acceptable video resolution is 480p because anything less would look terrible, and the maximum is 1080p. And it’s 2018, so there’s no such thing as a maximum file size, just data caps, so maybe don’t send a HuffYUV file.

Videos should be playable without additional codecs or configuration in VLC. These support a vast array of codecs and containers, so it shouldn’t be a limiting factor. But if your video can’t be played in either of those players, we would need to convert it to be shown in the contest regardless, and the quality will be better if you export a supported format than if we transcode your ideal format into something that we can easily play.

• Preferred containers: MKV, AVI, MPG, and MP4.
• Preferred video codecs: H.264 and MPEG-4.
• Preferred audio codecs: AAC, MP3, and AC-3.

The ideal video for our presentation has a 1080p resolution; has video encoded in H.264; has audio downmixed to stereo and encoded in AAC; and is stored in an MKV file. While H.265/HEVC is new and awesome, its ecosystem isn’t as mature as our preferred H.264, so we would prefer H.264 over H.265 even if it’s at the expense of a larger video file (we have lots of bandwidth and storage space).


Deadlines

Submissions must be sent in by 11:59 PM Mountain Standard Time (UTC -7) on March 4, 2018.

A panel of judges will convene to review all entries and select up to six AMVs per category. The judges’ decisions on the playlist is final.

All entries must have premiered or been created no earlier than January 1, 2017.


Prizes

Every winning video will receive a cash prize. (Who doesn't like cash?)


• The winner of each category will receive $50.
• The winner of the Judges’ Choice award will receive $50.
• The winner of the Best In Show award will receive $100.
Prizes stack for videos that win multiple awards. Prizes will be awarded on-site for any winners that attend COAF. Winners that do not attend COAF will receive an e-mail in the weeks following the convention to arrange receipt of the prize. Winners outside the US will receive the equivalent of $50 in their local currency where possible.


GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE!


Now that you’ve read the rules, submit an AMV!

[COAF AMVs]

Hi everyone!

We've had many great entries already this year. Just a reminder that there are only three weeks left to submit your entry to this year's Colorado Anime Fest AMV Contest!

[COAF AMVs]

We're down to the last week of entries! The contest will accept entries until the end of day on March 4th.

[COAF AMVs]

Entries are now closed. Good luck to everyone who entered. Results will be announced at Colorado Anime Fest 2018 and then the winners will be contacted.

[COAF AMVs]

We had many great entries this year. Below are the finalists chosen by our judges and shown at Colorado Anime Fest.

Finalists by Category:

Trailers:
Kireblue - Sausage Corps
CatGirl Research Society - Your Name 1.11
Chibiahiru - Me, My Tomo, and the Deaf Girl
Maboroshi Studio - Yuri on Ice - The Honest Trailer
Speedy180 - Outlawz of the Glaxy Vol. 2

Comedy:
shorisquared - Spiralwalker
MoonieAMV - Just Have Fun With It ~ The 4th Loop
Cirera - Mean Hanekawa
Gina Nelson - SPF (Stereotypical Party Filler)
blueshiftofdeath - Choose Your Fighter

Drama:
Jeremy M Quan - Particle Arts
SerAvium - Persona Monster
DopplerDo - Crossfire
Iren S.S. - Dentelle
ProjectTwinsAMV - Your Light

Romance:
shorisquared - Familiar
Glitzer - Awakening
PaNTSU oF d00m - Petal Dance
Zandersen (Zach Andersen) - Spend My Life
Obsidian Zero - Twin Blades

Intensity:
DopplerDo - Down the Road
Kireblue - Jeepers Creepers
Alex - The Wolf
Epitome - Incarnation
Speedy180 - Love Letter To Gunpla!!!

Positivity:
Cirera - Desu Circulation
AntaresHeart07 - Anime Master Chef
SyncopatedID - This is Me
MinetChan - Another Day of Sun
Krazygrl9 (Kayleigh Bizarro) - Never Growing Up

Posted after 2 minutes 13 seconds:

Congratulations to the winners of the 2018 Colorado Anime Fest AMV Contest! We are in the process of contacting winners to arrange sending out prizes. We will be contacting you via the email address provided with your entry. Here is the complete list of winners by category:

Trailers:
Maboroshi Studio - Yuri on Ice - The Honest Trailer

Comedy:
Gina Nelson - SPF (Stereotypical Party Filler)

Drama:
SerAvium - Persona Monster

Romance:
shorisquared - Familiar

Intensity:
Epitome - Incarnation

Positivity:
AntaresHeart07 - Anime Master Chef

Judges’ Choice:
Iren S.S. - Dentelle

Best of Show:
shorisquared - Familiar

Posted after 2 minutes 59 seconds:

Congratulations to the winners of the 2018 Colorado Anime Fest AMV Contest! We are in the process of contacting winners to arrange sending out prizes. We will be contacting you via the email address provided with your entry. Here is the complete list of winners by category:

Trailers:
Maboroshi Studio - Yuri on Ice - The Honest Trailer

Comedy:
Gina Nelson - SPF (Stereotypical Party Filler)

Drama:
SerAvium - Persona Monster

Romance:
shorisquared - Familiar

Intensity:
Epitome - Incarnation

Positivity:
AntaresHeart07 - Anime Master Chef

Judges’ Choice:
Iren S.S. - Dentelle

Best of Show:
shorisquared - Familiar