Blog Like Grace Kelly

Last weekend, I was at Momocon, a huge anime and geek convention hosting about 48,000 people at the Georgia World Congress Center. It’s the largest convention I’ve ever attended. 40 AMV editors attended a variety of social and AMV events, and I had the great opportunity to meet several of them for the first time. Previously I blogged about how much energy I get from seeing my videos on the big screen, and this convention was no exception–I saw six different videos that I had edited over the course of the weekend. At four days, the convention is also on the long side, with lots of things to do and an absolutely massive dealer hall. The whole event was a lot of fun, and Tyken and I had a really nice time.

The AMV competition at Momocon is interesting, too. It has a standard contest, with audience judging and categories, and a VMix competition. The AMV contest allows any animated or video game source regardless of origin, and the VMix is for videos that are predominately live action. Any video that doesn’t make finalist in the AMV competition, however, moves over to VMix. During the contest, the AMV contest ballots are printed by category, with separate sheets for Drama, Action, Romance/Sentimental, etc. The sheets are collected *after each category* to allow tabulation as the contest is actively being presented. VMix awards, by contrast, are selected by the judging committee. VMix awards are announced in between the AMV categories to allow the Momo AMV staff time to tabulate the ballots. Then, at the end of the whole competition, you find out who wins! Immediately! It’s a little insane, it’s really fun, and it’s a great thing to not need to go to a separate awards show after the competition. 

I like conventional AMV contests. I have no major complaints about them. The Momo competition is exceptionally well run. My goal here is to not disparage this format in any way. I do want to take the time to talk about a more rare competition format–blind judging.

There are two main AMV contests (of which I’m aware) that feature blind judging. One, The Accolades (Accys for short, formerly PRO), is the primary AMV contest of Anime Weekend Atlanta (AWA). The other, RICE, is hosted by Vars (Standard Quip), owner of the Bentovid discord server. In both contests, participants can submit up to two videos, provided that they have not been available online for others to see. The video entries are then randomized and blinded so that no one knows who made what. Only people who have entered videos into the competition are able to view, review, and judge the submissions. Both competitions also have some form of category voting in 2023. RICE has all categories selected by participants, and Accys is planning on 10 fixed categories and 5 participant-selected categories. After category, semi-final, and final voting, the awards are held via stream in the case of RICE, or at the convention for Accolades/AWA.

What makes these competitions special? Accys and RICE are both hosted primarily on Discord, where they foster conversations, support, puns, and a real sense of community. I was able to meet many editors in person at Momo, but the consistent excitement and interaction of RICE/Accy are uniquely special. These contests play out over the course of several weeks, and you get to spend real quality time with people who are just as excited about editing as you are. As a bonus, blind competitions are completely new videos, a clean slate, and watching these new releases is very satisfying. 

During Accys 2022, I was a very new editor with only four months of experience, but several years of AMV watching under my belt. I had low expectations about how my videos would perform. However, I got to see amazing videos for the first time, videos that continue to make an impression on me to this day. Waving Through by Opner was possibly my favorite video from that competition. I have never seen My Hero Academia, and to that point I had only seen fast-paced action edits. This video told such a great story, followed the rise of Deku as a character, and hit all the right sentimental notes for me. I was absolutely delighted to see it early, and I have been thrilled to watch it at conventions since. I had a lot of feelings from this video despite never having seen the source, something I don’t always experience.

Blind judging also removes some of the ego out of the competition. People can take risks, make whatever, and not worry as much about success. Some subset of the community gets really excited to guess who edited things as well. I participate in the guessing as a courtesy, but it’s not my favorite part. With everyone unaware who made what, it’s a really big compliment when someone guesses 1. That you made a video that you perceive to be really good, or 2. That someone else who you really admire made your video. I love the watch parties, too, where everyone has opportunities to be in calls and talk about videos. It helped me a lot starting out, because I was able to interact closely with editors whose names I’d only seen at awards ceremonies at my local competitions.

Conventions can offer an in-person connection, but people are more casual online, more interactive. People watch videos with fresh eyes, unhindered by knowledge of the editor. It’s a great experience, and I eagerly await many more Accys and RICE to come.