The Slants announce an AMV contest!

[Simon Young]

SLANTS AMV CONTEST!

Do you like creating AMV's? Do you like money? Now you can have both, as well as a little bit of fame in The Slants' newest contest!

Participants may submit an AMV comprised of The Slants' music for an opportunity to have their video included on an upcoming DVD documentary on the band. Videos may be comprised of footage from anime, live-action movies, cartoons, television shows, video games, or any combination thereof.
 
Three lucky winners will be selected by the band members and one fan favorite video will be included on the upcoming release. In addition to having their video on the documentary, the grand prize will be $150 cash and each of the winners will receive an autographed copy of the DVD.

You can download the rules, regulations, and an entry form: http://theslants.com/files/SlantsAMVcontestrules.pdf

[Runa]

Hey,  could people also enter the anime-based Slants AMVs in the Kumoricon AMV competition ? At the very least, it could be fun to include a few of the AMVs in the AMV show

[Simon Young]

Of course, as long as the AMV's submitted were in compliance with Kumoricon's rules as well.

~simon

[Prinz Eugen]

You're all Good-to-go on this end! No problem submitting to BOTH contests, and if an entry gets selected for the Slants by their criteria and is ALSO selected by the Kumoricon AMV Contest Judges' Panel then all-the-more Good on You and yes you get your AMV shown TWICE to two different audiences! Yay!

Please see the thread in Contests.

If there's anything I can contribute for help or advice let me know. GOOD LUCK to ALL AMV participants.

Wouldn't it be awesome for someone to take home prizes from BOTH competitions?!? How cool is that!

Suggestion:  Get the Slants AMV contest posted to www.animemusicvideos.org !

- G

[Simon Young]

I did, though they seemed to kind of flip out over liscensing over it; perhaps I didn't understand the process of it all? My thought was to seek the liscensing after the winner were chosen....any thoughts?

[Pie Row Maniac]

The idea of copywritten material edited around for creativity and artistic sake being distributed on a disc that will be sold for money is unnerving, though its been done a couple times in the past with anime DVDs having fan-made AMVs put on them as special features. Still not sure how they that worked out.

The majority of the AMV community (in other words, animemusicvideos.org) prefers to remain underground and out of the spotlight, lest they become targets for musical artists and anime licensing companies to tell them to stop using their music and animes, thus hindering us from continuing to distribute our hobby on the internet, or at least as easily as we do now. Already some artists' record labels have sent cease and desist letters, including Creed, Evanesence, Seether and I think Kamelot.

Basically, all us AMV creators are afraid of being sued.

[Simon Young]

The idea of copywritten material edited around for an creativity and artistic sake being distributed on a disc that will be sold for money is unnerving, thought its been done a couple times in the past with anime DVDs having fan-made AMVs put on them as special features. Still not sure how they that worked out.

The majority of the AMV community (in other words, animemusicvideos.org) prefers to remain underground and out of the spotlight, lest they become targets for musical artists and anime licensing companies to tell them to stop using their music and animes, thus hindering us from continuing to distribute our hobby on the internet, or at least as easily as we do now. Already some artists' record labels have sent cease and desist letters, including Creed, Evanesence, Seether and I think Kamelot.

Basically, all us AMV creators are afraid of being sued.

I'm going to be having the studio that is releasing the dvd handle the copyright releases for the footage used (I'll also be spearheading this portion of the project, at least with the area that I am familiar with). In an effort to reduce the amount of time, we're working out some deals with major anime distributors and producers right now, who might "pre-license" the usage of certain footage ahead of time (to be announced in the next few weeks). Of course, we are providing releases for anyone that chooses to use our music for the contest and are always open to the usage of our material in the anime community.

The AMV/OMV's themselves will be a part of the special features section, with the documentary of the band's Spring '08 tour and Sakuracon the main feature.

[Prinz Eugen]

My thought was to seek the liscensing after the winner were chosen....any thoughts?

One way to reduce your licensing headaches would be to add a rule to limit the NUMBER of SERIES used in the AMV to some managable number like perhaps FOUR or FEWER. Then, once a winner is chosen (but before the winner is announced,) you have fewer phone calls to make to fewer Japanese studios (or their US licensees if applicable.) If one of these license holders is a d_*k about releasing permissions to you for a reasonable fee (including FREE,**) select your runner-up and approach THOSE anime copyright holders.

I don't know if this will work, but it might be an approach.

** About 2 years ago I made a video for my company's products, shown at a trade show in Rotterdam. I used a track from FMP, and yes Kadokawa Shou-ten let me use their composer's music FREE for that show. (The footage wasn't anime, though ...)

[Simon Young]

My thought was to seek the liscensing after the winner were chosen....any thoughts?

One way to reduce your licensing headaches would be to add a rule to limit the NUMBER of SERIES used in the AMV to some managable number like perhaps FOUR or FEWER. Then, once a winner is chosen (but before the winner is announced,) you have fewer phone calls to make to fewer Japanese studios (or their US licensees if applicable.) If one of these license holders is a d_*k about releasing permissions to you for a reasonable fee (including FREE,**) select your runner-up and approach THOSE anime copyright holders.

I don't know if this will work, but it might be an approach.

** About 2 years ago I made a video for my company's products, shown at a trade show in Rotterdam. I used a track from FMP, and yes Kadokawa Shou-ten let me use their composer's music FREE for that show. (The footage wasn't anime, though ...)

Thank you for the tip!

I've actually been in touch with several major anime distributors (most are our sponsors so we've got a working relationship already established); we're working on arrangement where anyone can use their animes with pre-approval as long as it is for this contest, though many of the details are being hammered out now. They actually might get involved with judging and donating some nice prizes like huge dvd collectiosn and boxsets.