AnimeUSA 2011 AMV Contest Rules


So, you want to submit your AMV to AnimeUSA 2011? Who doesn't?! AnimeUSA accepts AMVs in a wide variety of formats, but you must follow the rules so that we can handle your video properly!

General Rules

  • Each entrant is allowed two (2) submissions. Users found creating multiple studios with the intent to circumvent the submission limit will have all of their entries disqualified.
    • If you are submitting a solo project but also want collaboration credit on someone else's video, please contact vic.boruta@animeusa.org for details on how to do this.
  • We will only accept entries that are sent to us through our FTP server or through the mail. We will not download your entry for you from your rapidshare/sendspace/whatever, nor will we accept entries sent by e-mail/AIM/MSN etc.
  • Do not include studio bumpers or video credits. Any lead-in/lead-out that we can not remove will be grounds for disqualification.
    • AnimeUSA creates custom, uniform title cards for each entry, finalist or not. Adding bumpers/credits on top of that just uses more screen time than is necessary.
  • Your entry must be primarily anime and/or video game footage. The exception to this rule is a live-action adaptation of an anime or video-game, intended for television broadcast or release to movie theaters. Such live-action adaptations will be accepted without penalty.
  • Your entry's audio must be primarily music. Excessive narration/dialog may be grounds for disqualification. This rule does not apply to entries that are sent to the "Trailer/Parody" category. Dialog that you recorded yourself is perfectly fine.
  • Your entry may not contain any audio taken from a commercial English dub.
    • Audio from a Japanese dub is perfectly fine. There will be an abundance of North American voice actors and actresses at AnimeUSA and they would not be very happy if they found out that you used their voice without their permission, so don't do it.
  • Your entry may not contain any commercial studio logos, only parodies of said logos. This includes DivX and website watermarks.
    • Copyrighted logos that have been modified are also NOT OK. If you wish to parody a logo, you can not use the original logo as a base.
    • Submissions to the "Trailer/Parody" category which contain the popular green approval screen beforehand may NOT contain any mention of the MPAA.
      • That means if you are going to parody the screen that traditionally appears before trailers, you can't mention the MPAA unless they actually DID approve your trailer, which we doubt.
  • The minimum length of each entry is 30 seconds. There is no maximum length.
    • During the pre-screening period where we determine which entries make the finals, we will watch every entry that runs under 6 minutes, in it's entirety. For entries that run over the 6-minute mark, we reserve the right to skip the remainder of the video after 6 minutes have passed. Also, entries over 6 minutes in length that do not make the final cut will most likely be bumped to the bottom of the overflow playlist, meaning there is a chance that they will not be shown at the convention.
  • Submissions with nudity, offensive language, and/or excessive violence may be disqualified at the coordinator's discretion.
    • The contest screening will be open to the general public, and thus the content must be appropriate for the general public. Depending on what time the overflow screening is, entries disqualified for inappropriate content may or may not be shown at all.
  • Convention attendance is not required to enter. Attending the convention will not boost your chances of winning and/or making the final cut.
    • The checkbox on the submission form asking whether or not you will be attending is purely for informational purposes.
  • Anti-Trolling Policy: We have none. AnimeUSA will not disqualify an entry solely because it has been featured at (or won an award) someplace else. However, entries that were featured in a previous year's AUSA AMV Contest will be disqualified.
      Entries that were submitted to AUSA in previous year(s) but did NOT make the final cut (were only featured during AMV Overflow) will be accepted without penalty.
  • The better quality video that you send us, the better it will look. Visual anomalies from poor compression will be enlarged as our screen is bigger than your computer monitor.
  • The AnimeUSA 2011 AMV Contest will accept submissions from anyone except for AnimeUSA AMV Contest ballot counters. AUSA staff, including AMV staff, are welcome to submit their work into the contest.
  • AnimeUSA reserves the right to reject any video on any legitimate grounds.
Format Specific Rules
  • Deadline: Your submission must be received (not postmarked) by Sunday October 23, 2011. Entries received late will not be accepted into the AnimeUSA 2011 AMV contest, nor will they be considered candidates for the AMV overflow screenings.
  • AnimeUSA accepts VHS, SVHS, SVHS-ET, and mini DV entries.
  • Entries submitted on tape must be in the NTSC format. We can not accept PAL format tapes at this time.
  • Entries must be recorded at SP speed. Anything else will look terrible.
  • You must fill out a submission form for your entry. Access the submission form here. You may include a printed copy of the form or the confirmation email that you received after filling it out, but it is not necessary.
  • Please label the spine of your tape with the following information:
    • Your video title.
    • Your studio name. This MUST match the studio name that you provided us with on your submission form.
    • Tape format (VHS, SVHS, or SVHS-ET).
  • Please include at least 15 seconds of black leader before your first video starts in order to prevent the "rainbow effect" from appearing in your video, and to give our equipment time to adjust the tracking.
  • Please ensure that the only video on your tape is the one that you intend to submit.
  • After you have filled out the submission form, please mail your tape to the following address:
    AnimeUSA AMV Contest
    PO Box 336
    Edison, NJ 08818-0636
    USA
  • Submitted tapes can not be returned.
  • AnimeUSA is not responsible for lost or damaged media. We will do our best to notify you when your entry is received. However, we cannot guarantee confirmation before the submission deadline. If you wish to ensure confirmation, ship your tape with delivery confirmation.
  • Deadline: Your submission must be received (not postmarked) by Sunday October 23, 2011. Entries received late will not be accepted into the AnimeUSA 2011 AMV contest, nor will they be considered candidates for the AMV overflow screenings.
  • AnimeUSA accepts entries recorded on CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-DL, DVD+DL, and BD-R.
  • AnimeUSA will accept entries in virtually any file format using almost any form of compression. The more "popular" the codec, the better the chances are of us handling your video properly. If we can't convert your video, we will let you know.
  • Entrants are STRONGLY encouraged to submit in MPEG1 or MPEG2 format. All submissions not received in either of these formats will be converted to MPEG2 by AnimeUSA.
    • NTSC interlaced video is perfectly acceptable. PAL interlaced is OK as well. If your submission is interlaced, please test it on a broadcast-quality decoder card such as a Hollywood+ or a Netstream2000 to ensure proper field order throughout your video. Your VGA card's tv-out function is not a suitable means of testing your submission.
    • If your video is 23.976 or 24 frames per second, when encoding your mpeg2, please flag it for "3:2 pulldown on playback". Otherwise your video will appear "jumpy" when we play it back.
    • When encoding an MPEG2, please use either MPEG1 Layer 2 audio, or AC3 audio. WAV, AIFF, MP3, etc. are not acceptable when submitting in MPEG1 or MPEG2 format, as our screening computer does not natively handle these formats.
  • Acceptable framerates are 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, and 30. Any other framerate will be converted to the nearest valid framerate. 60/59.94 fps video will be interlaced when we convert it, so some detail may be lost, but not fluidity.
  • The contest is screened at 720x480. All entries that we receive will be scaled to this size.
  • Please encode your video for 4:3 playback. This includes letterboxing widescreen footage ahead of time. Videos flagged as 16:9 will be screened improperly. We will letterbox what we can, but AnimeUSA makes no guarantees that we will catch everything.
  • If submitting on DVD, refrain from authoring your disc if at all possible. Simply burn your video(s) to the disc as a data file.
  • If a video is too large to fit on one disc, we recommend splitting the file using WinRAR or 7-zip.
  • You must fill out a submission form for your entry. Access the submission form here. You may include a printed copy of the form or the confirmation email that you received after filling it out, but it is not necessary.
  • Name your file in the format "Studio Name - Video Title.ext". Example: "VicBond007 Productions - Accidentally in Love.mpg". Use the same studio name and video title that you provided on your submission form.
  • Please use a marker to label the surface of your disc with the following information:
    • Your video title.
    • Your studio title. This must match the studio name that you provided on your submission form.
    • If your video spans more than one disc, label the disc in the format of "Disc X of Y". (Example: Disc 1 of 3).
  • Do not affix an adhesive label to the disc, and do not simply label the disc case.
  • Please ensure that the only content on your disc is the video that you intend to submit to the contest.
  • After you have filled out the submission form, please mail your disc to the following address:
    AnimeUSA AMV Contest
    PO Box 336
    Edison, NJ 08818-0636
    USA
  • Submitted discs can not be returned.
  • AnimeUSA is not responsible for lost or damaged media. We will do our best to notify you when your entry is received. However, we cannot guarantee confirmation before the submission deadline. If you wish to ensure confirmation, ship your tape with delivery confirmation.
  • Deadline: Your submission must have finished uploading by 1:00 AM EST, Sunday October 23, 2011. Entries received late will not be accepted into the AnimeUSA 2011 AMV contest, nor will they be considered candidates for the AMV overflow screenings.
  • AnimeUSA will accept entries in virtually any file format using almost any form of compression. The more "popular" the codec, the better the chances are of us handling your video properly. If we can't convert your video, we will let you know.
  • Entrants are STRONGLY encouraged to submit in MPEG1 or MPEG2 format. All submissions not received in either of these formats will be converted to MPEG2.
    • NTSC interlaced video is perfectly acceptable. PAL interlaced is OK too. If your submission is interlaced, please test it on a broadcast-quality decoder card such as a Hollywood+ or a Netstream2000 to ensure proper field order throughout your video. Your VGA card's tv-out function is not a suitable means of testing your submission.
    • If your video is 23.976 or 24 frames per second, when encoding your mpeg2, please flag it for "3:2 pulldown on playback". Otherwise your video will appear "jumpy" when we play it back.
    • When encoding an MPEG2, please use either MPEG1 Layer 2 audio, or AC3 audio. WAV, AIFF, MP3, etc. are not acceptable when submitting in MPEG1 or MPEG2 format, as our screening computer does not natively handle these formats.
  • Acceptable framerates are 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, and 30. Any other framerate will be converted to the nearest valid framerate. 60/59.94 fps video will be interlaced when we convert it, so some detail may be lost, but not fluidity.
  • The contest is screened at 720x480. All entries that we receive will be scaled to this size.
  • Please encode your video for 4:3 playback. This includes letterboxing widescreen footage ahead of time. Videos flagged as 16:9 will be screened improperly. We will letterbox what we can, but AnimeUSA makes no guarantees that we will catch everything.
  • You must fill out a submission form for your entry. Access the submission form here.
  • Name your file in the format "Studio Name - Video Title.ext". Example: "VicBond007 Productions - Accidentally in Love.mpg". Use the same studio name and video title that you provided on your submission form.
  • You may sign up for an FTP account at any time by going to the AUSA FTP Signup Page. Once you sign up for an account, instructions on connecting to the FTP server will be provided to you via email (SO USE YOUR REAL ADDESS!). Logging into the web interface with your FTP username and password will also give you access to FTP upload instructions, as well as a link to the submission form. Web-based FTP is also available for files under 2GB in size (available in the user control panel as well).
  • If you signed up for an FTP account to submit an entry to Otakon 2011 YOUR ACCOUNT WORKS HERE TOO. If you are submitting the same video that you sent to Otakon 2011, you will still need to fill out a new submission form and upload the video again, even if nothing has changed.
  • We will email you once your entry AND your submission form have been received and tested. Keep in mind, if your entry arrives close to the deadline, it might be a week or two before you hear from us.