Contests //

Anime Revolution Rules and Guidelines

• Must have an AR Pass. We cannot guarantee the time of the contest so contestants MUST be available for all three days
• Must read and agree to all Cosplay Contest rules;
• Consent to allow AR to use all images for promotional purposes in any media form;
• Adhere to AR Rules and Regulations, especially those pertaining to Appearance, Costumes, Cosplays and Props;
• Complete all responsibilities and previous obligations, if you are an AR Staff and/or volunteer.
• Audio must be 45 seconds long and be submitted in mp3 format! Please link in the submission page, or email it to [email protected]

Cosplay Contest Rules

• Must attend the pre-judging;
• This is a PG-13 rated event.
• No confetti, liquids, items or materials that can ruin and/or harm the stage and other participants. Do not drop the microphones; Any extra material being used has to be approved. Upon leaving the stage, all objects, props and items must come off with you.
• Costumes and props must be handmade by the participant or by non-professional family members and/or friends. Found item cosplays are allowed, but must be extensively modified as more than 70% of the costume must be made by the entrant.
• If people wish to go on stage as a group, all members must do their own entries but fill in the group information in the entry form. Limit of six participants on stage at all times
• Entrants may only compete individually or as a group (maximum of 6) in one of the following tiers.
• Your cosplay skit must not harm the audience, your participants, other participants and yourself. All skits will be reviewed, if your skit is deemed too dangerous then it will not be approved.
• A description of the skit is expected to be entered to the cosplay coordinator;
• Audio submissions must be in an MP3 format;

Cosplay Skit Rules

• Cosplay Skits are optional – not required.
• Entire audio must be played; there will be no fast forwarding;
• Pre-recorded skits only! If there is a live singing element to your skit, please inform the cosplay coordinator ahead of time to see if we can make arrangements for a microphone. The majority of the skit should be pre-recorded and rehearsed to ensure time restraints are met.
• PG-13 Rated skits only. Any skit that displays excessive cursing, inappropriate material and sexual content will be disqualified and all persons will be asked to leave the stage;
• Dance routines are allowed as long as they are safe and PG-13.
• Skit limit is 5 minutes max unless discussed with the coordinator.
• Audio submissions must be in an MP3 format;

Novice No entrants may have won any awards in a cosplay/costume contest. Max 20 participants in this tier.

Journeyman Each group member must have won fewer than four(4) major awards in the Journeyman/intermediate level and no awards of a higher tier. Max 20 participants in this tier.

Masters Open class. Professionals who work in a costume-related business and make more than 50% of their income through costuming must enter in this tier. If there are not enough people for this tier, then the contestants will be moved to Journeyman. Max 10 participants in this tier.

• Should the judges feel that your costume is on a higher level than the tier you registered under, they have the right to move you to a more fitting tier.
• The entered cosplay cannot have entered at a previous year at Anime Revolution and must have less than 3 cosplay contest awards.
• Failure to comply with the rules will result in disqualification.

PERFORMANCE MARKS

• Performance (10 pts): Creativity, entertainment value, and smoothness on stage.
• Stage Presence (5 pts): The flow and look of their cosplay regarding the original character on stage. Changes made to the cosplay for sake of performing will not affect criteria if it has been explained to the judges.
• Accuracy to the Character (5 pts) – How well they have captured the character’s essence in their performance.

CRAFTSMANSHIP MARKS

• Accuracy (40 pts) – How true has the contestant been to the original character? Reference must be provided for the judges during pre-judging please.
• Quality (40 pts) – How the cosplay fits, how well it has been made, clean sewing/painting/etc. skills, and props.
• Technique (20 pts) – The more different skills are applied to a cosplay is acknowledged and judged upon in this category.

AWARDS:

Best in Show Overall
NOVICE

Judge’s Choice
JOURNEYMAN

Judge’s Choice
MASTERS

Judge’s Choice

July 14th (each calendar year) – Submissions closed
July 15th (each calendar year) – Contestants contacted about participation
July 20th (each calendar year) – Last call for song change requests in the performance NO EXCEPTIONS

• All entries must list the anime used at the end of their AMVs. We’ve had massive requests from audiences to show what anime are in these AMVs
• Entries must be a minimum of 1 minute and a maximum of 6 minutes. Keep in mind that we do pre-screen entries for quality.
• Up to 2 entries per team OR person. Multiple entries are allowed (max 2). Please fill up one submission form per entry.
• By submitting your video(s), you agree to let us play, copy, and use it to promote the event. Requests for removal will be put into consideration and handled on a case by case basis.
• Most of your video must be anime/video game footage. This is an anime convention. Use your best judgement.
• Most of your audio must be music. There is no arbitrary magic number for the amount of music. Some narration/dialog is fine. Use your best judgement.
• NSFW content should be limited.
• The screening is open to the general public. Entries with excessive offensive language, nudity, and/or violence might not be accepted. We accept entries with some NSFW content, but keep it reasonable. Use your best judgement.
• Please do not include intros or outros that are more than 20 seconds long. It is fine to integrate credits into the AMV itself.
• If your entries have won 1st place/Best in Show at any other conventions before 5th August 2016, it will not be accepted. This is to give everybody a fair chance. This rule only applies to those who won 1st place/Best in Show. 2nd+/runner-up is fine.
• All winning AMVs will be available on Anime Revolution’s YouTube account within 3 weeks post-convention. Winning participants can request to have the posting of their submission delayed for up to 2 months. Basically, if you don’t want it posted yet for whatever reason, just let us know.
• All submissions must be labelled in the following format: (AMVtitle)_Nickname_FirstnameLastname_email
  [eg: (Pure)_Zerothic_YuiHirasawa_Yui123 @ example.com ]
  If the submissions are not labelled in the format above, the submission will be automatically disqualified.

Breaking any of these would likely disqualify your entry. This WILL be enforced more strictly for this year’s contest.

• Don’t use content from streaming sites like YouTube/Crunchyroll/etc.
• No subtitles, watermark, or logos on the entry that was not added by you. Broadcast watermarks are fine. We’ll arrange to let you watermark your own entry before it gets posted online.
• Use the proper aspect ratio. Artistic license aside, there is often only one main choice for this. Use your best judgement.
• No interlaced footage in the entry. Progressive please.

Accepted File Formats & Codecs

You will have a chance to resubmit if it’s not in an accepted format. Quality is not guaranteed if we fix it for you. Please avoid 10bit entries for now.
Video:
This is to avoid having to deal with playback issues on exotic format. This is not difficult to correct but it is unnecessary work.

• H.264/AVC (.mp4 container, this is the preferred format)
• MPEG2 (.mpg container)
• MPEG transport stream (.TS container)
• AVIs are fine, but H264 AVIs are automatically rejected; no exceptions

Audio:
This is flexible as long as audio quality is not severely degraded

Resolution:
This is flexible as long as the aspect ratio is correct. Here are some suggestions:

• 640×480
• 720×480
• 1280×720
• 1440×1080
• 1920×1080

Frame Rate:
This is to minimize playback issues
Either 23.976fps (24fps) or 29.97fps (30fps)

Playback
The equipment is not finalized yet. It is difficult to know what the playback resolution will be or what is even available. This likely won’t be finalized until after the contest entry period ends.

Submissions are judged by the audience during screening.

Anirevo Opening Ceremonies Video
One AMV will be selected to be our opening ceremonies video. It will be chosen by Anirevo Staff. This AMV can showcase previous Anirevo footage and anime. Wow us with what you’ve got!

Attendee Picks

Best Fit:
The music selection mixes well with the Anime’s style and theme.

Best Ship:
This relationship may not be cannon, but it just feels right.

Made Me Laugh:
I’m not sure what I just saw, but my sides still hurt from laughing.

Made Me Cry:
Got me right in the feels. (Ow, my feels…)

Got Me Pumped:
This video got me excited and ready for more, a good video to show someone new to Anime.

Judge Picks
(Scored per video 1 to 5)

Best Editing:
The video stands out as an excellent example of video editing. Things to watch for would be well timed choreography between the video and music (IE: do keyframes in the video sync to the music), and altering and re-purposing footage from the source anime. (IE: did the video creator alter the source footage to make a new scene)

Best Composition:
The video stands out for its composition. The scene and music selection work together to tell a story of their own and show a creative or artistic intent from the creator.

Best Original Content:
This video stands out due to its use of original content. Did the creator make something new for the video, can be 3D assets, original art, or music.

2 weeks from con – Submission deadline, accepted entries will be shown at the screening
1 week from con – Participants notified of entry status
Screening times TBA – AMV Contest screening & Closing ceremony
1 week after con (at latest) – All participants notified of contest results
2 weeks after con (at latest) – Winning entries posted on Social Media
Any other questions pertaining to this contest should be directed to: [email protected]