I feel obligated to apologize for how I’ve handled AMVT this year, at least so far. I’ve been pretty lackluster with it and I feel like that direction made it seem like much less of a deal within the community. I knew that when I decided to host that I would be by far the least popular (and the least talented) of the hosts. I let this mindset drag into a confusing mess of organizing who was actually animating, which has persisted between every round due to dropouts, confusion with backups, and nate and char dramatically leaving forever and then coming back 3 months later (thanks guys) In all seriousness though, I can’t help feeling that purble and bagel also faced these issues and handled them in a much more professional manner, and in turn I was diminishing the spectacle of a community event that I find super important. This has led to me kinda dissociating from AMVT and generally feeling really bad about it, especially because I stepped away during the summer, where animators would typically be most active. After some reflection, however, I realized that to let AMVT die pathetically in my hands would 1- make me feel even worse, 2- be totally unfair to the animators who put a ton of effort into actually making entries, 3- be unfair to purple and bagel for the work they put into the previous tournaments, and 4- be unfair to myself as a member of the community who wants to see it thrive. (I’m sure someone would rehost like Banned Blocks Contest but that ran its course) Also I’m sick of every iteration of a contest that I host falling on its face. This is mostly my fault whether it be lack of innovation or purely bad timing, but still. This tournament isn’t even supposed to be innovated on. In my opinion as the host, its supposed to be a competitive showcase of the best AMV animators in a cohesive event. So great, I’m not giving up on AMVT4. But how do I finish it? The round of 8 got 6 entries, and with school fully kicking in now, we don't have time for a round of 4. Because of this, I’m making an executive decision to end all tournament competition. The format is just too messy at this point, and since things have already gone completely off the rails, I’m instead going off-script. - IMPORTANT PART IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ - I'm posting one final round, in about 3 days or so, and it will basically function like a normal contest. All 6 contestants who made an entry to the round of 8 will have a chance to enter. You can all choose your own song, as long as you lmk what it is when you confirm that you want to do this. There will be one winner and I will be grading and giving feedback to each project, although I'll be more focused on the amount of effort than the previous grading rubric. The due date is Dec 29 with no extensions, and results will be posted on Dec 31. thank you for listening, please comment if you see and are involved
