which of these suggested categories should be the final ten?

• please stick to ten per person
• make your selection, choose the button and then click "vote", one category at a time
• sorry about this awkward multi-poll, there was no other way...
• don't click the number buttons
• this poll will be open til sunday.

ready? jump in...

         

in vaguely alphabetical order

         

ADDENDUM

I want to clear up / offer brief discussion on what certain categories mean:

Best Choreography / Best Dancing What is the difference between these?

Best Breakthrough Video "Breakthrough Video" in the classic MTV sense means a video that is innovative, usually referring to creative/directorial technique or concept. It has also at times corroborated with a 'breakthrough' for the director and/or artist themselves, career-wise. This is where you would find your Sledgehammer, Closer, Human Behavior, or, um, Whatzupwitu. more

Director of the Year
Rewards a director for excellent music video work throughout the year.

Best Found Footage Video Using footage 'found' somewhere: the director didn't film it themselves.

Best "Found" Video As C-marc proposed, a music video (perhaps outside of the mainstream industry?) that has been uncovered (found) and posted here. "Particularly those lost videos that popped up on youtube that are now brilliantly retro."

Best Oblique/Non-Obvious Treatment A video whose treatment is unexpected given the song; a leftfielder.

ALSO: If you want to void a vote already cast, switch the vote to the number, as those votes will not be counted.

PROG: you've opened voting over Thanksgiving holiday here in America. Best give it 'til Sat or Sun. (Anyone have an opinion on this?)

AGAIN: This is Antville, so if you have any issues with the voting/categories, shout out loud!

         

Looks good. But it occurs to me that crossover categories might cause anomalies in the results. For instance if the the animation vote were split evenly three ways, between the three animation categories, animation could be excluded altogether, on a technicality.

         

not to worry - we'll cross that bridge if/when.

         

Re: Best Choreography / Best Dancing What is the difference between these?

Choreography is The art of creating and arranging dances It is properly a series of written/recorded movements The arranger is like a director n not often fronted in the group

Choreography is like I'd say, wot the Pussycat dolls portray as a group The choreographer is Robin Antin

Dancing, Sum one doing series of rhythmical steps Like u could say, the lead Pussycat Nicole Scherzinger dun the best dancing, to continue with the given example

I'd just go for a catch all 'best dancing' coz I can't see ppl sussing out such nuance or even knowing or caring 'bout the choreographer's name wen they only wanna vote for a vid that they seen Dirty Vegas, Beyonce, Gwen or who eva perform moves in

         

I'd stick to 'Best Choreography' since that's the classic name for the award.

         

A thought on Breakthrough: I'm wondering if this category is redundant, now. Looking at last year's nominees for best video, most of them were cutting-edge stuff, which is what 'breakthrough video' tends to cover.

I'm still unsure though. Any thoughts?

         

Ack, though honestly Cellphone's Dead can be fairly called a Breakthrough Video, as can Harrowdown Hill, though there wasn't across-the-board love for either video, however excellent and innovative the techniques.

         

CATEGORIES POLL now closed - the results are up for you to peruse, and i'd opine they're fairly uncontroversial. just to sum up (don't want to clog the front page with too much on this), here are the final ten that you'll all be invited to vote on (very soon), in order of preference:

- director of the year

• best music video of the year
• best animated video
• best cinematography
• best new director
• best editing
• worst video
• most fun video
• best art direction
• best narrative video

couple of brief notes:

• the two runners-up are "breakthrough" (which would have been nice to resuscitate, though it did, as k pointed out, risk some redundancy) and what would have been the combined "choreography/dancing". i was rooting a little for "shoestring budget" to make it, but maybe it's for the better that it didn't.

• sorry cgi/vfx - animation just blew you out of the water this year.

• very few changes of mind. given the awkward voting mechanism, i actually expected more.

if anyone's got a bone to pick, this is the place.

oh, and: prob'ly a good idea to get the logo poll out of the way, before doing nominations and final votes, no?

         

The categories look excellent, though I wish 'breakthrough' and 'performance video' had made the cut. :(

'Best unsigned director' and 'best unknown director' combine to make 12, which bests 'breakthrough' but not the winning 'narrative'.

I've talked to some directors + creatives out there who are excited or interested by this.

Note for next year: Seek logos in late October. P's logo has implanted itself in my brain, though, er, not as much as sexy Gondry.

         

All seems good. I really like the fact that there's a best narrative. Shame that breakthrough isn't there - and I'm a little sorry about performance and shoestring too.

One quibble.. whilst it was obviously a popular vote - I find 'worst video' a pointless waste of a category.

         

argh; democracy.

I really wish there was a 'best unsigned director' if ONLY because it would be really cool to see if the winner of that gets signed.

Shoestring budget probably leans that way too (though i wish it was specific: under $10K, under $5K, etc.)

as much as I like the critique of established directors it's always exciting to give newer peeps a venue.

         

ben: what's nice to see is that people (at least people here) are interested in as presumably crusty a concept as narrative. "worst" strikes me as something of an antville classic - such a load of bitches, no point in pretending...

cap: kind of bummed i didn't yoke unknown and unsigned together (though i wonder if it would necessarily have garnered the same total of votes). i wonder if folks might not use the "new director" category in its stead. i admit i half planned to do a ten-becomes-a-dozen, but it looks to me there's too many contenders just trailing (unknown+unsigned/breakthrough/ choreography+dancing/performance/etc/etc).

if there's really strong feelings about this, pipe up - nothing's hewn in stone round here...

         

I would certainly like to add breakthrough and performance, but I wouldn't add any without a small tidal wave of sentiment. (Eh? Who's in?)

         

I'd second the motion, by extending the number of categories from 10 to 12, but it would be undemocratic to include performance and not choreography (both having 9 votes, before you include dance)

         

mmmm yes I would comment, but since I was too preoccupied to vote I figure its like the 20/20 hindsight of a parachuteless skydiver 10 minutes into the jump!

         

I agree that 'Worst Video' is a bit of a waste because it doesn't do any good for anybody. Just makes us look smug.

I think 12 categories sounds good, especially if it brings 'performance' into it, because if we have best'narrative' video we should have best 'performance' video, right? Dance could be good too. Breakthrough could definitely cause a lot of redundancy.

         

worst video: i'm all for it cause i really want to see what it is BUT maybe it would be more productive to leave it off our official list and just do a seperate 'yo just kidding yo' poll. i could see someone like videostatic turned off by negativity.

i guess the aim of this awards is to show your non-music video fan a pretty solid list of great videos they may have missed; eschewing super-popular stuff (i.e. MTV) or music video politics (i.e. mvpas).

         

antville dozen + 1, you're saying?

the above plus "performance", "choreography" and "unknown/unsigned" (since breakthrough ≈ antville best video anyway), with "worst" as a separate extra bitter treat?

i could live with that...

         

I agree with Captain. Let's not make 'worst' an official category. Cool if we do it on the side though.

         

12 + 1 sounds cool. That also makes "worst" the 13th category: the evil twin of the antville awards, if you like...