How do you guys select scenes?

[moltenlava16]

I'm just a beginner, so bear with me here. One thing that I've always had a lot of trouble with is scene selection. My current workflow is to just start with one clip and then skim through multiple episodes until i find one that matches well and put that after the first clip then start the whole process again.
Suffice to say, it is very time consuming and I'm often not happy with the scenes i select because I always feel like there's a better clip out there somewhere and it doesn't feel as cohesive as i want it to be. I'm always in awe whenever i see AMV's with perfect scene selection and i do truly believe its one of the most important things an edit can have, so i was wondering what kind of workflow you all follow for it.

[Zarxrax]

When I start a video, I generally already have a vague idea of what kind of scenes I will be using, and maybe I even have a few specific scenes in mind.
I will generally go through the episodes one at a time, looking for clips that might be useful to the video, and I clip them out. Now, instead of having to look through hours of episodes every time I put a clip down, I just have several minutes of clips to look through. I will generally be able to make most of my video from these clips, but there will usually be some spots where I don't really have what I need. So I usually end up making another (or several more) passes through all the footage again later, but this time I will be looking for something very specific to fill the gaps that I have in my timeline.

[Fluxmeister]

My editing process is roughly as follows:

1. Music and anime selection: If I am lucky I have both selected before I even start. On many occasions I have had 3-4 possible songs that fit the theme of the video I intend to make. I do not get too caught up in making sure everything is a perfect match at this point. You never know how something might unexpectedly fit.

2. Clip (scene select) the anime sources. This is a massive undertaking where I scan the footage for scenes and organize them into folders by character, visual hint, or other unique identifiers. Depending on the editing tool this can be done with subclips or just exporting additional clips. Example identifiers: klook, keye, kaction, kactionx (x signifies really neat visuals), and the most important one for me: xpl (explosions) Important note: I am not done clipping! I will be back.

3. At the point where I finish clipping the movie, 26 episodes or whatever I have about 10-40 minutes of clips. I dump all of them in order into a video editor timeline and add the various songs on repeat to find which song fits the theme goal best. If I already know the song, this is a great opportunity to consider ways of matching the footage I had not previously considered as it's completely random and unsync'd. The most important part of this is getting a sense of "yea, this might work!"

4. Making the video itself mostly revolves around building around key points in the song. I try to expand from a given point. Even one well placed clip can help build a strong foundation. I do not get super focused on perfection at this stage. I like to make a "time-complete" video where I have footage from start to end, even if quite sloppy or with some occasional ~1 second gaps. Simple visual effects are great at this time but anything involving per frame image editing is avoided as nothing is finalized (waste of time)

5. At this point the video is in a form where I can watch the entire thing and decide if there are any massive structural changes required. I can also start to build up a "shopping list" of clips I would like to have. This is when I return to clipping and am able to scan for very specific clips. Maybe I need more of a given sequence from the show or more stills of a character's face.

6. Cleanup and finalize!

[moltenlava16]

Thanks for the great replies! Ill definitely come back to this from time to time.

[Mol]

Kinda in infinite hiatus but: "Solid idea" vids usually bore me to edit, so usually i get inspired by some song.
Next step is picking anime on it , often it comes by after finishing some series i watched, get some vague ideas i could play around eventually.
Pick scenes : So knowing song i get some vague ideas what could fit lyrics , try sort as: low priority, higher priority, probably best match on time line using few tracks.
Edit: What it needs? How i can roll around music, what i want to sync with, what's the "general" vibe. Try to have fun with it

Cleanup, beta test , repeat until im happy or don't feel like handling this bs anymore.

[TritioAFB]

You have the idea in mind next is what concept you are thinking. If you're doing an action you need scenes with a strong impresión, probably fast paced scenes. Or you're making a drama, you need scenes with an emotional impact.

For Mother sake, please avoid using scenes with lip flaps if you're not intending to make a lip synch.

[Iren S.S.]

The method that has proven quite effective for me personally is to go over the entire material that I want to edit with and make screenshots with Media Player Classic or any other alternative player that allows you to save the screenshot with the timestamp in its name. The way MPC works is it saves the screenshot with the exact timestamp, for example Samurai Champloo - 01.mkv_snapshot_01.26.943.jpg. This way, I end up with a folder with lots of screenshots (like this). After this, I can either sort the scenes by a specific logic or just leave them in a single folder (I usually end up doing this). Later, when I start editing, it's really easy to quickly go over the screenshots I made and find the scene I want because it's all visual, so you can recall things you accidentally forgot about, and the screenshots have the timestamps in the title, so you can jump right at that moment in the footage.