storyboarding and other ways to plan an AMV

[rubyeye]

i always thought i'd just listen to the song over and over again, but say i wanna do a vid to a song i really like. i dont wanna kill the song for myself

Throughout the course of making a video, I often end up listening to the song nearly a hundred times. You can overplan, which in my case often leads to editors' block (hence, procrastination). But you can sometimes get different ideas of how to present a video from listening to the song in various environments (like in the car, on the computer, and on a stereo) & at different times of the day.

also, although this might be a different question for a different thread, how do you determine if your going to stick to the lyrics or not? i hear alot of emphasis on lyrics, but only if they have a plot to them or a story. say i choose a song that just spits out anarchist dogma without much plot, then i can keep a loose interpretation on them, right?

Why does that remind me of the Evergrey song, When The Walls Come Down? Anyway, lyrics and the style of the music, often dictate what kind of video you may end up doing (and possibly the right anime for it). If you are using a song like Anarchy in the UK by Megadeth, then it's going to be more of a "showcase" piece - lots of random images that seem to fit with the lyrics. But if you want to be real creative ... YOU are going to have to design a concept to play off that, somehow.

i heard that some folks like to storyboard their AMVs before they make em. how do you structure that kind of thing, espesually with fast songs that ou might plan on doing alot of fast cuts? is there such thing as overplanning? how much of an AMV should you just play by ear?

Storyboarding is done with text. I have the lyrics printed out, break up the song structure by verse, chorus, bridge, solo, etc. and just descibe what segments or particular scenes/characters I want to go with each part. Sitting down and actually editing is still a jigzaw puzzle of trial and error - playing with various combination of sequences. But writing out a "script" helps a little.

[Scandia]

I get the idea in my mind first. Sometimes the insight just pops in- such as a Layla Hamilton AMV to Eric Clapton's "Layla". Sometimes it takes a while to find the right combo- for example, I had wanted to do a Cranberries "Dreams" AMV since 2003, but had not found the right anime till I watched Beru Bara.

Now that I have DSL, I just go to a page with the lyrics. Plus I also copy them down in order to sync the scenes better if necessary- I did not do it with "Desert Rose" since I had more practice. Back when I was on dialup and with a laptop, I did copy everything as well as the times when things would start and end.

For my first video there was not much sync- although I did switch to certain scenes during the chorus. For the second one, I tried to put flying ones to when the chorus saying "Volare" came in and singing ones to when "Cantare" was sung. In my third one, there is sync to "running down this dusty road" and "the morning sun is rising"- but not much else.

But for video number 4, I had a new obsession. So I paid very close attention to lyrics. And in the remake, I noticed one scene made no sense unless you watched the anime and it was not well synced anyway. So I put one that made obvious sense, synced another one better, and people tell me the improvement shows.

By now, little if anything is random. Not obvious to those who have not watched the show, maybe. Random, nope.

[Declan_Vee]

Probably the closest thing to storyboarding/planning I've done is to wathc the anime with the song in mind, and if anything turns up that you think is appropriate, cap the frame (hopefully your software can) and keep doing that all the way through.

[x_rex30]

You see scenes that hella match to music when you listen to it, it comes naturally for me. If I got the over all feel of the music, or have heard the song before, the scenes just come to me as I listen to it. And it isn't that hard to come up with a good concept unless your just an uncreative person.

[FoxJones]

I do all the planning inside my head. I feel it's waste of my time to start writing anything down since in most cases the project starts to live it's own life when I start editing. While the basic theme stays the same, very rarely is the final AMV exactly how I originaly planned. This is one thing that I really enjoy about making AMVs. If I can't work the whole planning inside my head I notice then that the concept is not solid enough for the full lenght AMV and I usually scrap the project. Or if it's a comedy piece I'll turn it into AMV Hell3
Only thing that I have outside my head is the lyric-sheet, if there's singing in the song used. Even then I only look the song lyrics as a whole.

[Jnzk]

I always print out the lyrics and then write down timecodes of important changes in the music and possible clips to use while looping the song. This leads to a lot of paper waste, but allows me to see the concept better as a whole and remember the ideas that stay for only a fraction of a second. Naturally I also allow myself creative leeway, because AMVs never turn out exactly the way they are inside your head.

[Noverca1is]

My format is:

Find the Music im going to use
If the music has lyrics, find the lyrics
Get a notebook

Page 1, Write the lryics down, each setence belongs in each line.
Try to space each verse out. and Number each line and LETTER each Verse:

example:


A)
1- I am a man who walks alone
2 - And when I'm walking a dark road
3 - At night or strolling through the park

B)

4 - When the light begins to change
5 - I sometimes feel a little strange
6 - A little anxious when it's dark

C)

7 - Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
8 - I have constant fear that something's
9 - always near
10 - Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
11 - I have a phobia that someone's
12 - always there


Than, on page 2, I make note:
Verse A Begins at TIME :022 and ends at :29
line 1 begins at :22 to :24
line 2 begins at :24 to :26
line 3 begins at :27 to :29

:29 to :44 silent or "B2"
always keep as :A1 B2 C3 D4 E5 when it has no vocals and its the transition in the music from verse X to verse Y.
so verse B comes in at :45 till XX...
repeat process until your done with outlinging the entire music.
Add all the timeline, it should equal 5 second less of the acutal music or even.
I have realize, many time, I somehow lose 5 seconds although I added all my time correctly.. 60 seconds 1 minute... but I end up losing 5 seconds.
when song length is 287 seconds (4 min and 47 seconds, I end up with 4 min 44 seconds.. I think every 60th second is 1 sec loss...cause If I ad them all, I get 283 yet, I covered and see true value of every single second was outline till 287 on paper.) So in that case, take advantage of that loss and/or in some way gain of 4 second (you can use those seconds as credit time so everything stays in place when synching.

thus :22 to :29 = 7 seconds, verse A is true.
I will also note any signivficant sound in the music and at what second so I can synch it.

also note time length from end verse A to start verse B
Before the vocals kick in, how long was it without any vocals,.

So I break everything down to the seconds, lines, verse.
I count how many breaks out there is, How many verse there is.
With all those numbers you come up with, play with the numbers and you can find an avg scene you will for each section of your storyboard.

[megaman917]

/To Lyric-sync or not to lyric-sync

I've seen some good videos that completely ignore the lyrics. As far as meaning and words, the lyrics might as well not be there. They don't even match the singing (a part of the music 'sound' if you pretend it's not words with meaning). They simply match the music itself, interpreting some sort of 'feeling' from the beats and instruments (not including vocal - that's not an instrument for these vids). How they manage this, I'm not sure. But I've seen them. Usually they're dance vids or action vids, where all that matters is the rhythm of the beats and the editing style, maybe the footage if the scenes have some special meaning.

Me, if the lyrics tell a story I feel like I'm ignoring the main point of the song if I ignore the words. I'd sooner get an instrumental song. If the lyrics are repeated, with just a general theme, then they merge into the music so they're just another 'instrument' to me. In which case they're good for mood (the tone of the singer, emphasizing certain parts, belting out other parts). Then I don't worry about the meaning of each word so much as the emotion in the singer's voice.

Either way, if there are lyrics I treat them as words or as another musical instrument. I don't think instruments demand any special meaning for the scenes matched to them. Words have meaning if you speak the language (or can look up the translation). I'd have trouble putting an upbeat romance vid to some angsty rap lyrics. I'm just not good at ignoring the main point of a song with story-style lyrics - the messege.

I usually pay no attention to the lyrics and focus on the beat and general themes of the songs I use. To me that's a little more important than focusing on the lyrics. But, I do match up a few lyrics of a song here and there,(sometimes by accident). I've seen a few AMVs that focused only the lyrics of songs, and they were just bad.

But if the lyrics tell a story, then it's important to focus on both.

[x_rex30]

People need to stop focusing soo freakin much on lyrics in AMV, Music is the art of sound, not the art of lyrics. Lyrics is just the cherry on top. IMO.

lol

When you match lyrics, best be focusing on how its vocalized and match accordingly, and trying to hit every freakin' beat in an AMV makes the viewers eyes way to focused on beat sync, and not mood sync.

[The Winster]

i hear alot of emphasis on lyrics, but only if they have a plot to them or a story. say i choose a song that just spits out anarchist dogma without much plot, then i can keep a loose interpretation on them, right?

Untill now, I've not seen much videos that are in harmony with the lyrics/mood of a song. Its a different fact that I've not seen many uptill now. But I'd strictly suggest that amvs should have something related to the original song. Otherwise, there is no fun in them...