A newbie's thought's on anime music videos in general

[arzuro]

Heh, got a link?

[downwithpants]

Now as the title suggests I'm new to this, but I've watched a couple flics and it appears to me that anime music videos are just a bunch of random, really really short fragments of animes cobbled together to make a video that matches the rythm of the music. Of course plenty of the good ones add colour effects, clipping and other such tomfoolery, but all in all, that's all they are. And I do recognize that they tell little stories, like "that guy wants this girl but he can never get her" - but how are you going to make an interesting movie about something that can be fully expressed in just one sentence. Music videos aren't supposed to match the music, at least not as closely as most anime music videos do.

yes, anime music videos are stylistically different from official music videos. i would argue the main reason for the difference is that the creators of amvs are editors and the creators of official music videos are directors. for the most part, amv editors have no control over the basic graphic image of the video, save some compositing manipulations or cg renderings. they can't audit actors or tell them what to how to act at. what they can do is look at preexisting footage and search for scenes that best fit what they have in idea for the video. because they don't control the graphic image, they focus their efforts and talents on what they can control - scene selection, timing of scene onsets/offsets, and effects.

if you're looking for music-video like anime music videos, you'll find few of them here. nightowl's "Mad World," which trythil linked, does come to mind.

[Orange Kitten]

In relation to the original post, I agree with most of what Arzuro said. I've been around since 2001, and I have seen the trend of randomization in majority of the AMVs here.

Look at the statistics on the main page. There are about 26,000 creators with about 74,000 videos. When I do searches for videos, most of what I get are random poorly designed videos.

USUALLY the best AMVs I see are the ones that are submitted (and get in) to AMV contests...but I've seen some amvs that I hated at contests, so it's not gauranteed.

But the people that make the good ones are a small percentage. I'd say no more than 20% of the people here. And those are the same people who post in this list and others. So that leaves a large percentage of first timers and other poor to mediocre videos.

What makes a music video good is up to the viewer; this is just how I feel. The type of AMVs I'd like to see are extremely hard to do because A) it's difficult to be original when you're editing limited pre-edited footage and B) I think most people will reject the video(s) because it's not what the general public wants to see in an AMV.

(I know this post is getting long)
When I first heard the slogan "Make an amv for yourself, not for others" I believed it. However, if most people made it for themselves not caring what others thought, they wouldn't post it here. They wouldn't ask for advice to make better ones. I believe everyone wants to make something that everyone else can enjoy and take satisfaction in making something others deem as "cool"; at least to some degree.

In any case, I didn't feel or hear any hostility in Arzuro's post. I feel some people were a little unfair and harsh in their posts. He did not point fingers, nor am I, so please keep your posts to a mature and kindly manner.

- Peter Stoll
Orange Kitten Productions
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... r_id=36939

[808-buma]

When I first heard the slogan "Make an amv for yourself, not for others" I believed it. However, if most people made it for themselves not caring what others thought, they wouldn't post it here. They wouldn't ask for advice to make better ones. I believe everyone wants to make something that everyone else can enjoy and take satisfaction in making something others deem as "cool"; at least to some degree.

In any case, I didn't feel or hear any hostility in Arzuro's post. I feel some people were a little unfair and harsh in their posts. He did not point fingers, nor am I, so please keep your posts to a mature and kindly manner.

- Peter Stoll
Orange Kitten Productions
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... r_id=36939

I respectfully disagree - I think that for the most part, one should create an AMV for yourself first and the audience second. If you're creating AMV's for the audience or just to win awards, its sort of a souless creation that wanders around looking for it's next 'convention/victim' so to speak instead of something that was born just because it had to be made by you as the inner artist in you demanded it to be made.

As to the postings for help and all, I think that anyone who likes what they do for a hobby (as I don't think that anyone here makes money at this) wants to get better at it. I mean, we all need to grow if we want to be able to achieve that one effect that we wanted to always use, or use that particularly difficult footage from such-and-such dvd and you just don't know where to begin.

I think that this is sort of like my opinion of teaching art - you can be taught the basics (how to rip, how to encode, yada yada), but it is ultimately up to the individual's drive to actually create something out of the jumble of raw material.

For me, I think that it's the utter inspiration, creation, execution and completion that are the rewards of AMV making - the adjulation from the crowds and judges are just gravy after that! Not to say that the crowds and judges be damned, but ultimately, who are you trying to please? If it's not yourself, then...

I donno, maybe I should be working instead of being here in the forums

[Orange Kitten]

For many, pleasing the crowds is pleasing themselves.
I understand what you're saying and don't think that I meant that all people make AMVs just for the sake of doing it. And as for myself, I'm a competitive person and I naturally strive to be good at what I do. I'm not saying I AM good (I try not to sound egotistical), but I do strive to.
And that's why I enter into contests. I get enjoyment when people like something I made, no matter what it is. Why make something that noone wants to see? I think people have a natural tendency to want to show off their creations.

[Zarxrax]

Theres plenty of room both for people who create for the sake of other people, and for those who create solely for themselves.

In fact, I tend to do both, depending on the video I am working on. For instance, videos I have worked on such as the AMV Hell series are purely for the audience. I don't have a whole lot of personal attatchment to them, but it feels great to make something that a lot of people will enjoy and laugh at. Then on the other hand, I have done videos such as Tod or Love Eternal where, quite frankly, I wouldn't care if no one else on the entire planet ever saw them. They mean something to me, and thats all that matters.

I would like to take a moment to point out a few outstanding videos that I like. First there is
recollection, a very artistic Japanese video made entirely from images. Another that I like is Metro's True Fiction. This video is very heavy on visual effects, and is very artistic and moody. Finally, Ashyukun's Bouncing Through the Years. This one just makes me feel good.

Yeah but the good to crap ratio seems to be the same for MV's and AMV's. And the MV's at least have hot chicks shaking their asses.

And thank God AMVs have that too :p

[live2direct]

Ok I never write anything but I do read some of the stuff posted. I love anime, I am learning Japanese because I respect the culture, and I teach people how to edit (productions, news, anything really) at my school. I have never made an amv but I have seen hundreds and I would say that there are only a dozen of them I liked. To me the definition of an AMV is random clips trying to follow the lyrics to a song and at the same time tell a weak story. At one point of my life I wanted to make one, but as I studied AMVs to understand the style I learned is amature and redundent.

But AMVs have their own style. In one word they are random. So now when I watch AMVs I anticipate the random shots trying to fit the music. It is like watching a horror film and you anticipate that something is going to jump out at you when the music picks up. It doesn't necessarily make it good but it is just the style of the genre.

Now don't get me wrong...if you like editing AMVs then go ahead and do it. Even if you are bad at it, I don't expect that someone making an AMV has taken editing classes and by the look of it most 95% percent of AMV editors haven't... but as long as you are having fun. For example, I am not a pro at basketball but I love playing it. The difference is I don't brag about my skills when I don't have any. I just have fun doing it

In conclusion, I am very glad someone said something. I tell people my opinion about AMVs but I never got the urge to be some random person bringing up this topic on this forum.

[x_rex30]

But AMVs have their own style. In one word they are random. So now when I watch AMVs I anticipate the random shots trying to fit the music. It is like watching a horror film and you anticipate that something is going to jump out at you when the music picks up. It doesn't necessarily make it good but it is just the style of the genre.

Quite generalizing.

[arzuro]

Orange Kitten I'm glad to see that some people do understand my point of view, especially as you do a lot better talking about it than I do. I also agree with on you on the topic of aknowledgement, I'd even go so far as to claim that 99% of all people who make amv's would stop doing it if there was no way of showing them to other people. Competition is the most natural thing there is, it is the underlying principle of nature.

And to live2direct: I guess you can always count on me for being that random person.

[Otohiko]

Oh geez, don't get me started on competition.

You can't generalize so much. You can't just run around sticking a label on this entity of "AMV" which doesn't actually exist.

It's yet another case of two sides talking on completely different terms. In Russian, this'd be called
"Кто в лес, кто по дрова."
(Roughly - "Some go to the forest, some go for firewood.")

*I* am telling you:
- if AMVing was [neccesarily] about competition, I wouldn't be here
- if I thought AMVs were [neccesarily] random and poorly organized in nature, I wouldn't be here
- if I thought AMVs were [neccesarily] mere fanworks and [neccesarily] inferior to other forms of music videos, I wouldn't be here
- if I did not see AMVs primarily as a very promising art form, free of many commercial restrictions of many other forms of audiovisual art, I wouldn't be here

To me, it is as though we're not watching the same thing.

To me, and I don't want to sound arrogant, but it really seems like the reason we're not seeing it the same way is that you're watching AMVs with some preconceived notions, which aren't so much non-corresponding to norms and general trends reality as they are non-permissive of a wider circle of possibilities.
There is a wider circle of possibilities. In AMVs, yes. As elsewhere.

Judging AMVs as random, uninspired, and pale in comparison to other forms of music video is like judging the state of modern music based on what you see on MTV.