Are we over-complicating matters?

[The Wired Knight]

I wouldn't say it's killing AMVs but it could kill the community if ot goes too far. I do edit for fun, keeps me from going insane while working the rest of the week.

[Castor Troy]

I edit to impress other people and I follow trends. Just as long as I'm worshipped as some internet deity, that's what makes editing important to me.

[Corran]

A thread like this tends to pop-up every so often.

I don't know if the community is headed into a good direction or not, but the reason I stick around is because there are videos that come out every so often that I genuinely enjoy. They don't come out as often as they used to. I'm not sure if that is a result of the community direction or a change in my personal preferences.

Usually what ends up happening is that the community keeps on moving and those that can not or are not willing to adapt either continue what they are doing and ignore the community or announce their "retirement" (I still don't understand how you can really retire from a hobby...)

I say, do what you want. Stay in the hobby as long as you find it enjoyable. Don't force yourself to continue if it is no longer fun. Whether or not the community is moving in the "right direction" (very, very subjective) is ultimately pointless. What matters is if you still like it here. I've been very much a lurker these days, but I do still like it here.

Who knows, perhaps one day the community will come around full circle and start criticizing videos in the same manner did years ago.

(But I will always nag people on visual quality. There is no excuse these days for releasing a sloppy, half-assed encode on a video you supposedly spent weeks or months on! Put some pride into your work!)

[Emotive]

What if we divide the org into an elitist bastid section, an average editors section and a newcomers section? :<i></i>|

[outlawed]

What if we divide the org into an elitist bastid section, an average editors section and a newcomers section? :<i></i>|

You forgot Ballers. As the chosen one I alone will champion our cause if need be.

I'm not necessarily referring to text in the video, but rather the pages and pages of text that seem to occupy the video info page of many a video these days chronicling a long and epic story

Everyone likes to think they are involved in something special.

I don't get as much from editing anymore as I used to, and I think it's a fairly common feeling that's spreading throughout more and more of the community.

Anyone who thinks editing is fun has a screw loose. The creation of something is fun not the process itself. Perhaps editing an AMV together is no longer as fun for some people because they are now just a drop in the ocean. AMVs have been greatly devalued over the years.

Are we expecting too much from AMVs in general? Are we expecting too much from editors themselves? Are we over-complicating matters?

Do you have expectations of the editors themselves that they will create a new AMV to supply you with quality entertainment? Or do you have expectations of a certain level of quality for the works from editor X based on their known talent? I think the former is flawed while the latter is a given.

Are we killing the heart and soul of the org?

I have never been a huge fan of this website and I pre-date its inception. My reason would be that while it is nice that it opened the floodgates for discourse and gave a home to those who wanted but couldn't get websites back in the day I knew that eventually it would move into a potentially ugly stage. It is a given in any type of fan community such as AMVs that there will be cliques as well as an elite segment. The problem this site poses is that these cliques and the elite become known to the general body. They have always been in existence since the beginning of the online AMV era and I'm sure they pre-date it as well but they used to be in the undercurrent and not known to the general body so well in the past. You wouldn't notice they were there because the general body did not have exposure to them. While I don't think this destroys the org I do think many people often fail to realize the effect this has on the newer members. Many of the newer members are often low on confidence and young teenagers who come in to release a vid. They see release X by creator Y get lots of feedback and posts in the announcement thread and then they make a whining post why they don't get any feedback. What they fail to comprehend is that creator Y did not necessarily get that feedback because video X is a great AMV but rather because of their position within the AMV online community.

That is the inherent flaw in a discourse community based site like the org. This is why I feel something like nico nico douga is superior in every way to anything else out there and one of the few sites you could consider a realization of "web 2.0"

NND allows its users to create, have discourse, and the free-form manner of the comments and basic statistics (#views, #comments , etc) allow the entire userbase to dictate what is the hot thing of the day.

Contests still hold their sway though. Even if this site didn't exist you can bet they would still go strong and offer that method of exposure for creators. And just because someone is not as much of an expert doesn't mean they won't make the cut. The history of several prominent contests over the years has shown that completely new faces can make it in and blow away the old guard with something new.

[Sukunai]

According to the original meaning of the word "sophisticated" are videos have become too sophisticated.

No they are not too complicated, because I don't need to complain about a video that was "difficult" to create. And it may well have been hard to get the effect desired.

But too sophisticated? yes.

I've seen amvs ruined by a person that didn't realize their video was ruined by over sophistication. A great song and concept is not immune to over sophistication.

[dreamawake]

I think Prodigy is a pretty cool guy. Writes insightful topics and doesn't afraid of anything.

Lololololololol

no u

but srsly...Take prod's 1st post and answer "Yes" to damn near all of it, and thats my opinion \:

[Fall_Child42]

[DriftRoot]

To those who stand back and say "I edit because I enjoy it and for no other reason", I say kudos to you, but I'd wager that at least 50% of you are lying.

I edit and I don't enjoy it. The reason I make/made AMVs is because I think/thought the unpleasantness is/was worth it, not because I thought it was fun. This, I suppose, begs the question of whether making AMVs is really a hobby of mine if I find it so unpleasant, since hobbies are supposed to be positive experiences.

Hmm...I'm going to have to ponder that further. If AMVing is not a hobby to me, then what is it? Punishment for some sin in a past life? Man...I must have been BAD.

[shumira_chan]

According to the original meaning of the word "sophisticated" are videos have become too sophisticated.

Not sure what meaning you are thinking of, but I assume it's
"technically sophisticated"? Because most AMVs follow this one
very simple recipe: show what the song says. It's sometimes clever,
but after watching a two-hour show the other day I realized how boring
and predictable this becomes, no matter how many effects are used
to dress it up.