New AMV (FF8 - mine's special though! XD)

JSRoss · Post by **JSRoss** » Wed May 11, 2005 7:49 pm

neonbunny wrote:bluey11: Thank-you! But are you sure you gave me an op? I checked and there isn't any...

JSRoss: I don't know where you got the idea that newbies could help newbies so I doubt I could teach you much since I hardly know anything myself. There are a lot of helpful links on this site about AMV creation though, especially in the forums. Try this link, it has a lot of good info: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/phpBB/v ... php?t=2163

Thankies

ifihadaninja · Post by **ifihadaninja** » Wed May 11, 2005 8:13 pm

i wasnt trying to bash your spelling, nor was i trying to say your not patient, you were just talking about why people are so egotistical when someone asks for help. I wasnt referring to you.

neonbunny · Post by **neonbunny** » Wed May 11, 2005 11:02 pm

Well if that's so, then I'm sorry, but you really made it sound that way, especially since you quoted me. If you weren't referring to me then I don't really know why you said that.

ifihadaninja · Post by **ifihadaninja** » Thu May 12, 2005 5:31 pm

ifihadaninja wrote:you were just talking about why people are so egotistical when someone asks for help.

ifihadaninja · Post by **ifihadaninja** » Thu May 12, 2005 5:36 pm

neonbunny wrote:It's kind of interesting how new people are shunted aside as wannabes or something. We are all beginners at some point and there is only so much you can learn on your own. Not only that, but there are a lot of different (sometimes conflicting) sources and it gets really confusing... So who better to ask than the people who have the most experience and skill? Yeah I wish there was some kind soul out there that wasn't all egotistical and wouldn't mind helping someone out, but I realize there are very few people out there who give a damn.

Thats just incase you forgot. I was just trying to explain the reason.

madbunny · Post by **madbunny** » Fri May 13, 2005 1:13 am

Hmm... Not bad, not great either.

On one hand, you're going to have a pretty hard time getting an original creation out of FF, on the other hand you managed to make a fairly decent video, albeit: a commonly themed one.

I think that this video has some technical issues that you might want to look at, such as cleaning up the noise, and fixing the contrast. Also, I know that you wanted to stick to just those characters, but since the amount of footage from them is so limited you might also want to build up some nondescript stuff that you can add from the other games. That way the 'style' of the footage would match, and you'll have a bit more to work with in crafting your peice.

The editing was about 6/10. The metaphors were pretty good, in that you tended to hit the lines about stuff like 'all alone' and showing a feather floting up all alone, or whatever. The cuts really didn't follow the song as well as they could have. You picked a fairly upbeat love song to work with with lots of musical variety in it, but the cutting methodology that you chose was faily static. This meant that the video has a very linear feel to it as you watch. You might want to consider breaking your video up into mini 'acts' and using the song bridges as markers for those style changes.

Here are two FF videos that serve as pretty good examples of the sort of stuff that I mentioned.

Breathless by Firerules
and
Hero by Eek-1

Both videos are well done in my opinion and show how FF can still be used to create effective videos.

neonbunny · Post by **neonbunny** » Sat May 14, 2005 8:02 am

madbunny wrote:I think that this video has some technical issues that you might want to look at, such as cleaning up the noise, and fixing the contrast.

What's wrong with the noise? I didn't download the song... and I really have no idea how to fix those things.

The cuts really didn't follow the song as well as they could have. You picked a fairly upbeat love song to work with with lots of musical variety in it, but the cutting methodology that you chose was faily static. This meant that the video has a very linear feel to it as you watch. You might want to consider breaking your video up into mini 'acts' and using the song bridges as markers for those style changes.

can you give me an example because i'm not entirely sure what that means...
and also this part:

you might also want to build up some nondescript stuff that you can add from the other games. That way the 'style' of the footage would match, and you'll have a bit more to work with in crafting your peice.

But that is really great advice! i can understand where you are coming from, i would just understand better if it was more detailed... thanks.

By the way, love your icon!

bluey11 · Post by **bluey11** » Sat May 14, 2005 10:32 am

i already posted, but what can i say

NICE JOB FOR FIRST TIME AMV!!!!!

(seeing as you used movie maker

)

Bakadeshi · Post by **Bakadeshi** » Sat May 14, 2005 11:05 am

neonbunny wrote:
madbunny wrote:I think that this video has some technical issues that you might want to look at, such as cleaning up the noise, and fixing the contrast.

What's wrong with the noise? I didn't download the song... and I really have no idea how to fix those things.

I beleive he means the noise in the footage. You can use AVIsynth or even the filters in Virtualdub if AVIsynth is too complex for you, to clean them up abit. I suggest learning how to use AVIsynth though, as you will get the absolute best quality with the tools provided there. Its well worth it. See the guides, especially the one on Audio/video by Absolute destiny on tips conserning these.

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/

Guides on video and audio preperation:
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech/

Especially these parts:
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/ ... ssing.html
(especially if you'll be working with AVS files in your program, not sure if Movie maker lets you do this or not)
and
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/ ... tqual.html
(For cleaning up the footage after you export it, using virtualdub and avisynth)

Hope this helps. I'll download the video and see if theres anything I can add to the comments on it.

madbunny · Post by **madbunny** » Sat May 14, 2005 12:22 pm

neonbunny wrote: What's wrong with the noise? I didn't download the song... and I really have no idea how to fix those things.

can you give me an example because i'm not entirely sure what that means...

But that is really great advice! i can understand where you are coming from, i would just understand better if it was more detailed... thanks.

By the way, love your icon!

I'll try to just write out an op for the video this weekend, that should answer your questions. I'll try to make it reasonably detailed.

In short though: Working with FF footage is slightly different than working with most anime, so you'll have to experiment slightly when it comes to filtering. Filters that make an anime look absolutely awesome, say... mftoon can make things like live action and FF look like pixelated dog poo half the time.

When I was mentioning the lack of footage, this isn't something new to FF videos. In fact all video game based amvs tend to suffer from this. It isn't like you have 26 episodes of stuff to work with, you have... what, 30 min tops. (if that) Having so little footage you want to find stuff that is done in the same style as your video. Say for example: you're working on a Please teacher video and you want to use one of the side characters, but don't have 'quite' what you need. You can take a look at the spinoff: Please Twins, and see if you can grab some stuff. It's close enough in style that you can get away with small stuff (like say... riding a bike in the distance or whatnot).

As to using song bridges and whatnot: Virtually every song in existence, even stuff that barely qualifies as music... like John Tesh, has a pattern. Usually it's in a system of 8's, so if you make cuts generically, on 2,4,6,or 8 notes you'll be following the pattern of 'general music' and the video will flow more smoothly. This isn't a hard and fast rule, and sticking to it slavishly will probably result in your doom. What I meant by my comment was that you might want to consider changing the 'tempo' or speed of your cuts to match the emotive content on the song/video a bit better.

I wrote a mini-guide on how to identify the breaks, and use the content of segments for videos: Madbunny's tips
It's pretty easy to follow, although I've been told that much like me, it's dry and humorless.

AnimeMusicVideos.org

New AMV (FF8 - mine's special though! XD)

Nice Amv