AMV Salad 6...next stop: ZENKAIKON

[Warlike Swans]

All I know is I haven't received a submission in months.
And we don't even have a minute on the time line.
's about a month until the initial deadline and now I'm worrying...

I haven't converted any of ours into lossless yet. Right now almost all my free time is being taken up by a costume, but after AB I'll convert what we have and start working on some more clips.

For the gag, political could be pretty fun, but again, it's too broad to just say 'political.' The best gags just seem to follow meme-style timing and situation. Biggest thing that works is impact though, catching people off guard. They can't see it coming unless we want them to, that's proven most successful. Is there anything political that can follow that type of buildup? I'll consider that too, but if you think of it from that standpoint, I believe it should point us in the right direction again, political or otherwise.

Well I was thinking mostly of campaign lampooning (in a general way, easy as it is to mock certain candidates it might not land well). A gag would have to be more focused... and I can't think of one off-hand.

It's easier to understand why something works than brainstorm an idea that would work equally well.

[Gaelstrom]

Yeah, brainstorming is always harder for things like this. Hoping that we get lightning strikes hasn't worked as well as I'd hoped But then again, watching some brainstorming video sessions for South Park and Family Guy kind of gave me a new thought process (even if it's pretty much shooting out ideas until someone laughs). I haven't had any real time to apply that yet thanks to job transition and vacation, nor Scott's "Good Idea, Bad Idea" fanparody request, so I'm hoping one month isn't a hard deadline for anything.

Political humor wouldn't be my first choice for a running gag due to peoples' potential defensiveness, but I sure as hell wouldn't mind giving it a shot. Not good humor unless it offends someone!

Look forward to seeing your new costume

[Squancho]

(from Scott Melzer of Otakon)

Quick update on the big Otakon show:

Heya fan parody creators!

Here's a quick update. Please get back to me with any info/updates/questions.

1) The deadline for submissions for the Otakon Fan Parody show is
coming up. Friday May 25th. PLEASE let me know if your film will be
ready by then and what you'll be submitting. That's when we put our
schedule together, so I need to know/have at least a rough draft. You
will still be able to work on a polished version for another month but
I've got to have 90% of what we're going to be showing by then. These
can be shorts, Abridged episodes, full-fledged parody productions,
etc., but I'll need playable full quality files soon.

(2 was inconsequential for us)

3) If you are submitting and are coming to Otakon, please let me know
so we can whip up badges for you. As creators from last year know, we
did a special seating and "skip the line" admission program to the
screening. We're doing that again this year, but this time we're
planning it months ahead and publications is making the actual badges.
They'll be extremely cool and we'll be able to get them to you much
easier than last year as it was a last-minute addition.

Just thought you all should know things are serious and we need some significant movement over the next month or so.
I'm gonna be tinkering with AMVS ReHeated over the next week so the rest of you need to work on some clips.
I'll also spam the rest of the editors we haven't heard from since the beginning *grrrrrrrrrrr*...

[Squancho]

I apologize to everyone openly here for my lack of presence over the past few months.

Even with the job taking up a lot of what used to be my free time, finishing Katsucon AMV stuff, coordinating Anime Mid Atlantic AMV department, putting a possible time line for ReHeated together (based on suggestions I've received), and failing at coming up with good ideas of my own to contribute, there's really no excuse for leaving people in the dark about the progress so far and making a better effort to put my own into this.

Bear with me as I push harder to make this a more cooperative effort on my part...

[krvabo]

I have been very busy for the last six months, but I'll try to at least submit one video this year.
Unfortunately it is one with a bitchy amount of lip sync. Rough length somewhere between 24-30 secs.

Dunno if I'm able to make any more because my other ideas at the moment aren't exactly rib-ticklers.


Oh and we still need the amvs5 banner :p

[Gaelstrom]

I'm on to my third clip currently, it's causing me some issues finding any appropriate footage, so I may have to scrap it, but I'll give myself a limit until the end of the week to determine if it'll work or not. Once again I may have to not do the clip I really want to do, because the footage just doesn't seem to exist to give it the effect I want out of it. Such a shame Negima isn't animated as well as Haruhi was... oh well.

Look forward to seeing your clip, Krvabo. Maybe working on it will give you some new ideas.

I forgot all about finishing my suggestions for clip movements for Reheated, so I'll step back into that later tonight hopefully. There really shouldn't need to be that many more. Again it's all just to give more laughter leeway so important parts of quick clips have less chance of getting lost in audience reaction.

[Squancho]

I forgot all about finishing my suggestions for clip movements for Reheated, so I'll step back into that later tonight hopefully. There really shouldn't need to be that many more. Again it's all just to give more laughter leeway so important parts of quick clips have less chance of getting lost in audience reaction.

I just got home from work and, once this sandwich is properly decimated, I'll work on the time line suggestions / additions I have so far.

Also, I am pondering what to do regarding the future of AMVS once this year's project premieres.
More on that later...

[krvabo]

Maybe once a year is a bit much.. on the other hand.. most of the videos get done in the last month(s) anyway, so stretching it to two years isn't going to solve anything.
Having more activity (in the thread, a website, etc) might help.

I have a WIP for my video. Especially the end needs quite a bit of more work, and there are still some lip sync issues, but I'll be able to squash those out.
http://sketsi.com/salad/amvs6-wip.avi (4MB)
Tell me what you think.

[Gaelstrom]

Maybe once a year is a bit much.. on the other hand.. most of the videos get done in the last month(s) anyway, so stretching it to two years isn't going to solve anything.
Having more activity (in the thread, a website, etc) might help.

I have a WIP for my video. Especially the end needs quite a bit of more work, and there are still some lip sync issues, but I'll be able to squash those out.
http://sketsi.com/salad/amvs6-wip.avi (4MB)
Tell me what you think.

I don't think it's a matter of the timeframe or the interval, personally. It is very much a matter of organization. I have spoken to Deuce in private regarding organization and keeping people on the ball. It's not about badgering people to do stuff, but there must be a coordinator whose primary purpose is to keep everyone up to speed on what's happening and check to make sure they're doing all right. If necessary, we should also be helping each other out with ideas. I'm a big fan of collaboration, because I've found it always leads to stronger finished projects in everything I've been a part of.

We all have lives that make us forget about the video editing when things get tense, but that's where project leadership is supposed to be, so if we are to continue strongly, it's just a matter of bumping up our communication with a system. We get new members each year showing interest, but we never follow through with them from what I have seen, and new members are key to keeping things fresh. If you look at our work for the past four years, we have a lot of the same clips and sources and styles, and newness mixes that up. It may actually be fun to all chat over Skype to brainstorm ideas either later this month or for next year.

As for your clip, Krvabo, I like it. It's very cute, but in my honest opinion it feels like it's not quite a complete idea (I'm not talking about unfinished lip-sync, but the 'punchline' of sorts). I don't really find it that amusing, it feels more like a cute idea that makes me remember that I like K-on. I feel like it could be more unique. As it is now, it's relying entirely on Weird Al to make it funny, but the song isn't different enough from K-on's song to know how I should be feeling about it as an audience member. I think it's a simple issue of it just might be lacking reaction shots. Some quick reactions from Ui and/or their teacher in the audience as if they're at the concert being all like "...uuhh" or Ui kind of lamenting her sister's idiocy will give the audience a frame of reference I think. Other than that, I look forward to seeing the completed lip-sync. It looks good so far.

[krvabo]

You are, unfortunately, completely correct about my clip. It is the reason why I sent it in as a WIP and not the entire clip. Of course, the last few seconds aren't done yet (where you see the flames and the flowers its just a placeholder), but I didn't really find my clip to be all that amusing. The main reason why I went for funny audio is because most of my clips, except death note trollface, weren't really 'punchy' 'funny' videos. They usually are amusing at best but not laugh out loud funny. I might shorten it a bit and let it end at 'buy our album, we're nirvana' to keep the clip fresher and not have it go on and on.

I've got a list of ideas to create and submit to amvs, and I'll see if I can try to get one of those in. Might be funnier.

Oh and actually, this is footage from an ED, and I've wanted to submit this clip last year, but it didn't get finished