Soooo, how do AMVs work now?

[Bahamut God]

I used to be really active in the AMV community between like 2002 and 2006, and then kinda just floated away. I continue to watch anime to this day, but really don't watch a lot of AMVS anymore. I haven't been to an Anime Convention for many years either.

...But the itch to maybe make an AMV has been kinda returning. So rather than do my own research thought it might be fun to come in and ask you who are involved now how AMVS work these days?

Is a-m-v.org still the main place AMV community hangs out? I think I saw a discord mentioned somewhere. I kinda figured it would move to youtube at some point, but then youtube is really good at removing copywrited stuff so I kinda figure AMVS don't stay on there for long. Is there some other place AMVs mostly get posted?

Are AMV contests at conventions still a thing? When I started to fade away from the community they were running into copy-write problems and they were starting to get canceled. That was back in the Napster / Lime Wire days though, maybe music has chilled out the copy-write fatwa since then?

I'd love it if you could recommend to me some interesting stuff people are doing these days. Do people still leave opinions on videos?

And yes I'm so old my profile still is talking about Bush.

[SynaesthesiaVideos]

Is a-m-v.org still the main place AMV community hangs out? I think I saw a discord mentioned somewhere. I kinda figured it would move to youtube at some point, but then youtube is really good at removing copywrited stuff so I kinda figure AMVS don't stay on there for long. Is there some other place AMVs mostly get posted?

I've been involved in the AMV community for only about 3 years but from what I've seen the ORG is still widely used but mostly for archiving/announcing new vids and getting convention/AMV contest info. Most of the "hanging out" is on various discord servers, which I think is a better place for that.

Are AMV contests at conventions still a thing?

Yes. Go look in the AMV Contests board

I'd love it if you could recommend to me some interesting stuff people are doing these days. Do people still leave opinions on videos?

most opinions are now put in YouTube comments, or discussed on discord servers.. but for "interesting stuff" I'll point you to the recent Viewers' Choice Awards viewforum.php?f=154

[CrackTheSky]

AMVs are still very much alive and kicking. YouTube is the place to go for viewing them, generally -- they get taken down occasionally but it's not as often as you might think, and if you upload an AMV there there's probably a 95%+ chance you'll be fine. AMV contests at conventions are definitely still a thing as well, all over the world -- nothing much has changed in that regard in the last 15 or 20 years. Some contests have disappeared from cons but for the most part you can always find an AMV contest to submit to, and the big ones (AWA, Anime Boston, Japan Expo) are still around.

If you want to catch up on great AMVs released over the past several years, I'll not-so-subtly point you here, where I've been posting and writing about my favorite AMVs each year since 2014.

[Bahamut God]

In my day Anime Expo was the largest contest, is that still around?

I never uploaded my AMVs to Youtube, but have had terrible luck with stuff getting removed before. I once put up a live action sketch thing I edited for someone, and it got removed like the next day because it had Video Killed the Radio Star in it during the credits. It was private link with no views other than a hand full of people and I just figured there was no way an AMV would stay up for long.

Other people have uploaded my videos to youtube over the years and they all get taken down eventually as well. I never really minded because I have credits in all of my videos, and it was nice to see the comments and views tick up in a way I never saw on the org. The video quality of my videos are all pretty awful even for the time it wasn't great. I was editing on a Mac in the days before ProRes and H264 and most of my sources where HK DVDs, it's what I could afford at the time. I'm assuming there is still a group of people who always buy blue-rays for anything they do but beautiful HD raw files are so easy to find these days.

Youtube really doesn't take them down? When I search for AMVS in youtube it's kind of a crap shoot, but I checked out the 2021 a-m-v.org contest videos and they were all on YouTube. Is there some trick get making sure they don't get taken down? I'm assuming not monetizing your channel is a must. Maybe I've just had bad luck.

Also is Phade still around? I'm super impressed the .org is still up and running and really better than ever as far as I can tell. I guess having videos being hosted on youtube take a lot of the hosting bandwidth pressure off of the site which makes things a little more affordable.

[Zarxrax]

Youtube still takes stuff down all the time. I think a lot of people have moved to more types of music that is less likely to get taken down though.
I know a lot of my older videos that I tried to upload recently didn't make the cut for youtube.
A lot of videos get shared on reddit as well.
I think Phade left the site a while back, so other folks have been keeping things going since then.

[Bahamut God]

I'm assuming everyone's AMVS on youtube best cause just get demonitzied or worse case fully or partially removed. Oddly I've seen AMVs on youtube with Ads, I figure that AMVs more or less can't be monetized so maybe those ad revenues are going to the music copywriter holders? Youtube doesn't seem to be as good at spotting video copywrites. (The Anime itself.)

Is Vimeo as aggressive? I've seen AMVS posted to Vimeo and I figure that might be a safer medium for AMVs. It's not free necessarily but the price isn't too bad, and most AMV creators may be able to get by with a free account.

[Ileia]

It's more common for audio copyright holders to monetize your video rather than remove it and lose out on potential revenue, but if it's a video content match for the anime, it's almost always removed. The latter is less likely but still happens. The whole thing is a crapshoot and Vimeo has been frequently offered as an alternative, but just never caught on. There are lots of creators who upload to Instagram and TikTok as well, but the format is a bit different because of the length of the videos - and still just as likely to get muted/removed for the audio copyright. Only a fraction of the AMVs out there end up getting archived here, the ones who still do are usually just more "old school" or already in the habit.

[Rider4Z]

In my day Anime Expo was the largest contest, is that still around?

The AX AMV Contest became an amazingly produced event when Xstylus and Vlad took it over 9 years ago. They were the coordinators for 7 years until the powers that be at AX decided they wanted to "go in another direction" and fired them. That "direction" was looking for someone who didn't advocate so hard for AMV events. They had no one in mind at the time, proof of this when they put out an advert looking for someone to take it over. A good chunk of editors henceforth have boycotted AX in solidarity with Vlad and Xstylus. New guy took over for the one year before covid and from what I heard has no interest in doing it again.

My recommendations for the contests to enter are SakuraCon, Anime Boston, Otakon, Momocon, Anime Weekend Atlanta, Anime LA, Animethon, Otafest, other folks feel free to chime in with what I missed.

[Bahamut God]

In my day Anime Expo was the largest contest, is that still around?

The AX AMV Contest became an amazingly produced event when Xstylus and Vlad took it over 9 years ago. They were the coordinators for 7 years until the powers that be at AX decided they wanted to "go in another direction" and fired them. That "direction" was looking for someone who didn't advocate so hard for AMV events. They had no one in mind at the time, proof of this when they put out an advert looking for someone to take it over. A good chunk of editors henceforth have boycotted AX in solidarity with Vlad and Xstylus. New guy took over for the one year before covid and from what I heard has no interest in doing it again.

My recommendations for the contests to enter are SakuraCon, Anime Boston, Otakon, Momocon, Anime Weekend Atlanta, Anime LA, Animethon, Otafest, other folks feel free to chime in with what I missed.

That’s pretty much how I thought the AX contest would go, only I would have guessed that happened like 8 years ago. So major props to Vlad for keeping it going for as long as they did. It was the AX contest in 2001 that took me down my road and obsession first in AMVs and later in post production period. It was an incredible event.

[Rider4Z]

That’s pretty much how I thought the AX contest would go, only I would have guessed that happened like 8 years ago. So major props to Vlad for keeping it going for as long as they did. It was the AX contest in 2001 that took me down my road and obsession first in AMVs and later in post production period. It was an incredible event.

That's too bad you didn't get a chance to attend the contest when it was lit. Here's a little taste, it's the intro made for 2014 - you being a old school editor will hopefully appreciate it.