So was it hard for you to come up with your first AMV idea?

[Darkseid]

I mean how did you decide you wanted to participate in this hobby?

Were you an anime fan first or did you happen to see some others and decided you wanted to see more anime and eventually try to make some for your own?

Were you motivated by good feelings about another's vid or did you feel like you saw an AMV and just had to top it?

Also, was it hard to come up with your first ever idea and song/anime combination?

After all the negativity this board has seen, I think we could use a bit of positive energy and the best way to do that (at least to me) seems to be to go back to the beginning and remember how we got here...

[FurryCurry]

I was an anime fan first. I'd seen a couple AMV's I got through p2p filesharing, but what really set me off was attending AX-LA 2001. That was my first anime con, and the first big AMV contest I'd ever been to.

When I saw the exitement of that contest, and all the possibilities for different styles of vids, etc, I immediately wanted to participate.

It took over a year for me to actually get started, due to other priorities in my life, but I finally have a vid finished.

Ideas, at least the general song + anime + general premise part, come to me quite easily, usually while listening to music in the car. The fact I've been doing long cross country drives totalling around 25,000 miles a year for the last couple years means I have lots of ideas written down, probably more than I'll ever have the time to make.

The idea for the vid I just finished came while driving home from a day of shopping, listening to a CD I had just purchased. (the nearest Best Buy, Staples, etc. are 70 some miles away) I fleshed out the basics on a sheet of paper that night, and actually started the work a couple months later.

[trythil]

I've been a long-time fan of anime, but I never really got into editing.

Then I became mildly depressed, which got me working on video #1.
I had just heard Tangerine Dream's "Twenty-Nine Palms" for the first time, and it just clicked: "I have to make a Kanon video to this song."

The end product of that revelation turned out to be crap.

My second video was born from a similar thought process, and ended up the same way.

Anyway...

Finding tracks for a project isn't especially difficult. The hard part is trying to find just the right one for the job: the track that best embodies the themes that I want to express. The decision process usually involves listening to two or more tracks over and over, bugging the hell out of my roommate, picking one, doing some trial edits, screwing up, and trying again.

[FirestormXIII]

I had liked anime first, but it hadn't ever occurred to me to put the anime to music until I'd actually seen some AMVs. Even after I'd been watching AMVs for a month I still hadn't started, or even thought about, making AMVs of my own.
I think I finally started making them after I'd seen my umpteenth DBZ video and I started realizing that on average most of them were pretty badly done. It was then that I figured I could make AMVs, and make them better than a lot of the ones I'd seen.

Now of course it's not about making something 'better' than someone else's, it's all about enjoying what I'm doing and hoping other people do too.

[FirestormXIII]

Ooops, ammendum to last post:

And as for coming up with my first AMV, no it wasn't terribly difficult. In fact, I (me being dumb at the time) thought I could do a better Final Fantasy video to 'In the End' than AtomX did (I didn't even know who he was back then, for shame). Needless to say, it wasn't as good, but it wasn't horridly bad either. It about then that I realized that I shouldn't spend my time trying to outdo people, I should make AMVs for myself. So I moved on to my second video, which came to me rather quickly as well.

I listen to a lot of music, in all types of styles, so it's never been difficult for me to create a concept for a video. Usually my woes are with my equipment, or lack of time, etc.

[mexicanjunior]

I mean how did you decide you wanted to participate in this hobby?

I watched alot of DBZ videos (GGG, Anonesdbz, Kiaoken.net) and just decided that putting the 2 together seemed like fun. =P

Were you an anime fan first or did you happen to see some others and decided you wanted to see more anime and eventually try to make some for your own?

I had been reeled into anime by watching Toonami with my son many years ago. I got hooked on DBZ and Sailormoon (to a lesser extent). From there I just started finding more anime to watch and enjoy.

Were you motivated by good feelings about another's vid or did you feel like you saw an AMV and just had to top it?

I've never really tried to top anyone's vids, mostly just made them because I was bored and wanted to see the ideas come to life.

Also, was it hard to come up with your first ever idea and song/anime combination?

No, I drive quite a bit and pick up AMV ideas all the time by scanning thru all the radio stations. I normally have more ideas than free time to make them. =P

[The Non-Professional]

My first was a GW AMV, I got the idea for it when listening to the toonami Soundtrack. A few months later I figured out WMM a few months later my computer wiped, a vicious cycle.

[The Wired Knight]

I come up with ideas all the time, the hardest choice was deciding which one to do as my first project. Often I just hear a song and I think..."hey, this would b good to such and such series." So coming up with the idea is never a problem and wasn't for my first video, it's planning it that becomes murder.

[Hakura]

Humm...well I have been an anime fan for a long time.... almost all of my life. From transformers, Astroboy, to Sailor Moon, DBZ, anything that was on tv.

Then I found out that there was a lot more and because hard core in to anime about 4 years ago. I have a massive collection of anime now.

But as for getting into the hobby, I had seen a few random videos on the net about 3 years ago...I thought they were cool, but never had any idea of wanting to make any.

The way I started out, was after seeing the anime Trigun, it hit me like a rock.

So many ideas and emotions were swirling around in me, I needed to get them out. That was the first anime that clicked with me as a person.

So I went out and searched for the best programs to make AMV's with and stumbled across Premiere. From there, when I first opend the program I was like...she-at man...this is impossible!

I didn't let what looked like a complex program scare me. I sat down and played with it. Once I because comfortable with it, I began to piece together ideas for what I felt during the anime trigun ,and the specific parts of the series that made me feel that way.

I had recently bought a Sarah Brigthman CD, and always loved the Eden song. So I decided to use that for the video.

I had this video made for almost a year before I found about the org and made it public.

Before Eden was released on line I expirmented with Final Fantasy footage a bit.

Ideas are hard to come up with I think. Some hit you, but then you lose interest, then there are others that just stay with you.

I think that the best ideas come from your heart...not something that you think just "looks cool"

I don't know if this is the same with every creator, but I feel that a part of me goes into every video I make, wether it be the feelings I felt while watching the anime...or an artistic quirk that you want to show others.

I think I'll stop ranting now ^^;

[jonmartensen]

I first started to get into Anime a couple of years back when the Sci-Fi channel played Armitage and a few other Anime's at about 2:00 A.M. during the summer. I had seen some of the first episodes of dragonball z when I was about 11 on WB (hard to believe they had it but..), they came on a few times at 5 in the morning.

So I've enjoyed anime for a while but never really had the opportunity to see any major movies or series. I bought Akira, Ghost in the Shell (A dissapointment), and Jin Roh, and have seen some movies that my friend has.

I've been here before (about one year ago), the friend who has other anime movies told me about a really cool AMV using FF VIII and an Adema song. I never got into the site though, because I was on dial up .

So now I am in college and if you check my join date, that is the day after I got here. I started downloading videos left and right (I now have 48 on my computer). After spamming on the forums for about two weeks I decided I should stop being lazy and contribute to the AMV's that are out there, even if it is just my first and more of a learning process than a creation.

When I was driving back to college after visiting my parents for the weekend I heard Aerials playing on the radio and suddenly clips from Jin Roh popped into my head. I thought "Hey that's a good idea, now I can stop spamming and actually do something", I checked the list of AMV's when I got back and the only other Aerials AMV was Wanka's "Holy leaping ninjas batman".

I have no clue how many hours I spent on it but I know it took me 3 weeks to finish (I procrastinate alot). It is under 40 megs but is 720 x 480 and rather nice quality. some may groan when I tell them it is wmv, but the player works well and hey, I'll export it in a different compressed format soon.

So it is done, and anyone can get it from me through AIM. Over the next few weeks I'm either going to try to find free hosting or more likely dish out 100-150 bucks a year for a more reliable service and create my own webpage.

I haven't started on a second one yet but I already chose a song and Anime and have it partially worked out in my head.