How do you go about selecting your clips?

[JazzyDJ]

What is your process for choosing video clips to add to your video? Especially when working with one single anime? With me it seams there are many clips I wish to include, but only so much song + appropriate lyrics for them to be used, so I become indecisive and even freeze up progress on the video. And some great looking clips that seem to go good with the song might not even get used just because the song isn't long enough to use them all.

What makes you select your clips, and how do you go about deciding close candidates for a point in the timeline? What is your process?

[BasharOfTheAges]

The narrative I'm working within usually narrows scene choice down quite a bit. From there, you can eliminate shots that don't fit for time, don't contain the correct inter-scene motion, don't contain the correct character/scenery/object/etc. You're really not left with all that much at that point.

If I'm ever in a jam with scene selection, I tend to start marking out timing cues with markers for the current and other sections of the timeline and move to another logical segment. I don't think I've done a video purely front to back... It's usually approached in segments that are well-planned and gaps that fill themselves when you get your narrative into place.

I also stopped "clipping" perse when I started getting large cheap hard drive space. Most of my "clips" are entire DVDs worth of episodes or entire movies.

[Infinity Squared]

I also stopped "clipping" perse when I started getting large cheap hard drive space. Most of my "clips" are entire DVDs worth of episodes or entire movies.

That's fairly well what I'm doing these days (except for HD sources as those are still a bitch with file size).

At the end of the day, I'm probably more of a trial and error kind of guy when it comes to selecting clips. I've sometimes done multiple timelines over the one segment of the song and I mute the rest and see how each one feels on its own.

[Megamom]

Usually... I choose the scenes that are best suited to the lyrics... is a process I do in my mind!

[CorpseGoddess]

One of the things I do that I find helps me a lot is to play the song that I'm going to be using on a continuous loop. It helps me "absorb" the song, as I'm not concentrating on it consciously; also, once in a while I'll get a serendipitous moment where a section of the song will sync perfectly with the footage I'm currently looking at on the screen.

[Taite]

Usually I'll have some portions of the video figured out in my mind; scene and editing-wise. So when I import everything into the program, I edit those parts of the song first, and then I let the project sit until I figure out the rest.
If I get really antsy about finishing it, I'll actually start browsing through all the episodes and trying out various scenes. Or I'll listen to the song even more than I already have till I figure it out in my mind.
This is usually the case when I edit an anime I've seen, which is most of what I edit with. That's why most everything is already in my head before I open my programs.

As for anime I haven't seen; All of my amvs have a story to them, so I don't always need to see an anime to edit it. I just find the appropriate clips to make the story. It's a lot easier for me to edit anime I haven't seen because I don't need to worry about the actually story of the anime intruding, I can use clips how I please to make my story come across. But I don't often do this and I don't know why.

*But in most all cases when I use a song with lyrics, the scenes have to fit the lyrics.

*If it's an instrumental song, it's all about making the story come across in a way that doesn't require words, as in, no text. Although there are most definitely cases when I use text, but only if it holds a purpose.

*If it's a trailer I'm making, It's all about making the scenes match what is happening in the audio, while still bringing the story out. There's also a lot more to picking scenes for trailers, but I can't describe the process well, because 1) I'm not good with words, and 2) every trailer is different and requires a unique approach. I don't approach all trailers the same.

[Prodigi]

I put random clips on the timeline until I find something that works.

I'm not lying.

That's really how I edit.

[Castor Troy]

I follow my heart.

[Ileia]

I put random clips on the timeline until I find something that works.

I'm not lying.

That's really how I edit.

Same. I pull 'em all down into the timeline, line 'em up and try 'em one by one. Up until I actuallly finish a video, my timeline is a mess of unwanted clips.

[EvaFan]

Since I edit with avs files, all my source is at my fingertips. I usually end up just skimming through it for things that match the lyrics and have points of interest for internal sync or match an idea.

Some of the timeline though I already have a general idea of what clips I wanted to use. It's mostly just fill in the gaps after that while trying to add-on or build up to what I've already done to keep everything linear (usually it ends up that way) unless my amv idea is original.