Question 1 wrote:Who's your favorite editor(s)?
Loveable Neko Kyou.
Question 2 wrote:What can you tell me about your favorite editor as an editor and/or a person?
She made slash vids. She already had a handful of vids when I first joined. If she hadn't been 'established' here, I would never have joined. She set the stage for fans like me to move from viewer to editor. If she could take advantage of the place despite the male hegemony, any fangirl could. But she never posted on the forum or became a part of the community. I didn't find that out until it was too late. I still cross paths with her in other parts of the net, and I continue to find myself joining hobbies only to see that she got there first. She keeps setting the example, and I both envy and appreciate that.
Question 3 wrote:Who was your biggest mentor, or who was the closest thing to a mentor you had?
EarthCurrent. It had nothing to do with editing, but he greatly influenced my view of the org as a whole, and my approach to dealing with the forum as opposed to the archive. This was my first forum, and he sort of...taught me how to think about people online. Or how to *not* think about them at all, in some cases.
Question 4 wrote:What editors are or were the biggest influences to your work?
Question 4a wrote:How exactly did they influence you? What qualities present in your work can you trace back to those editors?
Castor Troy. His "Haunted Ship" was the first crossover vid I saw that used an anime I knew well enough to spot how he did the scenes. I remain a huge fan of crossovers in particular, and "AU vids" in general. I only dabbled in crossovers myself, so the influence isn't visible in my editing. But he definitely made me more eager to put things together that wouldn't 'normally' mesh. He also seemed pretty shameless about doing DBZ vids, which helped me suck it up enough to share my own regardless of it being a 'dead horse' anime even back then.
Anneke. Her "Suichi's Question" got me into multi-anime vids, which remain my favorite vids to edit to this day. I'm sure she wasn't intending to throw in everything including the kitchen sink, but that's what I got from the vid and that's what I ended up doing with my own. Her vid made it look fun to do multi-anime, and it was for me. She's another one who is rather shameless about making what she likes. That definitely influenced me to be a little brazen myself.
Question 5 wrote:What outside of the online vidding community has influenced your work?
Question 5a wrote:How has it influenced your work?
A fanartist on devart animated a flash music video for my favorite pairing. It epitomized everything I hoped to eventually be able to do myself, yet she never edited an amv in her life. That woke me up, made me realize I didn't *have* to go through this editing hobby in order to achieve that result - I could have gone through the fanart angle instead. That completely changed my process. Instead of trying and failing to manipulate anime footage, I made my own. After that, editing straight anime footage wasn't as fun. That flash vid influenced my work by making me do fewer vids. I was working on the assumption that the more vids I made, the more practice I'd get, and the more I'd improve. But that vid made me realize it wasn't editing stock footage that I needed to improve on, it was making footage myself. As far as amvs go, it was a negative influence. But it led me closer to what I wanted to achieve out of the hobby, so I count it as a positive.
Question 6 wrote:Who are some influential people in AMVs and what are they responsible for?
Koop, for kicking off the age of effects with Euphoria.
Istiv, for kicking lipsynch to a new level (and character cut-outs as well).
ScorpionsUltd, for proving you can make an original Naruto amv.
Godix, for keeping some people around the forum even after they lost interest in the hobby/community as a whole.
Dokidoki, for keeping the site (and thus the community) running.
Question 7 wrote:Are there any somewhat unrecognized editors you wish to promote for any reason?
Question 7a wrote:Umm...seriously? Why that person(s)?
No.
Question 8 wrote:Any of you old seasoned editors wanna give some advice on anything?
Don't let a few people ruin the entire hobby for you.
Question 9 wrote:Is there anything else related to this subject you'd like to add or any questions you think should be asked as well?
No.
Question 10 wrote:How can the noob below you improve on his editing? NO CHANGING ANSWERS!
Read some of the editing guides here. Try one out for yourself using an anime you don't know or particularly like. Follow the guide as closely as possible, especially if it tells you a particular way to make cuts and do beat sync. Don't think of it as creating a music video, think of it as practicing sentence structure or doing math problems. Just follow the 'rules' given as closely as possible. Then watch the finished video over and over for an hour. Then throw the video into the back of your computer and go back to editing the way you were before. Continue doing your own thing for a few vids. Then compare your most recent vid to that "guide vid" you put away. If you've adopted any of those tips from that guide, then think about why you've adopted those and how they further your style. Then try it again using a different guide. This is a fun way to broaden your editing while also establishing your own style. You can also practice by attempting to reproduce the editing in your favorite video using the same song and different footage, but be careful doing that. The point is to try new things you so find what you like, adding to your own style, not to reproduce other people's editing preferences to the point where you have no style of your own.
Never Fall Apart is also probably one of my favorite videos of all time.
I have faith in my own editing
