AMV Critical Metatheory

[Taite]

But, and I wonder if you would agree with me here, I also think there's another way to be pretentious as well. I'm thinking about the kind of attitude of "let's drop all this theory nonsense and just enjoy the hobby. It's all for fun and play!" OK, well, if it's all for fun and play then why won't you let people have their fun and let them have these discussions they obviously enjoy having? Why so serious? It's not like there's only one authentic way to do things and people are somehow diverting from it when they decide to reflect on it a little. "Theory" is a part of the experience.

I don't think pretentious would be the right word. Saying that "This is the only right way, my opinion sums it all up, thread done," would be pretentious, but saying "drop the theory nonsense" is just an opinion.
And again, don't really know if this is directed toward me , since I said "I say, just keep doing what you're doing. We're all fine with our small comments, or our stupidly detailed long ones, or our mean comments, blah blah. By all means, get together and discuss it things like this "theory", like we are here, but I don't feel like it's necessary to get wrapped up in it either (not that anybody is, but it's just too serious for my taste is all)"
So like I said there, yeah, let people discuss. That's why I joined in too. :p

[Pwolf]

But, and I wonder if you would agree with me here, I also think there's another way to be pretentious as well. I'm thinking about the kind of attitude of "let's drop all this theory nonsense and just enjoy the hobby. It's all for fun and play!"

This thread makes me kinda miss the days when you could put Evangelion to the theme to Top Gun, and people would just shut up and enjoy it. :X

I'm thinking perhaps this is where it was directed at.

[Emong]

I should probably be more clear what's directed at whom to avoid all these misunderstandings. I was thinking mainly of the drama in Phantasmagoriat's thread a while back. The thread was titled in a really bombastic way, like "Truth about AMVs" or something similar. Too lazy to dig it up right now.

since I said "I say, just keep doing what you're doing. We're all fine with our small comments, or our stupidly detailed long ones, or our mean comments, blah blah. By all means, get together and discuss it things like this "theory", like we are here, but I don't feel like it's necessary to get wrapped up in it either (not that anybody is, but it's just too serious for my taste is all)"
So like I said there, yeah, let people discuss. That's why I joined in too. :p

This is why I was wondering that you might agree with me, because you don't have anything against discussions like this

[Taite]

Oh, I remember skimming the thread. I read qyll's post, and that's where I stopped, since everything he said was just about right.
But yes, I agree (: Wish more people would join in as well.

[Beowulf]

1. People improve at anything by doing it. Not talking about it.

2. Destructive critism is helpful if you can listen to the message and ignore the messenger.

3. Whenever someone else tells you something isn't working, they're almost always right. Whenever someone tells you EXACTLY what isn't working and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

4. Most people are so attached to their comfort zone that they won't do what it takes to make something truly great.

5. A perceptive person can find value in even the most idiotic of feedback.

[Emong]

But, and I wonder if you would agree with me here, I also think there's another way to be pretentious as well. I'm thinking about the kind of attitude of "let's drop all this theory nonsense and just enjoy the hobby. It's all for fun and play!"

This thread makes me kinda miss the days when you could put Evangelion to the theme to Top Gun, and people would just shut up and enjoy it. :X

I'm thinking perhaps this is where it was directed at.

I've only been editing AMVs since 2007 so I couldn't really tell by my own experience how things were before that. Nonetheless, my wild guess is that this magical past Izumi is talking about didn't really exist. It's not as if people were tr00 in the past and the present is somehow corrupt. The corruption is there from the beginning.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Nah, there totally was a time when practically nobody had standards. There also wasn't much in the way of widely available technology, so you had a handy excuse to point to for why something felt rather meh. Now you have to own up to not putting in a lot of effort.

[DJ_Izumi]

Nah, there totally was a time when practically nobody had standards. There also wasn't much in the way of widely available technology, so you had a handy excuse to point to for why something felt rather meh. Now you have to own up to not putting in a lot of effort.

Yup. Because just being ABLE to put Evangelion to the Top Gun Anthem was a technological feat at the time.

AMVs were once nothing but cuts and fades done to VHS and sometimes DVD ripped footage. When I was getting into AMVs DVD ripping and digisubs was just becoming the standard. What got me into it though were these CDRs we'd trade at school with various 'neat stuff' on them, including some with AMVs. A lot of 'Classic' AMVs were on these CDs and they'd be boo'd by today's standards just for being so 'unremarkable'.

[Melanchthon]

1. People improve at anything by doing it. Not talking about it.
3. Whenever someone else tells you something isn't working, they're almost always right. Whenever someone tells you EXACTLY what isn't working and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

I find that talking about theory and technical details helps me to clarify my thoughts, and that clarifies what action I need to take. If I do watch a video and something strikes me as not working, there's got to be a reason. Sometimes it's easy to spot, sometimes not. I tend to refrain from giving exact advice (or, opinion) about what to put in place of the offending clip or whatever. One, it's your video, and two, if I tell you that the left-to-right pan in the middle of a section with a lot of right-to-left movement is breaking the flow, then the criticism suggests one solution.

2. Destructive critism is helpful if you can listen to the message and ignore the messenger.
5. A perceptive person can find value in even the most idiotic of feedback.

True. "Your instrumental makes no sense" is a valid statement whether it's surrounded by a long critique, a bunch of abuse, or nothing at all.

4. Most people are so attached to their comfort zone that they won't do what it takes to make something truly great.

Those that have developed their skills enough to have a comfort zone, yes.

[Fall_Child42]

I'd like to compare the AMV community to the Copacabana.
Ahh yes, Copacabana.
Thousands of bodies everywhere. In fact, just one body. a single immense ramified mass of flesh, all sexes merged. A single, shameless, expanded human polyp a single organism, in which all collude like the sperm in seminal fluid. The lack of distinction between the town and the beach brings the primal scene more or less directly into the public arena. The sexual act is permanent, but not in the sense of Nordic eroticism; it is in the epidermal promiscuity, the confusion of bodies, lips, buttocks, hips - a single fractal entity disseminated beneath the membrane of the sun.