Why Do You Make AMVs?

[vivafruit]

Yet, as more new AMVs are made and released, the more I always find out that editors just care about their own viewer counter on YouTube or the amount of comments they can get. So I continually feel disheartened when I see a good opportunity such as making and sharing AMVs in the hopes of making friends or building a community just fall by the way-side just because I feel that editors only care about their own videos and the view count on their own videos instead of just investing more of their time and honest attention onto the videos that other editors make.

I related to this paragraph more than you can know. Somewhere around October of last year I fell into a trap of obsessing over viewer counts. I would refresh youtube analytics something like 5 times a day. I'm doing better now but I think everyone has the issue of their ego getting too attached to something they originally made for fun. It's an issue we all probably have to some extent.

My reason for creating AMVs is sort of embarrassing. There's the usual abstract reasons (I love music, I love anime, I want a way to express myself creatively), but really what got me AMVing in 2020 was pretty concrete. I have a playlist of music I listen to while in an altered state (one of life's finest pleasures). At some point I realized I needed to split the playlist into "video" and "no video", since it was too disruptive to have videos coming on for only half the songs. The natural progression was to start imagining AMV concepts for songs that didn't have a good video.

Given this simple reason, it's amazing that even I got ego-trapped into obsessing over views.

[CrackTheSky]

I make AMVs for a number of reasons, but mostly it's the only form of creative expression that I engage in which I feel I am competent at. I dabble in other artistic pursuits from time to time, such as drawing or photography, but this is the only one in which I feel confident enough in my abilities to accurately express myself. Over the past few years especially, I've found myself retreating into AMV editing with the express purpose of releasing whatever pent-up Feelings are inside of me at the time.

And if it's not some great emotional expression, then it's simply a matter of making something cool using a song and anime that I like. Not everything I make is deep or full of meaning; either way, it's a fun way to let my creativity flow. The editing process itself -- making cuts, finding scenes that fit the rhythm of the song, interpreting lyrics in unexpected but fitting ways -- all these things require a kind of creative thinking that I don't often get to engage with outside of this hobby.

And besides this, I've met a ton of people over the years through video editing, many of whom I would consider close friends. It's not something I'll be giving up any time soon.

I related to this paragraph more than you can know. Somewhere around October of last year I fell into a trap of obsessing over viewer counts. I would refresh youtube analytics something like 5 times a day. I'm doing better now but I think everyone has the issue of their ego getting too attached to something they originally made for fun. It's an issue we all probably have to some extent.

Yeah, when I first got into the hobby and for many years afterwords, I was overly concerned with the metrics around my own work (although more the downloads/# of Quick Comments/Opinions/etc. on here than on YouTube, which I didn't really use back then). It stunted me for way too long. Around 2013, I found that I cared less and less about that and it freed me to make videos in a way that I had never been able to before. I don't know what caused that change, but I found myself answering the question, "If the internet didn't exist and you weren't able to share your AMVs with anybody, would you still make them?" with a more confident "Yes!" than I ever had in the past.

Were any of you really excited to show off your first AMV to your friends and family, by any chance?

Oh yes, I did this. Now I can't stand to be in the same room as people when my AMVs are being shown, unless it's just me showing one to my wife, or in a convention setting where I can melt into the crowd and no one will notice me. My in-laws constantly ask to see my work and I have to make excuses; this makes them think I have a low opinion of my work and that I don't feel it's good enough to show them, when in reality I just really don't like being in the same physical space as people when they're viewing/evaluating my creative, and often personal, work.

And this is why I'd never be a good professional artist.

[anthonypokemon]

I make amvs cuz I love music and anime, also Im back to make amvs after a decade long absence. Mostly because of Technical and Personal life difficulties, In late 2019 I returned to make some AMVs cuz i like working on Bleach Naruto and Yu-Gi-Oh! AMVs and i missed doing it.

[sharktoothgoosie]

I am coming to this from a very different perspective than many, I would expect. I'm going to date myself with my answer, but here it goes. Deep breath.
I grew up on MTV in high school. Music and "video" became very influential to me in an extremely formative time in my life. I've always been an avid music lover, but back then, this just wasn't a thing. Flash forward, life happens blah, blah, and it wasn't until decades later that I was introduced to anime, via my son, which was actually relatively recently. It consumed me. Then, I met AMV's. <Mind BLOWN> The fact that I could make my OWN "music videos" with what is essentially an unlimited amount of amazing video footage, for any mood, style, emotions etc....was really unbelievable to me.

So, why do I make them?
Honestly it's for very selfish reasons. I LOVED music videos, and now I can make my own. I can use it as a creative outlet, in ways I couldn't before at a time in my life where I have the time to devote to it. I enjoy being immersed in it, obsessed sometimes, but that's ok too.
I also have no talent for drawing, writing, or other traditional arts, so this opened doors I was very excited to walk through. I have no editing experience, but being fairly computer savvy, I figured I could stumble my way through it. As long as there is anime out there for me to watch and connect with, I feel I'll continue to do this, and hopefully get a little better at it along the way.

I have to keep telling myself though that like all art, it's subjective. There is no right or wrong. Everyone does it for their own expression, or interpretations. I'm still fairly new to this, and I am in early stages of learning, and I do struggle with a lot of the issues many of you have mentioned.

I think hearing stories like these helps humanize your creations. It's important to know and understand why we do the things we do in a world where we are drowning in information, media, images, opinions, and the like. I really loved reading everyone's different reasons.

[Linkin Emerson]

Why I make AMVs? I will try keeping this somewhat short as I can rant lol.

Im 36, when I was roughly 15ish a friend showed me them & how he made them & me liking DBZ Cowboy Bebop, Inuyasha, the usual suspects after my school days when I caught them on TV I got into it, just making AMVs with whatever horrible quality pieces he could get, his mom eventually got him a VCR setup where he could put in his DBZ collection & we got small clips that way, but again the quality was horrendous.

But I remember only making a handful & then decided to enter a contest on some AMV forum I could never recall now what site, but anyway it was on his PC I was making the AMV on & he started getting jealous of it, First talking the usual trash cuz I chose Numb from Linkin Park, but when he saw how much I was putting into it & how it was starting to turn out the next couple days he was kind of a jerk & making excuses on he wanted to play counterstrike or something I I couldn't use his PC so it was shortening my time to complete it, by the 3rd day we got into a bit of an argument & he was like oh yea I will just delete it. So me being a bold little snapper I said do it. He didn't want to, but I knowing my childhood friend I was very sold on the fact that if I didn't use it he would steal it & call it his own project so I made him delete it & empty the bin in front of me. I didn't have a super stable young life so Army & life sort of moved me away from it, but I always had those thoughts others shared about hearing a song & just having a movie or scene flash in my head, & to be honest its not just anime, but CGI films, dramas, horror, everything at times. So finally Ive been slowly trying to work it into my life, its slow going having adult responsibilities now, but its so rewarding being able to create that vision that may flash in my head. I have dozens of projects to work on, but Im just enjoying the relearning process.. & when I make a 3-4 minute music vid, its usually a week minimum of grind work, something more serious & its several weeks, a touch of that is finding the right tutorial for an effect or look Im going for, all things most people would never ever notice lol, but I know:P

I don't feel this deserves a thread on its own as its prolly somewhere obvious & I'm just missing it, but if I wanted to share a music video that may not be exactly anime, is that suitable anywhere here?

[seasons]

I don't feel this deserves a thread on its own as its prolly somewhere obvious & I'm just missing it, but if I wanted to share a music video that may not be exactly anime, is that suitable anywhere here?

You can share those videos here if you have a link to them on YouTube or any other site:

viewforum.php?f=122

The "Other Videos" subforum for edits made with live action, non-Japanese animation or original footage is not very active but if I see you post anything in it, I will definitely check it out.

[seasons]

I think hearing stories like these helps humanize your creations. It's important to know and understand why we do the things we do in a world where we are drowning in information, media, images, opinions, and the like. I really loved reading everyone's different reasons.

It's interesting hearing from people who had those moments where they suddenly realized that they could do something like this, and the possibilities of it suddenly feeling so exciting and liberating.

And inevitably, most people who can recall moments like that are of "a certain age" because I think pretty much every young person today takes it for granted that editing together different kinds of preexisting media into something new and different is just something that people have always done and it's really no big deal. And that's not their fault or anything because I'm sure I'd feel the exact same way if I were in their shoes. Probably more than most of them!

Despite the decline of MTV, music videos never went away. There's more of them than ever before, anyone can make one and there are probably a hundred times more people with the skills and the means of production to do it than there were 20 years ago. But yeah, it's so weird how no one seems to be inspired by that form any more. I did not have cable television when I was a kid so I only had a few limited chances to watch music videos, but I was always super into them and I loved how creative people could get with them. I was really interested in video production and was always kind of thinking about what it might be like to get into the business of making them--realizing in hindsight that this is kind of a cliche of sorts, a phase that a certain kind of young person goes through, kind of makes me cringe a little bit but it's far from the most embarrassing ambition that I've ever had--around the same time that I first discovered what AMVs were. Maybe AMVs actually derailed my legitimate video production dreams? They certainly pulled my attention away from the business of making art with other people and into the realms of being an introverted shut-in that's immersed himself in nerdy obsessions. In the long run, now understanding how tough it is to direct and film and edit actual "real" music videos, and how that's kind of an impossible career at this point for everyone but a VERY small handful of people in the world, I don't think that was a bad thing.

[ShadeTheNovice]

I like it when the pictures on screen match the boops in a song.

[DieNand]

I started making AMVs because I saw someone else's AMV and I thought it looked kinda fun. So I tried it and in a way, it has been a passion that has lasted me a lifetime. It's a love song to a medium that I love (or used to love).

[SilkAMV]

Around 2006, I was about to go to sleep when suddenly a scene from an anime and part of a song randomly collided in my head, and they fit perfectly. I had never considered making an AMV before, but now I had a desperate need to. So desperate in fact, that I edited the video without any editing software. That is to say, I wrote down the timecodes of the scenes I wanted, and played them while simultaneously listening to the music on my iPod. By the time I actually realized I had the option of learning how to edit, I already had the entire video in my head.

It was then that I took my first baby steps in Windows Movie Maker and assembled my first AMV. As I did so, I became afraid that someone had already made this video. I don't mean the same song and anime. I mean the EXACT video, down the same cuts. It just seemed so obvious to me that these clips and these notes belonged together because they matched so well. Someone else had to have noticed right? Yes, that's silly now but I was actually legitimately afraid I was being unoriginal. After I finished it, it actually won a small contest on the anime-eden forums.

So, why do I edit? Because some videos just need to exist. I edit in search of those videos. Most of what I produce doesn't reach that standard of necessity, but the ones that do make all the others worth it. I edit to improve my skills enough to be ready whenever true inspiration strikes, just like it did all those years ago.