How do YOU edit your amv's?

[Karritto]

I haven't yet,, but I am planning my first. What I've done so far is:

1. Decide what anime/character to feature.

2. Select a song.

3. Choose episodes/movies/scenes that correspond to tone and and lyrics of that song.

Once I get around to editing, I will be using Adobe Premiere and whatever DVD ripping software I can get for free or cheap.

[ngsilver]

I taught myself how to edit with my NLE at the time, Premier 6.0. Even though I now use the newest Premier from CC (I update between projects as best as I can) I still edit very similarly to Zarx.

I tend to import all my footage in full episodes/movies/ect. I then create multiple timelines, one is the video timeline, one is a credits timeline, another timeline for a YT release version, a timeline for a full release version, then I create a source timeline to load all of my sources into one after the other (usually called clipping), and one to store my clips (usually called clips). I throw my song on the video timeline. I throw full episodes on the clipping timeline and then go through episode after episode cutting clips right in the timeline. I then move my clips to the clips timelime where they stay back to back until I decide to put them in the video timeline in their place. If I know a clip will go somewhere specific in the video already I'll put it there in the video timeline. When I'm done with the video, or done enough to make a release (such as a beta, specific con version, ect) I use the Video timeline as a nested clip in whatever timeline for that version and then add the credits or other pieces if needed.

My process is pretty simple. I usually start off with an idea which is rarely more then a song choice and video pairing. I then will watch the show if I can to get it fresh in my mind (unless it's a source I really know well because I watch often) and I might start getting ideas of scenes to place into spots in the song. I then rip and prep my footage as necessary.

If I'm making a gif video, I actually just download as many gifs as I can and store them in a folder. I usually split up based on source type, gifs, full episodes, mp4 clips, webm, ect (yes, more and more I actually use less real gifs and more actual video footage. crazy right?) and import them seperately into premier. As I import I do so in small sections, taking note of files that don't import correctly and move them into specific folders to try to convert to a different format and modify aspect ratios and whatever that's needed to allow them to import (working with gifs is technically hard, rarely are they within normal spec for video editing.) I then just listen to my chosen song over and over again until I have some general idea of what I'd like to see, how much flare or movement I want to add between the different 'scenes' and what not, then put all the gifs into their own timeline. I then just scrub across till I come up with a gif I like and move it onto the timeline. I keep doing this until I'm done and the video is finished. I then go through and see if I can find 'better' gifs then ones already in place and go from there. Actually, the hardest part of the whole process is coming up with a song choice and planning out my intro/outro. Once done I move the gifs I used into a special folder of used gifs, the ones I didn't back into a download pool folder, and then continue looking at more gifs for future installments (I have enough footage built up right now for at least 3 more of these things already, with new source being found all the time.)

I don't do any real planning for my videos. I go with whatever my muse tells me. My methods (and often source choices) may be old but they still work at least for me.

[FranBunnyFFXII]

I use VEGAS Pro and WinFF to convert stuff into editable files.

When I have an idea for a video I will find all the source media I need, and go with the idea in my head.

My latest project was simply a remake of an old amv i did that I wanted to fix in so many ways, but also include the original Rammstein music in it.
It turned out pretty well.
When I can I will share it here if that's acceptable.

[the Black Monarch]

- Listen to song, think of various clips that could go with some of the lyrics

- Write lyrics down, use notepad/wordpad plan out as many clips as I can think of good matches for

- Boot into Windows XP partition, fire up my copy of Premiere Pro 2.0 that Adobe let me download for free as long as I pinky swore that I had paid for a hard copy.

- Edit all the parts of the video that I had bothered to plan out, which is usually like half of the video

- Make up the rest as I go along based on clips that I suddenly and accidentally noticed would work for some of the lyrics while trying to find the clips that I actually wanted

- Scan through whole franchise again to see if I missed anything good

- Get about 90% done, export rough draft, watch it a few times to see what needs improvement the most

- Hard drive dies, taking all my work with it

- Cry

- Contemplate suicide

- Upload 90% rough draft to Youtube anyway (it was on a different hard drive)

- It gets taken down a month later because muh copyright violations

- Cry again

[Rider4Z]

When I hear a song, and I think of a anime for it, I tend to listen to it a bunch of times to get a mental image of how I want key moments to play out. Often times the scenes that I envision don't actually exist, or aren't as editable as I imagined, but I at least have a outline

Then I scrub through every episode of the anime and see what scenes I actually have to work with and adjust my vision of the video to fall more in line with that. But even at this stage, there tends to be a bunch of segments that I'm uncertain of. But I try to edit the segments that I'm most confident about and use them as a test to see if the video is worth making. Because if the segments that I feel should work the best doesn't actually look that good, then there's not much hope for the rest of the video.

As I start editing those segments, and make further adjustments of my vision for the video, I start to narrow down the options for my unsure segments, and I eventually start to edit those as well. After a while, more and more segments get finished, my vision starts to become more and more clear and locked in place, and I start making more and more adjustments to things I've already edited so that they fit in with with the newer segments.

So in a nutshell, my process is to get as clear of a vision for my video as I can, work on what I'm confident about, fill in the holes as I go along, and constantly make adjustments.

^That's pretty close to what I do with one addition. When physically editing I focus on the ending/latter half first and then work my way backwards. The ending is the most important part so I want that to be the strongest and most polished segment. It also tells me what I need to put down early on to set up my resolutions.

[CoolMeetsGeek]

I too listen to the music over and over driving my girlfriend crazy in the process. Once I figure out what story I want to tell the AMV sort of puts itself togetger so to speak.