- Follow up ... 2005-06-25 05:06:37 After some digging *coughgooglecough* I found out who did that Warcraft III videos I was talking about. It was this man, Devolution (http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_myprofile.php?user_id=23885). Unfortunately, he seems to have taken the video off the site. I'm gonna see what's up ... more people should be enjoying it ...
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The AMV 10 Commandments
2005-06-25 04:55:49
Alright, first entry. I guess I should start out by outlining what I look for in AMV's, and how I think they should be made. To do that, I will give you the AMV 10 Commandments. The Commandments are the standard I will use to judge all AMV's I give opinions on. So, without further adeiu ....
The 10 Commandments of AMV's
1- Thou shalt not flood thine AMV's with special effects.
Yeah, special effects are great. But special effects do not an AMV make. Effects are there to help your AMV's, to add substance, but not to be the focus. Think of effects like salt. The right amount can make a meal taste great, but too much will overpower it and make it inedible. If you can't tell what anime it's supposed to be because of all the effects, it's probably a good sign that you need to get rid of some of them.
2- Thou shalt not make repetitive AMV's.
This is one of my biggest gripes. There is absolutely no excuse to have to reuse footage in a different part of your AMV, as if you had run out of source material. One of my favorite AMV's is War3Perfect (not on the site, though I could have sworn I got it here), it's a 3:12 long AMV set to Warcraft 3, a game with 19:53 worth of video, and it never repeats a second of it. The author had less source to work with than a regular <i>episode</i> of anime, and pulled it off rather nicely. You can do it too.
3- Thine music energy shalt match thine video energy.
Another big gripe. Your energies need to match. If you have a high-energy song with your characters sitting around the whole time, you have a problem. Conversely, there'd also be a problem with DBZ fight scenes set to Brahm's Lullaby
.
4- Thou shalt not make AMV's from pirated anime.
Seriously, this should be a no-brainer. When you make AMV's, get the source from material you own, or at least borrow it from a friend. Pirated AMV's generally have less video quality (covered below), or they have those blasted subtitles, which is incredibly distracting in the middle of a video. SIDENOTE: Don't put subtitles in the middle of videos. At the beginning or end if you really need your characters to say something, and it really needs to be in Japanese. But not the middle for God's sake.
5- Thou shalt not make AMV's from low-quality rips.
I don't think this is too much to ask. People like a high-quality AMV, and that comes from high-quality source material. This doesn't only apply to video, either. Having a 96k sound file with 11kHz sampling doesn't really wow your audience either.
6- Thou shalt not be a diva.
Do not think your video is the be-all end-all of AMV's. Believe me, it's not. Even if you're Koop with Euphoria, some people (myself included) have some issues with even the best videos (sorry Koop, you're just the example). Don't talk about your AMV like nobody will ever beat it. Someone will. No matter how good you are, there's always someone better (this isn't meant to dissuade you. On the contrary, it could be <i>you</i> that's better than Koop).
7- Thou shalt not steal other's ideas, nor footage, nor anything that they have.
Just like theft of anime should be a no-brainer, so should this. But unfortunately, it does happen. Someone steals someone else's hard work and tries to pass it off as their own. Most of the time, it doesn't work. Your audience is smarter than may think, and eventually you WILL be caught. So don't even try.
8- Thou shalt plan out thine AMV's.
There's nothing I hate more than a poorly planned AMV. Except maybe that clown that killed my mother and raped my father. But that's another story. Sure, there's people who can get away with not having anything planned and creating a masterpiece, but most of us aren't like that. Have a clear idea of what you want to do before you start doing it.
9- Thou Shalt not mix conflicting styles.
Big no no. No scenes of extreme violence and Linkin Park's <i>One Step Closer</i> followed immediately by Faye Wong's <i>Eyes On Me</i> and a calm lakeside scene. The only AMV I've seen get away with something remotely close to this is Einhander's "Whisper of the Beast."
10-Thou shalt not confuse thine viewer.
I hate being confused when I watch an AMV. I, like most people, like knowing what's going on. If you're going for a comedy AMV, make a comedy AMV. Don't mix in pointless fight scenes just for the hell of it. It only serves to make your audience go "WTF?!" and then leave a bad opinion. And nobody wants that.
So, that's how it is. You follow the Commandments, and it's almost guaranteed that you'll be putting out good AMV's in no time.
JOURNAL: ShadowMagus13 (Jason )
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