JOURNAL: MetalWolf (Corey )

  • Everybody Hates Waiting 2024-06-02 18:58:40 Happy late 20th birthday to the only AMV I ever won an award for; Everybody Hates Me. Today I posted the 2024 revision of that AMV. I hoped to have it done and posted the exact same date I posted the original but 20 years later but life got in the way and unlike me at 19 years old I am more prone to let things sit and marinate than I used to back then.

    20 years ago or during my first run with AMV making as soon as I made one AMV I would post it and off to another without much thought because I was already tired of working on that one and wanted to work on another. I had finished this AMV a long while ago but I have left it in the hopper for awhile watching it every few weeks to see if I still liked it the same as I did the few weeks before and if after awhile I still can't see anything I would change then I will post it. At least that is what my mentality is now. And so today is when I decided to post this new revision 29 years and a few months since the original.

    I actually have about 7 AMV remakes "done" I am just watching them periodically with fresh eyes, if after a few weeks I am still satisfied then maybe I will post them. 2 of the remakes I am going to wait a year on and post them on their 20th anniversary but also who knows maybe a year from now I may have new ideas or new perspectives to add to them. 2 I am waiting till maybe HD conversions of those anime come out though doubtful. I imagine some people know how to do HD conversions themselves but I don't. I was basic 20 years ago and just as basic now if not more so. 2 I have just recently completed and just want to let marinate for awhile but I do plan on releasing them this year and 1 I know I can do better I am just not sure how and like the other 2 and willing to marinate on it till something happens. 20 years ago I couldn't wait, now I can.

    My plan is to slowly but surely revise all of my old AMVs, probably won't get to all of them but I think I can get at least get to a third of them.

    I am happy with this newest revision, while I did the first version on a whim just to prime myself for something else till that whim became a legit AMV this one I took this one pretty seriously and spent a couple months here and there on it. The original AMV was the only AMV I ever won an award for so I wanted to try and make sure this one was as good as I could make it be. Unlike all of the other AMV revisions I have ever done this one involves new footage that I hope adds to the AMV along with things better cut than they were back then. I am contemplating submitting this and the newer I'm Still Here revision to Animethon like I did with the originals 20 years ago. Just not sure, mainly because I do not know if I can afford be able to swing to go to Animethon. When I lived in Fort McMurray it was an easy cheap 5 hour bus ride to Edmonton and there you go. Everything was super easier for me when I was a teenager still living with my parents. While flying there is super quick it is not cheap for me now and neither are the hotel costs. It has been about 17 years since I have been to Animethon. Maybe if I am unable to have the vacation I am asking for in August my boss could surely let me take time off for this. Lots to ponder. 
  • I'm Still Here (2023) 2023-12-25 12:19:17 December 25 is a particularly special day for me. 23 years ago a 16 year old me with the use of a his VCR and VideoWave finished his first AMV. It was bad an it would not be the last bad one he made but he went on to make many other AMVs. 20 years ago a 19 year old me made an AMV called I'm Still Here. It was a very personal AMV for me and I consider it to be one of my best AMVs from the army of bad to mediocre ones I have created during my time.

    Today on the 23rd anniversary of AMV making (though I was inactive for 18 years of it) I have released I'm Still Here; the 2023 revision, 20 years since I made the last one. I will let the write up for it go into detail with it but I am very happy and proud of the work I have done with it. When I approached remaking this AMV I had every intention of just making it exactly how it was before, whatever changes were going to be tweaks. What wound up happening was a remake if there was ever a definition of it here. It went from just a fun revisit over the holiday season to a rediscovery and a process that felt less like a revision and more like a brand new AMV in of itself.

    At the end of the day I'm Still Here 2023 is still like the original I'm Still Here from 2003 but where I approached it from a 19 year old's perspective and attitude I approached this one as a 39 year old with 20 years of life experience behind it. I think it shows if you put them next to each other.

    I hope 20 years from now if I am still around to revisit this AMV again and see what 59 year old me would bring to this story that differs from 19 and 39 year old me but till then this is what there is and I am proud of it. 
  • The Valentine Video (2023 Revision) 2023-08-12 20:16:21 Today I have released the first of what I am hoping will be the first of many remakes over the next while, within reason of course.

    I have actually already remade a few of my AMVs but I have not released them for various reasons be it that some of the footage is not on bluray and I do not know how to remaster DVD footage into better quality yet, I am waiting till its closer to the anniversary date of original AMV to release it and/or because of the size limits this website has. There is a 300 MB limit, I am not sure if anyone even keeps to that rule anymore but I do not want to ruffle any feathers. I prefer to just be under the radar and slowly remake my catalogue over time. It will probably mean that my catalogue will eventually look twice as big as it does now and it is already absurdly big but it is with keeping with the rules of remaster VS remake. All of the AMVs I have done in the past there is no way I could simply just remaster knowing the faults they have of when I made them as a teenager. I also am someone who finds it "educational" how I am able to interpret AMVs I did as a teenager now as a grown adult.

    I am starting to understand how George Lucas feels when he looks at the Star Wars movies he was heavily involved with. My stuff is no where even close to that but I can understand watching your work, not being able to appreciate them for what they are and always looking to build on them.


    The Valentine Video is a pretty good starting example of that. This version is the superior version because I have had 22 years to see the warts of the original and the 2004 (the one you can see in the original video entry) version, fix them and add perspective that I have now that I didn't have as a teenager. I imagine years from now I will probably want to remake The Valentine Video again, I hope not but if we are not looking to always better ourselves and what we are doing what exactly are we doing?

    Being cognizant of how much space I have left this year; A Wolf's Dream was about 90 MB (could have mad bit smaller had I played around the the encoding more) and The Valentine Video was almost 100 MB only really leaves me with 100 MB ish to work with for the year and there is one AMV remake I am holding on to to release before this year is done, revision of the AMV I still feel is one of my greatest AMVs, one that holds the greatest personal significance to me then as does now as I have been working on remaking it. It will be the last AMV I release this year but it won't be till December to mark the 23 anniversary of AMV making though only 7 of those were spent actually making AMVs.

    If I have it my way 2024 will be the year I will truly become more active again in AMV making, which would mean I would have to become a better encoder if I want to fit in all of my new and remade AMVs under 300 MB next year. 
  • A Wolf's Dream 2023-03-19 17:26:43 Today I posted my very first AMV since July 25, 2005. A Wolf's Dream.

    Why did it take so long? Well life happened and if you read my previous journal entries I guess a lot and nothing at the same time. It was interesting that I mentioned my AMV idea using In Dreams back in 2006.

    Went to film school, graduated from film school, tried to make something out of film school but failed and from 2007 to now I did a whole lot of growing up. Went back to school, graduated and now I am a adult from where I was a snot nosed immature teenager back from when I started.

    I always meant to come back but much of what kept me from coming back was insecurity and lack of time. In the last while I gained more free time for myself and I simply stopped caring how others would take my AMVs.

    Prior to this I remade a few AMVs, right now I am trying to figure out how I can replace the old ones with the new ones. This may take some time if ever as I navigate how this place works again.

    Either way it is great to be back or if this is my last entry (again) then it has been a pleasure to know I could still make one and hope you enjoy it.

     
  • A year since, well almost 2007-12-02 16:27:20 The times I come here seem to get longer and longer.

    What is there to say though really I haven't been watching any AMVs as long as I haven't been making any myself. Why?

    Well when I finished film school I spent most of the year working 70 hours a week for a long time to save up to do another short film but I failed in that, now I am back to around the same thing 50 or so hours a week saving money. Within that time I haven't felt the need to make any AMVs.

    I still feel like I got one good one left in me but honestly I figure what is the use when I was making AMVs I wasn't really making them as good as others and I am afraid if I make one now it would be like I was trying to play 1950s rockabilliy music to a bunch of people who are used to emo punk or something like that (you get what I mean). I am just surprised people stille njoy my AMVs or at least some people do.

    I finally switched to a Mac computer so if I was going to make an AMV it would be Mac oriented and eerything not that it matters to me in fact now I am happy I chose to make all of my AMVs in mpeg, I mean they may not look as good as whatever codec is being used now but at least everyone can watch it. Watching my old AMVs on an HD screen is pretty fascinating to me I mean they don't look excellent but taking a person who had a screen that was never fully color corrected and was always a little darker than usually I picke dup on many editing flaws and even strengths that I didn't notice.

    Sorry I am just being a bit reflective of the stuff I did, the guy that was doing those things seems exactly that, another guy, not really me now. I don't even watch anime that much anymore, the last anime I watched was Paprika since I like Satoshi Kon's work and if I was gonna make another AMV it would be to Paprika, Tokyo Godfathers or Perfect Blue. But who knows, my friend RJ (or Shadow Productions here) nags me to do another one and that I wont quit.

    I even went to Animethon I guess for 2 years now with no AMVs to put in, I attended the last one but only for awhile I didn't see the AMV contest but I am happy for the fact that it is still alive, kicking and seemingly bigger than ever or so it seemed.

    at this point in my life I want to be a creator in a different medium since I am striving to be a film maker that is what I want to do, AMV making was a step for me in taking images and trying to make my own story out of it in some way, it certainly helped me when I edited other people's work in the past.

    I just want to say if it takes another year, month or I never make another entry here again I just want to say thank you to everyone who has helped me throughout the years in one shape or another like Vlad, Phade, mexicanjunior, Rubyeye, and many others I may have forgotten. It was a great part of my life doing AMVs and stuff, got my creative juices out in a place where there would be nothing to do. Anyways thank you all.  
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