JOURNAL: Eye8yrmom (Austin )

  • An essay on the emphasis in an anime music video. 2003-05-20 09:41:56 In my time as a member and contributor of this great site I have learned many things about the esteemed and highly acclaimed art of anime music video creation. Chief among my new skills is the ability to recognize a great video when I happen to come across it. But, I must say, the actual elements of what make a great video still elude me. Some - mainly the ones set up as judging points in the opinion area - are rather simple to define and easy to see. But the intangible ones, like theme, flow, and story are extremely hard to capture and define as a whole. These do play a part, though. How then do we judge a story or theme that we don't like?

    Whether the video can stimulate a powerful emotion and convey thought and presence to the viewer is the defining point in the success of a good music video to become great. This can be done in several ways: things like fast pace graphics and on-the-beat delivery can spark excitement, a reminiscent story can be created with the video to confer the same emotions as were present in source anime, or even shocking, out-of-place clips can be added to disrupt the flow of the video and alter the center of music to confer confusion. The choice of music is of special consideration to many viewers. Especially the interaction of music and video. A powerful song can lend all the emotion/excitement it needs to even the most unenlighted video, so long as they don't conflict. It seems that conflict of music and video is the one and most important thing to avoid when creating an AMV. Several of the best AMVs have music and video that have absolutely no business together, but are brought into such a marriage that neither impedes the other, to a point where they complement. It is my firm belief that proper depiction of two different stories, one of the music and one of the video sources alone, compiled by some great composing talent leads to the very best anime music videos.

    To illustrate this point, let me describe two would-be mediocre videos. One is the ANIME music video and the other is the anime MUSIC video. The aMv focuses on the music of the video, probably contains clips from several different animes, doesn't really care if one idea is portrayed totally contrary to another idea so long as it is called for by the music, is obsessed with the beat and lyrics of the music, and the story of the video is directed exactly towards the story of the song.(good example Kevin Caldwell's Caffeine Encomium) On the other hand, the Amv (ANIME) focuses on a story or character presented in the source anime, usually contains clips from only one anime or theme of anime, IS extremely concerned about the chronology and portrayal of clips, is not concerned with how the music goes so long as it seems to support the story theme of the anime, and is usually directed towards a dramatic theme. (good example - the works of Vlad Pohnert like Memories Dance or Transcending Love) The examples I gave are truly excellent videos but are farther down the list of favorites than one would expect. It is my opinion that there are two major groups of members at AMV.org. One group believes in telling a story from the point of view of the music - the aMv type, the other group believes in telling the story of an anime - the Amv type. Only by combining the story of the anime and the story of the music properly depicted, and pulling them together with sufficient skill does an AMV creator make a great video that is liked by all and set at the top of the list.

    As an example of such a video is Koopiskeva’s Euphoria, currently at the top of the list. Even after reading the explanation of the song choice and the lyrics, I am still rather confused at how it ties in. He wants to convey a dreamlike state that the song also mentions. But besides this, I really have no idea what this has to do with RahXephon even though I’ve watched the AMV 10 times. The interesting thing about it is that the beat and sounds of the song are told in a story thru digital effects, while the dramatic anime story is portrayed in images strung together rather outside of what’s going on in the music (except for word painting here and there). This combination is extremely powerful and gives rise to a goddamn good video. Another big name at the top of the list right now is VicBond007, who is definitely an aMv man, but also show a great deal of talent by depicting an anime based story inside of his music based videos.

    Can’t think of anything else to say this minute, but I definitely will revisit this topic.
     
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