Live Action Videos [Hear me out please]

[Kitsuner]

Wait, so nobody's mentioning that AD slipped in and posted for the first time in 2 years?

Shh, you might scare him away!

[ngsilver]

Wait, so nobody's mentioning that AD slipped in and posted for the first time in 2 years?

/me looks at the people who have posted since....

most of em probably don't know or remember who AD is...

[BasharOfTheAges]

most of em probably don't know or remember who AD is...

Hey, you shut up - I lurked around AMV sites and webrings back before Y2K

[ngsilver]

most of em probably don't know or remember who AD is...

Hey, you shut up - I lurked around AMV sites and webrings back before Y2K

shush. I wasn't about you

[JaddziaDax]

I didn't want to scare him away... O.O However I do back up his theory that the Vidding community won't come swarming if a board is made.

[LittleAtari]

I honestly do question the focus of editors on this site though. Is it about the editing or the anime? At some point, I felt that the members were strongly focused on anime. Now, I feel like it's more about the editing. This may just be the focus of the members on the forum though.

It's true that we are ANIMEmusicvideos.org but I cant help but feel like AMVs are the leaders of the vidding community and that somehow does make a difference to me as an editor. You see, if the focus of the org community is the editing and not the anime, then I would say allow Live Action Videos to get more attention. If anything, seeing a different medium would help editors hone their skills more and create better quality AMVs. We could also take this idea of AMVs being the most established of vidding culture and use that as reason to allow LAMVs.

The Org is no longer looked at as the mainstream AMV arena. Sure, our videos place top at cons and our most popular videos are the most popular videos on YouTube, but we're no longer seen by the general audience as their main go to for AMVs. We're AMV college. We're elite. Having spent a significant amount of time on YT and participating in a tourney run by someone in Re-Evo (one of the most popular YT studios), this is what I've come to realize about how the Org is seen. We're well known by the masses, but we're seen as a place for quality editing and not for the anime fandom.

This was something Chiikaboom and I discussed in our podcast a while back. She edits for the fans of anime and while she did have multiple reasons for going over to YT, she felt that her videos being for the fandom were better appreciated by the YT audience. My point is, while we do make ANIME music videos. This community is not anime focused. We're editing focused. With video popularity being with videos of a hundred spinning girls that emphasizes nothing about any of the actual anime in it, but has smooth editing, the community has shown that they care for the editing over the anime. Now we can say that these spinning girls and videos like emphasize something about anime culture for being 'Kawaii' or something but that's about it and I dont think the aim of this site was to ever be any of that.


In addition to this, I can't help but think of how LAMVs are starting to make their way into the convention scene. AWA allows LAMVs to compete in the contests alongside AMVs despite being an Anime convention. While I've never been a part of the AWA AMV competitions, I cant help but feel that this says something. AWA, a really big con and the most AMV focused con, allows LAMVs. Other conventions are starting allow live action also. I cant help but feel that this reflects upon the AMV general audience.


In addition to the talk of LAMVs, since the issue here is the source, I would like to look at how we look at anime. We define anime as

• Titles must be under the control of a Japanese company and be animated using traditional cell painting, CGI, or a combination of the two
• Titles must have premiered in Japan prior to being shown elsewhere
Examples: Cowboy Bebop, Mobile Suit Gundam, The Last Exile
• Titles that are derivatives of a Japanese anime (that meet the above criteria) but may have been reworked for the North American Market. These must use the original animation and/or characters and story.
Examples: Robotech, Battle of the Planets

With things like the Kill Bill anime scenes and the Batman anime, we've gone against these rules. The animation is from Japanese animation studios and follow that animation style, but the actual holders of the titles are not. I mean Kill Bill was made by Miramax and Gotham Knight, was pretty much written by americans and then animated by japanese people. With one of the producers being Japanese, Gotham Knight, is probably more of a gray area. I'm pretty sure that there are even more places in our cataloged anime where we can see this.

Heck let's take a look at video games. It doesnt matter if the publisher is Japanese if the developer isnt, but that really doesnt go in with the definition of game anime on this site:

In order for a video game title to be accepted as anime, it must meet the following criteria:
• Games must be made in Japan under the control of a Japanese company.
• Games must be in the style and spirit of anime (not based on North American or other country icons).
• The game may premiere outside of Japan so long as the above criteria is met.
Examples: Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi, Final Fantasy 7, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, Resident Evil

I'm going to specifically talk about the area of it 'must be under control of a Japanese company.' We fail to realize the hand that publishers play in the development in these games. The technically are are large part of the control because of the funding they provide. Heck they are a part of the approval process for the development of these games. If a publisher pulls the plug, there is no game. My point here? I dont even think we have anime or games down right.

This goes back to my question of how source based we are. We, as a community are weak on, anime, our source. A lot of us may edit with an anime because they like it a lot and same goes for when we watch a video, but we've become more about the editing than the actual anime. There is still room for fan-based stuff, but we lost that focus long ago.

For my opinion on LAMVs and whether they should be given more attention:
I believe they should be given more attention on this site. As a member of this site, I, like many members, come here for the quality of editing more than the use of anime in music videos.

EDIT: I would like to add one last thing. Ultimately, it is up to administration on what direction they want to take with this site. We could cater to the audience and just go with 'if most people are here for the editing, then it doesnt matter the source' or we can find ways to make the site more focused on the anime fandom. This can be done by having certain anime focused on for a week, like a Soul Eater week or even certain anime couples getting a focus for a day. Heck we can spotlight genres if we want to. These are only a couple of suggestions if you guys choose to take this route.

[BasharOfTheAges]

to LittleAtari's (unintentional?) point, we should be tightening up what we do and don't allow and sticking to the rules we have established. Those specific series, others like them, and original animation should not be allowed as they are blatant contradictions to the rules. If we have rules set up as markers and don't follow them, this slippery slope occurs and there is no logical argument for not allowing anything and everything in. We should rectify the contradiction one way or another.

[JaddziaDax]

Odd.. I come here for the people and the anime sources.. If I'm in a live action (or non-anime) mood I head on over to livejournal. While I don't really see myself as an obsessive fan (*ahem* I guess there's always going to be someone more extreme than me) I do enjoy anime. I enjoy animation and the fact that the Japanese don't assume "cartoons are for kiddies".

It makes me somewhat sad when I come across some random person who joined who says something to the effect of "I like amvs and fanvideos, but I don't really like anime, but you can't have amvs really with out the anime..." I have come across such people. I often wonder why they are even here if they don't like anime much.

[dreamawake]

Well, I think you guys are taking this whole idea wrong. The suggestion wasn't to allow uploads or make lamvs or non-anime videos a focus, but to simply have a forum for them to be announced with third party hosting so as to give these videos a little more attention from the forum community. Essentially, instead of a live action thread where we have to search through pages and pages of the thread, we'd have a forum for it. Fanvideo [not necessarily just LAMVs, any sort of fanmade music video] Announcements or something of that sort. The stipulations would be anything that doesn't fit into the rules for uploading on the org's server and are independently hosted.

[BasharOfTheAges]

We have that already - it's called the donators forum.