can we talk about these AMVs?

[TheAMVShow]

How are they able to churn these out so often (and make what looks like a really seamless product) if there are so many people involved, while trying to organize an MEP here (based on a specific theme or idea) is like herding cats/pulling teeth/etc.? Not speaking from experience but as someone who lurks in the MEP forum a lot, that's what it looks like.

Well, what if you came at it from a different direction? Instead of a collab being a series of discreet back to back sections that individuals do all the work for their own and then someone stiches them together, perhaps consider division of labor for all the seperate pieces to be the collab. One person ultimately edits the video, but everyone else creates the individual motion graphic sequences or the pieces for them. You could have someone who's only job is to mask stuff. Assembly line editing.

Yeah that's exactly how I envision they get these videos done. I sometimes see 20+ people getting credited for these types of videos.

[CrackTheSky]

How do people find the time to keep making these technically-complicated, intensively-layered-effects-heavy AMVs? Does everyone who's not on the Org -- out there somewhere, I honestly don't know where -- crowdsource and share their masks now?

I think these videos may look like they take more effort than they do. A lot of the masks were not of moving characters but still shots, and the motion graphics stuff would be tedious to do but not difficult. Also, if they're anything like I was, high school and college kids have a lot of free time. I can't tell you how much work I would put off while I was in college to work on AMVs. Also, given that many of these videos seem to be made by studios (as was mentioned), it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they did share their masks, although I've never heard of that being done.

What I don't understand is how/why anyone would take the time to learn these kind of techniques, become an editor who's skilled enough to pull them off, and yet have absolutely no interest in making anything that's not a slightly different variation of the same idea again and again. I don't understand the motivation. I'm not half the editor that most people here are but I know for sure that the only reason I ever put time into this and tried to teach the ins and outs of these programs was because I had an idea that didn't exist, and I knew it never would unless I did something about it myself.

Because it's popular, and it looks impressive to people who don't know anything about editing, and it looks fun to edit. I'd be lying if I said that in the past I haven't been tempted to make videos like this. It's also a fairly safe way to show off your skill -- being able to mask and do motion graphics are desirable qualities for an editor to have (for whatever reason), and that's all these videos are. Therefore, if an editor can demonstrate his or her abilities in this way, he or she must be a good/desirable editor. (I think this also touches on the weird mentality that seems to be more prominent on YouTube when it comes to studios -- having tryouts to join, trying to elevate studios above the individual, etc. I don't get this, why can't a bunch of friends just get together and make videos together? Why does it have to be an exclusive club? Not a discussion for this thread, but still.)

I think the bigger issue with this, though, is the simple fact that it's getting harder and harder to come up with new ideas for AMVs. As Zarxrax said in another thread a while ago, all the low-hanging fruit has been picked. We're at a point where originality in technical terms requires skill that is far, far beyond the reach of the average editor. And since technical (i.e. effects) work is the most obvious and tangible way to judge an editor's skill, that's where most new editors are going to focus their efforts. (This makes the disheartening assumption that most new editors only edit because they want to be noticed, but I don't really think that's a new phenomenon.)

Thanks to the Internet, enough people can redefine anything they feel like (example: within about 3 years, "dubstep" went from referring to something like this to something quite different).

Skittles... I definitely see what you're saying although I'd be surprised if many of these editors had ever even seen it. That might not matter if there's a chain of imitation that originated with some editor who'd deliberately or unconsciously tried to make their own Skittles using still frames and motion graphics. Maybe that's possible if you start with Skittles and take away the lip-sync that it used so effectively, toss out the great internal sync it had and try to replace it with flashy colors and flying text, make the characters completely interchangeable, ignore any sense of context and cut out any that might have made its way in by mistake, etc.

But isn't that how it happens with most trends? Someone does something awesome and original that appeals to the masses, and each further iteration is watered down until it's just a shadow of the original. Skittles was (as far as I know) the first video that really took this style and made it into an entire video (unless you count M@Ds like shine@g2's Recollection, although to my eyes that's done in a very different style), but it wasn't just that, or that it was done well. Skittles was also released right around the time that YouTube was becoming hugely popular, and it took off there. It was kind of the perfect storm of factors -- Koopiskeva was still a recognizable name back then, people were starting to turn from the .org to YouTube, and the video had a fair amount of hype going into its release. All this is to say that LOTS of people saw it -- I don't remember the timeframe, but Jay has told me in the past that the video gathered 1,000,000+ hits fairly quickly, especially by 2007 standards.

Also, don't forget about Attack of the Otaku, which was released the following year. Between these two videos, both by well-known editors, both using extremely popular anime, both using pop music and fun, happy scenes -- whether or not modern editors are even aware of them, both videos influenced a whole generation of editors that went on to influence the next generation (today's? I don't know how long a "generation" in this fandom would be).

Also, this discussion reminds me of something that Fall_Child42 said in his interview from a while back -- these days, especially on YouTube, viewers may watch videos on the small YouTube screen without fullscreening it. As a result, editors tend to turn up the color saturation on their videos and use more bright, eye-catching colors to make the videos easier to see and interpret. I don't know how much truth is behind that assumption, but if true it'd be an interesting thing to consider.

[tayuyashoujo]

Mask sharing is definitely a thing.

As someone who's spent much more time on youtube than on the org, I've gotten used to this kind of editing. It's not really my thing but these editors enjoy what they're doing, and obviously a lot of other people enjoy watching them, so I can't really fault them for that. In any medium there's going to be styles or genres that don't appeal to you, and I don't think there's much point comparing them to one another because they were never meant to be the same.
My only beef with videos like this that, because they're so prominent in MEPs, and because they seemingly take a lot of effort to make, you often get an overflow of 10-15 second videos uploaded to channels. It's a real bummer to visit a channel only to find 100+ 10 second videos.

[AceD]

https://youtu.be/Gh6acXRfsLE

I am so candy. Such effort, wowz

It's not a bad style really. Some are really cool. Main problem is the complete lack of colour coordination in some of those videos. Also, I don't think these anything wrong with people sharing masks....like...why not? They make them for fun only lol...

[Ileia]

Yeah, I'll x2 that mask-sharing is common. Along with that, I've seen Candy-style tutorials that advocate Googling for vectors/transparent background PNGs and even go so far as to explain how to erase or crop any identifiers/watermarks that the original maskers put on the image. Combine that with text effects (that are typically easy or require a minimal amount of effort) and toss every stock effect you have at the timeline and baby you got a stew goin' video done!

[Castor Troy]

Anime Masking Videos

[seasons]

Well, what if you came at it from a different direction? Instead of a collab being a series of discreet back to back sections that individuals do all the work for their own and then someone stiches them together, perhaps consider division of labor for all the seperate pieces to be the collab. One person ultimately edits the video, but everyone else creates the individual motion graphic sequences or the pieces for them. You could have someone who's only job is to mask stuff. Assembly line editing.

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/forum/v ... 7&t=120772

[Qyot27]

(today's? I don't know how long a "generation" in this fandom would be).

I'd say about 3-4 years, with some overlap on either end (although I'd assume it's even faster than that on YouTube). Someone should do a chart comparing it to geological periods.

[seasons]

(I think this also touches on the weird mentality that seems to be more prominent on YouTube when it comes to studios -- having tryouts to join, trying to elevate studios above the individual, etc. I don't get this, why can't a bunch of friends just get together and make videos together? Why does it have to be an exclusive club? Not a discussion for this thread, but still.)

I can see how this might play into it. The idea of turning creative control over to one person, while a cadre of "lesser" editors does the tedious gruntwork, doesn't seem like a very appealing deal on the surface. But if you can convince newbies that they're part of an exclusive team, that this opportunity is a "privilege" and a routine part of paying their dues for the greater good of the studio, who knows?

But I've had no first-hand experience with these kind of groups so this scenario might be a total conjecture.

[Terra_Omega_3]

Disregarding whether the AMVs are actually good or not Im actually just curious how the hell they are able to churn those out so quickly. That looks really complicated and I want to know how to do it (The different effects that is). I have no skill in effects and usually just make AMVs to tell a story or to give emotion but having at least some effects I feel could enhance the AMV. Anyone know how they are all able to do this or is it just something the majority of "Upbeat" AMV creators have figured out on their own?