StudioKZ wrote:There's more to it than that, Joe.
Totally agree. You beat me to it StudioKZ. And for the record I also agree with Joe. Except I personally go a little farther in what I would prefer (no reviews and no linking to files from the database).
There's pretty much only one forum I actively watch and that is the convention contest one. Signal to noise in the rest sucks but there's not that much you can do about it when there are users in the five digits registered.
The problem with a lot of the new makers out here is that they approach from the wrong direction. I remember first seeing a post from someone on the AML ML about how they were going to take the AMV scene by storm quite sometime back. It was by that point that I had to laugh. "AMV Scene" WTF is that. And now it's gotten worse. You have all these people doing this just because they think it is cool to make an AMV (the in thing if you will). A lot of people would do themselves a lot of good if they didn't take this stuff so seriously. How the hell can someone go off about why they didn't get in a contest or how they were screwed? Perfectly fine to comment on others work but certainly not your own. Maybe the fact they didn't make the cut should indicate something to them.
We don't have many good new AMVs now because they come a dime a dozen that are all style and no substance. It's nice if your video has the fanciest effects and all but it's pointless if you don't start with a good idea or put your own emotion and creativity in it.
I'd rather see VCR edited stuff that's interesting than stuff with fancy effects or great editing that goes nowhere. Now I have no problem with people making AMV's and I think it is good that so many people are making AMVs (I remember a conversation I once had where I said I didn't care if everyone made only Eva videos). What I have a problem with is all these people busting onto this board shouting about how good they are and that you need to go download their videos. If you want people to download them that's fine but people used to earn this by word of mouth and conventions. Now everyone is trying to push their stuff onto you. I don't care if anyone sees my videos via the internet. If someone would like to see my stuff then I arrange it. That's what e-mails and personal websites are for. I don't like the idea of how this site seems to focus with many of you on getting hits to your videos. It's cool if it happens but so many are spending their time time
The Golden Age of AMV's online was 1999-mid 2000 on the AMV ML. A lot of great discussions and great information was shared by a lot of people. Where's that kind of spirit here? There aren't many people around like the Terry Chu's or Duane Johnsons' of the past.
Personally I would like to see reviews removed (yes I'm a radical). If someone wants to contact a person about a video then they can and their opinion or thanks would probably be of more use. The top AMV lists and especially links to files directly from the database serve only to increase the concept of getting hits to your video files. I can live with reviews though but I really wish there weren't direct links from the database anymore. I don't have a problem with the idea of links from reviews but in reality it's become such a negative that I think it adds to a growing cancer (fixation on getting downloads instead of actually making AMV's).
I think post-AX results will be very interesting. I'm curious to see how many crybabies there are about how they got screwed in the contest or how things should have happened. Before they cray about how they got screwed maybe they should contemplate what not getting in might mean.
I think the real big issue everyone should contemplate about is what type of image they want to represent the AMV community as. From the viewpoint of outsiders the online image is not good.
So go make AMV's, enter a con maybe, show them to your friends but don't expect that you've earned some right to get downloads or to become the greatest AMV creator of all time (because there isn't one). Learn to be happy in the fact that you made something. But don't look to something people like to call the "AMV scene" for fulfillment.