This thread is full of awesome reads, which some of them I still need to read
I'll try this in 3rd person perspective, or rather have my other alias, Bullit (not the same as the bullit here on the org, but something I went by quite awhile ago, though you won't find me using it on the internets) give 8bit_samurai's biography, instead. I'll try to make it more interesting for 8bits (as I'll call him for now, since I'm a lazy writer), but that doesn't mean it still won't be boring. There may be some inconsistencies with 8bit's previous posts and journal entries about his AMV history, but here I will set it straight for 8bits, and tell it honestly and truthfully as possible.
2001/2002
Sometime between these years, one of 8bits friends came across a DBZ AMV while looking for DBZ pics, wallpaper, etc. etc. since DBZ was the best thing ever back then. His friend came across Dragula, En Fuego, Violence for the People, Everything Sucks, as well as a few more, and they were fucking awesome back then. And they still are. Well, according to 8bits, at least. I couldn't recall which one was first and neither can 8bits, but we believe it may be Violence for the People. Unfortunately, 8bit's AMV experience comes to a halt there, for now at least. He grew distant with the friend that showed him the awesome DBZ AMVs. Physically, at least. After that, there was alot of gaming for 8bits, though that's not all he's done.
2005
In the fall of 2005, about the same time 8bits started taking classes at the UAA Anchorage campus, 8bits remembered those awesome AMVs and searched for them. He found some, though he still is unable to find Everything Sucks. He started searching for more, and he always seem to come across the Org. 8bits loathed the idea of joining the Org, since he felt it was unnecessary at the time. He came across a few sites, but he, and as well as I, are unable to recall those sites. It was the first time 8bits saw an AMV that wasn't .rm nor DBZ. It blew his mind away, and it was also the first time he saw an AMV that has (special) effects. 8bits can't recall which AMVs they were, since the sources were totally alien to him. All except the Final Fantasy and DBZ AMVs. But they were awesome, and he needed to watch more.
2006
After giving up on the search for more AMVs on the internets, 8bits finally gave in and joined the Org in May. He couldn't believe what he saw. Well, when it comes to AMVs at least. After 8bits got his fill of AMVs, he started his journey on making his own in late June. He figured he can try and make a Final Fantasy AMV, since he seen so many at the time and he thought he could do better than some of them. 8bits skimmed through the guides when he first started working on Squall's Megamix. It was edited with downloaded footage, and there were a few seconds of another's AMV. But when he started reading the guides and rules more (though not all the way through) he got rid of the stolen scene and most of the downloaded footage. 8bits ripped the footage, though he encoded the FFVII footage with DivX and FFVIII with Xvid. 8bits didn't have very much problems with them in WMM for the most part, and the problems that were present he ignored them and continued editing. It took a total of 40-60 hours of editing for Squall's Megamix. 8bits edited Rinoa's Midnight Walk in about 30 minutes to an hour over a span of 4 hours. He doesn't remember how long it took for Seiferoth, but he was just experimenting with some custom effects and wanted to try to make an AMV with two songs. 8bits always like the idea of Unspoken Numbness, and it was the first time trying to encode an AMV with Xvid instead of wmv. It failed horribly, of course. After that, 8bits joined quite a bit of MEPs, though he ended up in only two of them and a birthday collab. He edited his WTF MEP segments with WMM and Buttsecks MEP segment with Magix Movie Edit Pro 11. 8bits thought the MEPs turned out (pretty) good, though there are others who disagree.
2007
8bits started on a reedit for Squall's Megamix. Work and his PSP took up most of his time around this period. That is all.
2008-present.
If I remember correctly, Ash Lee (our old laptop) died in June. Well, I suppose she's more in a coma. She can turn on but we need to reinstall XP. Unfortunately, the DVD drive doesn't work anymore. It was a sad time during this period. 8bits already had just about all his stuff on an external he got in '06. All except for the movie project files. Even so, it was a great lost, since he had a whole buncha memories with Ash Lee. She lasted longer than I and her previous owner had expected. Way longer. In July we got a new laptop, Evidell. She is a big improvement, but we feel we haven't been using her to her full potential. 8bits has a beta (one lossless, mpg and xvid) of Squall's Megamix [Everbody's Edit] on his external, but if he were to continue editing that he would have to start over. 8bits believes that Evidell is jealous that Squall's Megamix [Everybody's Edit] was made with Ash Lee, but 8bits doesn't have any proof of this, since he hasn't done anything with it in awhile. He has 3 ideas other than SM[EE] that he plans on doing, as well as a GMV and 2 LAMVs, one using home videos (or whatever it's called). He also plans to remake/reedit his solo AMVs, though when he's going to do it is a mystery. Recently, our tablet, guitar and his PSP have been taking up time that he could use to edit, but he fears he has some sort of editor's block or something. There were a few times he opened up Magix and just stared at it like it was gonna edit itself. And that is up to the present.
8bits' username was inspired by a book he just received in the mail, I Am 8-bit. He came up with samurai because he thinks it sounds cool. So, 8bit_samurai came about. He originally wanted Bullit, and even though he sees that the bullit here hasn't logged on here for awhile, he's comfortable with 8bit_samurai. There are some speculation that 8bit_samurai is actually a 16-bit_ninja. He claims they are conspirators who don't know what they're talking about. I couldn't really say so myself, considering 8bits' posts/journal entries about his AMV history may contain inconsistencies which isn't very ninja-like. White Fox Productions evolved from WhiTan Fox which is the first three letters of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. He temporary changed his username to WhiteFoxX (WhiteFox and other variations of it was taken), because at the time he thought he needed change. It was change he needed but it wasn't his username, so he changed it back. He also figured he's more of a gamer than an editor. And that concludes Bullit's biography of 8bit_samurai. For now at least.
AMV Autobiography
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Tono_Fyr
- Joined: Sat Jun 05, 2004 12:36 pm
- Location: Marietta, Georgia
My story starts before I had any real interest in computers or even really used the internet much at all. My first "Idea" for an AMV (one that I'll probably never do) came when I was about 12 or 13 (2000 or 2001), I was playing through Chrono Cross and listening to a 3 Doors Down album I'd gotten for Christmas, and I felt like several of the songs could fit together with the footage from various cutscenes. I put it together in my head, but I never did anything with it. By the time I got a computer of my own that could even start to think about editing, the concepts were long lost.
My interest in anime, something that had been around since I first saw Robotech on Toonami back when it was run by that one Space Ghost Villian, Moltar. I believe this was 97 or 98. Either way, I was under the age of ten.
Anyway, fast forward to the summer of 2003, I finally had my own, up to date computer, leaving behind the old family computer that had a single gigabyte worth of hard drive space and ran windows 95. The upgrade was pretty massive, the computer I got had a 40 gigabyte hard drive and ran Windows XP. I used it primarily to talk to people, and talk to people I did. In early 2004 I started using Kazaa to download random songs that I'd heard on the radio, and I started running across AMVs (one of which being Kevin Caldwell's Engel video, the only video that I got in that era that I still think of as good, I'm pretty sure) and went "hey, I had that idea once!" I started splicing together clips from the AMVs I had downloaded with music that I'd heard on the radio and consequently downloaded.
Then a friend of mine that I'd known from some of the forums I frequented told me about the org, and in June of 2004, I joined. I was almost totally lost, Read <a href=http://www.a-m-v.org/guides/avtech31/>ErMaC & AbsoluteDestiny's Friendly AMV Guides</a> made very little sense to me, no matter how many times I read it (I still have problems learning to do things by reading, I either have to do or be taught). A different friend of mine walked me through the encoding process, and for a long while I used footage that I'd ripped from DVDs and then encoded into XviD.
My first video, Samurai X - I Hate Everything About You was made with WMM, and for a first video, an all right concept that wasn't very well executed. I would not suggest watching it. A month and a half later, I had another idea that could work, but didn't, Wolves and Men. The last of my WMM videos was It's The End Of The World As Shinji Knows It, which was the REM song "it's the end of the world as we know it" with Evangelion. Once again, could've worked, didn't.
Then I started trying out a more advance program that yet a third friend pointed me at, Vegas 5. I've yet to upgrade from it, as it does everything I need, except for REALLY detailed masking, which it actually can do to some extent. Anyway, my fourth video, In the Shadows of Kenshin's Life,was one of those really poorly done action videos with popular songs, but it gave me a feel for Vegas and how it worked, so it served its purpose as a stepping stone.
My next video was actually mildly ambitious. After seeing FullMetal Alchemist at a friend's place, he sent me the fansubs he had (which was up through episode 38 or so), and I made an AMV with that and a song from Escaflowne, and the result was FullMetal Doubt, and it was pretty much an exercise in "what kinds of effects can I try out now?" As a video, it's pretty meh, but I was starting to get the hang of some very important timing concepts. To date, it's still my most effects heavy video. There's a lot of sliding frames.
My next video, RAVE was an instance of me being bored and wanting to make something over winter break, and that's what popped out. It was the last of my random concepts. The next video, Kenshin Unforgiven was easily my best video for a long time. I executed my concept well, for the most part, and I spent some time getting everything I could right. All in all, it's still one of my favorites. It also was the first time I spent a long time on an effect. I spent 3 hours making a reflection in a blinking eye. It wasn't excessively noticable, but it was totally worth it.
Between Kenshin Unforgiven and the next video, I saw for the first time a video by Bote called "War Of Warth". It used a song by the band Blind Guardian called Battlefield. The editing style and music utterly floored me. I'd never heard anything so completely amazing, everything about that song just blew me away. And so, I found Metal. This is the most significant way that AMVs have changed my life. Those of you who know me know that Metal is a big part of my life. I spend most of my money on Guitars, Guitar Gear, CDs, Concerts, and band shirts. I'm actually working on starting my own metal band now, and more on that will come in other threads... but yeah, note this as the point where AMV editing for me was about to get a lot harder
Next came Have I Found A Way,a video that saw me using true lip sync for the first time, consciously making it happen. It also brought me into the use of After Effects, for masking purposes.
My love affair with metal and that style of editing (the bar I set for myself was the aforementioned War of Wrath video) took me over. I wanted to make metal AMVs, and god dammit did I try. I got somewhere on a few of them, but only two have ever been completed, and they were with accoustic songs by metal bands.
The first, a minute long short by the name of Somewhere Far Beyond, was something I did in about five hours. I sat down one night with the concept, and just started editing, and out that popped.
I spent the next 3 years trying (and not succeeding) to make videos. My editing dropped off in early 2007. I was at College, I was actively hanging out with friends and playing a lot of DnD, and while I did start a few things here and there, it mostly stopped. I stayed on this until about half way through this year, when I picked up an old video project. I just started editing it again, and it just sort of happened.
That video was Harvest. It has not been well received. However, I am extremely pleased with the results myself. I feel it's a very well put together video that strongly executes its concept. Most of my friends (Otohiko, Flint, and Breeman being the most notable editors) agree with me. *Shrugs*.
I'm currently working on two Gurren Lagann videos, one of which will probably never see the light of day.
My interest in anime, something that had been around since I first saw Robotech on Toonami back when it was run by that one Space Ghost Villian, Moltar. I believe this was 97 or 98. Either way, I was under the age of ten.
Anyway, fast forward to the summer of 2003, I finally had my own, up to date computer, leaving behind the old family computer that had a single gigabyte worth of hard drive space and ran windows 95. The upgrade was pretty massive, the computer I got had a 40 gigabyte hard drive and ran Windows XP. I used it primarily to talk to people, and talk to people I did. In early 2004 I started using Kazaa to download random songs that I'd heard on the radio, and I started running across AMVs (one of which being Kevin Caldwell's Engel video, the only video that I got in that era that I still think of as good, I'm pretty sure) and went "hey, I had that idea once!" I started splicing together clips from the AMVs I had downloaded with music that I'd heard on the radio and consequently downloaded.
Then a friend of mine that I'd known from some of the forums I frequented told me about the org, and in June of 2004, I joined. I was almost totally lost, Read <a href=http://www.a-m-v.org/guides/avtech31/>ErMaC & AbsoluteDestiny's Friendly AMV Guides</a> made very little sense to me, no matter how many times I read it (I still have problems learning to do things by reading, I either have to do or be taught). A different friend of mine walked me through the encoding process, and for a long while I used footage that I'd ripped from DVDs and then encoded into XviD.
My first video, Samurai X - I Hate Everything About You was made with WMM, and for a first video, an all right concept that wasn't very well executed. I would not suggest watching it. A month and a half later, I had another idea that could work, but didn't, Wolves and Men. The last of my WMM videos was It's The End Of The World As Shinji Knows It, which was the REM song "it's the end of the world as we know it" with Evangelion. Once again, could've worked, didn't.
Then I started trying out a more advance program that yet a third friend pointed me at, Vegas 5. I've yet to upgrade from it, as it does everything I need, except for REALLY detailed masking, which it actually can do to some extent. Anyway, my fourth video, In the Shadows of Kenshin's Life,was one of those really poorly done action videos with popular songs, but it gave me a feel for Vegas and how it worked, so it served its purpose as a stepping stone.
My next video was actually mildly ambitious. After seeing FullMetal Alchemist at a friend's place, he sent me the fansubs he had (which was up through episode 38 or so), and I made an AMV with that and a song from Escaflowne, and the result was FullMetal Doubt, and it was pretty much an exercise in "what kinds of effects can I try out now?" As a video, it's pretty meh, but I was starting to get the hang of some very important timing concepts. To date, it's still my most effects heavy video. There's a lot of sliding frames.
My next video, RAVE was an instance of me being bored and wanting to make something over winter break, and that's what popped out. It was the last of my random concepts. The next video, Kenshin Unforgiven was easily my best video for a long time. I executed my concept well, for the most part, and I spent some time getting everything I could right. All in all, it's still one of my favorites. It also was the first time I spent a long time on an effect. I spent 3 hours making a reflection in a blinking eye. It wasn't excessively noticable, but it was totally worth it.
Between Kenshin Unforgiven and the next video, I saw for the first time a video by Bote called "War Of Warth". It used a song by the band Blind Guardian called Battlefield. The editing style and music utterly floored me. I'd never heard anything so completely amazing, everything about that song just blew me away. And so, I found Metal. This is the most significant way that AMVs have changed my life. Those of you who know me know that Metal is a big part of my life. I spend most of my money on Guitars, Guitar Gear, CDs, Concerts, and band shirts. I'm actually working on starting my own metal band now, and more on that will come in other threads... but yeah, note this as the point where AMV editing for me was about to get a lot harder
Next came Have I Found A Way,a video that saw me using true lip sync for the first time, consciously making it happen. It also brought me into the use of After Effects, for masking purposes.
My love affair with metal and that style of editing (the bar I set for myself was the aforementioned War of Wrath video) took me over. I wanted to make metal AMVs, and god dammit did I try. I got somewhere on a few of them, but only two have ever been completed, and they were with accoustic songs by metal bands.
The first, a minute long short by the name of Somewhere Far Beyond, was something I did in about five hours. I sat down one night with the concept, and just started editing, and out that popped.
I spent the next 3 years trying (and not succeeding) to make videos. My editing dropped off in early 2007. I was at College, I was actively hanging out with friends and playing a lot of DnD, and while I did start a few things here and there, it mostly stopped. I stayed on this until about half way through this year, when I picked up an old video project. I just started editing it again, and it just sort of happened.
That video was Harvest. It has not been well received. However, I am extremely pleased with the results myself. I feel it's a very well put together video that strongly executes its concept. Most of my friends (Otohiko, Flint, and Breeman being the most notable editors) agree with me. *Shrugs*.
I'm currently working on two Gurren Lagann videos, one of which will probably never see the light of day.
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DriftRoot
- Joined: Mon Jun 09, 2003 7:18 pm
- Status: As important as any plug-in.
- Location: N.H.
ok, since my journal is regularly inflicted with my posts my autobiography isn't going to last very long, so here is the abridged and expanded version:
I Want My AMV
One sometimes hears about life-changing moments, the kinds of moments – large or small – which mark a definite bend in the road and take the traveler places they otherwise would not have visited. This happened to me approximately 10 years ago when I accidentally saw half a commercial for Final Fantasy VIII on MTV. “Accidentally” because I never watched MTV, was not supposed to be watching MTV and never saw that commercial again. Nevertheless, my life altered course in those 40 seconds.
One aspect of my personality, which actually takes a lot of people a very long time to discover, is that I go through regular periods of obsessive interest in things. Most likely I inherited this trait from my father, although it’s much more obvious in him because it manifests itself in the hobbies he takes up. I, on the other hand, get obsessed about ideas. If those ideas happen to relate to someTHING then of course my interest gets a little more obvious, but even then no one usually realizes how much is really going on upstairs. If I am obsessed with something, I think about it 24/7, non-stop. A good example is when Advent Children came out. I lived, breathed and slept AC for about six weeks (particularly Vincent) and was absolutely euphoric the whole time. A psychiatrist once told me this is abnormal - that one should constantly be thinking about things - but I haven’t killed anyone yet so what’s the big deal?
In any case, this is how half a commercial for a game I’d never heard of (although I had heard of FF7) wound up having so much influence. I saw it, I had to find out more about it, I went online and landed on a site full of information about the game, discovered the fun of forums and chatrooms and eventually was initiated into the early realm of file sharing, a la bittorrent and IRC. This is Napster-era, I’m talking about, when you got your fansubs not from download links on Web sites, but by scouring the bittorrent/IRC highways and never really gave a second thought to fansub quality, viruses or whether it was ok to download anime for free. At some point one of my online friends passed me an AMV made with “Enter Sandman” and FFVIII, which I promptly fell head-over-heels in love with and would watch at least 20 times a day. At that time I didn’t know it was an AMV – in fact in 1998 it probably wouldn’t even have been called an AMV – and I’ve never found it again, although it might exist on the Tube. I was 21.
The Descent
By 1999 I had been introduced to all kinds of people who were introducing me to all sorts of other things, particularly anime, which I’d always been fascinated with but had never had a means of obtaining. Amazing what kinds of new worlds a cable modem can open up to you. By 2001 I was a bonafide America otaku and, in the course of searching for the FFVIII AMV (which I’d lost after my father reformatted my hard drive without my knowledge/permission), discovered a-m-v.org. Wonder and amazement ensued, along with another obsession.
This time, however, it was of a horrifically frustrating and depressing sort. For one thing, I couldn’t get my head around the technical aspects of the endeavor – it must require use of the side of my brain I don’t use very well – and for another, I became extremely…disgusted…with the AMV community found here, so much so that I eventually associated the place with a bunch of elitist bastards. A very closed community, one which made newcomers feel like outsiders - that was my general opinion. I hated that feeling and - not being the sort who grovels to people I feel are elitist bastards - after a year or two I basically said “screw you, a-m-v.org” and went off to be obsessive about other stuff. I wasn’t getting anywhere with AMVs, after all, and it didn't seem like the welcome mat was out for anyone didn’t make AMVs or who wouldn’t fall into step and worship those who could. The fact that I’d failed at something I really, really, REALLY wanted to be able to do burned me up, but I refused to admit defeat – I was *just* taking a break.
Anime Boston 2006
For the next few years I did my otaku thing without much in the way of hardcore AMVing and eventually wound up in the audience at Anime Boston’s 2006 AMV competition. That was the first year the con was held at the Hynes Convention Center and the year I got to see both “Hold Me Now” and “True Fiction” in person, on three huge screens in the middle of an audience of 4-5,000 people (not quite sure what the Hynes' crowd cap is, but I know they can pack a lot of people into main events).
To say I was blown away is an understatement. That competition remains the highlight of all my convention experiences, which is saying something considering what happened two years later. What particularly impressed me was the ability of those AMVs to get up in front of the crowd and say “Get ready, because I’m going to show you a REAL good time” and then put on a fantastic performance. Most importantly, it gave me the feeling that their creators were pleased to put on this show, that they greatly enjoyed the chance to contribute to an awesome con experience for thousands of people. I wanted to do that – I wanted to make something that was an EXPERIENCE for people (a really good experience). I drove home from AB that year with completely renewed determination and desire to make an AMV and had the fortune to hear a song on the radio as I was driving back (in the pouring rain at 11:30 p.m. – I remember it quite well) that literally made me shout “OH YEEESSSS!!” and begin to howl with mad laughter.
The Descent Part II
I spent the next year attempting to make that AMV and getting nowhere. I still felt I could make an AMV – in fact I felt sure I could make a really good one – but what I had taken to calling AMV gods were clearly against me. Every possible problem that one can imagine cropped up at every single turn. It’s really quite mind boggling, all the crazy stuff that seemed to happen just to prevent me from making AMVs. It got so bad and so unbelievable that I started – out of sheer frustration – chronically my spectacular non-progress in the nifty journal a-m-v.org had. It made me feel like I was a part of the community even if I was off in a corner somewhere, ranting and raving with only the occasional passerby checking in to say “Yep, she’s still at it and she still can’t do it.”
All-in-all, by 2007 I had probably spent upwards of 500 hours on AMV-related stuff with nothing to show for it. ZEEERO. I took to stating that I – with no AMVs to my name – could be said to have more experience at AMVing than someone who’d made 10 AMVs (assuming a 40-hour per project ratio). Meanwhile, I also decided that I really enjoyed graphic design and went back to school to get that piece of paper that said I had a knack for it. Getting more familiar with a variety of design programs improved my ability to work with video editing programs and gave me all kinds of ideas for fun things to do with AMVs that I wasn’t really seeing anyone else attempting…but I still thought of myself as an AMV editor wanna-be because I hadn't managed to finish one (or, more accurately, make more than 20 seconds of one...NOT for lack of trying).
Despite a vague kind of commitment to make an AMV and enter it in Anime Boston’s 2007 AMV competition, I failed utterly that year and contented myself with instead writing “An AMVer’s Guide to the Pen Tool.” It took about 80 hours, all told, bit I figured that at least proved to folks hearabouts that I was capable of undertaking a large project and finishing it. Plus, it was the first time I actually got the impression that the community had changed a little, that even if you weren’t a “real” AMV editor you still had something to contribute. That was cool. So I made it and - while I have no idea how many people have used it or what good it’s done - I also don’t see as many god-awful masks as I used to so maybe people got the hint and put down their dratted magic wands and lassos. I now intend to re-make it, because I can’t stand the way it’s put together, but I’m kind of busy with other stuff at the moment.
More Than “Just” An AMV
When AB 2007 rolled around, I had no AMV whatsoever. To make a long story short...I don’t really remember how it started, but it ended with someone making a theoretical bet that I couldn’t make an AMV that would get into the competition…or something like that. Well…that just really stuck it to me. I was getting to the end of my rope anyways, where AMVs were concerned, but that just sent me over the edge. I had a great deal more technical know-how than I ever had before, lots of ideas, a decent amount of intelligence…why the HELL couldn’t I “get” this AMV stuff? What wasn’t clicking?? Was I really incapable of making an AMV??
The issue was quite concerning to me, as my entire life I’d operated under the assumption that if I believed hard enough I could do something, then I could do it. I really did believe I could make an AMV…but if I gave up, if I failed, then one of my fundamental beliefs would be proved invalid, sending shockwaves through all sorts of other beliefs. This may sound very grandiose and dramatic…but that’s the way it was. I’ve done a number of things with absolutely no assistance from anyone else solely because I believed I could do them and this was the first time I had failed at it. The whole situation was just about incomprehensible and a real Big Problem, in terms of my self confidence. So, being that life had kind of smoothed at around me and I also finally had the time and resources to devote to AMVs, I decided it was do or die for AB 2008.
Ding Ding Ding
I made my first AMV. I don’t even remember, anymore, what I was originally working on – it was something with Advent Children – but I was up until 11 p.m. fighting with my footage (age-old AMV god curse going on), then I went to bed and had bad dreams about it and woke up to “That‘s All” by Genesis. Instant light bulb, instant obsession, instant ability to make an AMV. Looking back it was quite incredible, like someone threw a switch and suddenly I “got” it – I “got” how to put an AMV together. It still took me a heck of a long time and it was quite difficult, but I managed to muddle through and in the fall of 2007 released my first AMV, Sephiration Anxiety. Finally…after years and years of trying…I was now a “real” AMV editor. Most importantly of all, however, I had proved I could do what I believed I could do.
Do or Die
My next AMV attempt, I decided, was going to have to be my big AB AMV competition endeavor. I’d made an AMV…ok, but now I had to make a REALLY good one. I had to make it count, it had to be the very best I could possibly do, a 150% effort that cut no corners, that was designed exclusively to get into the finals of that competition. This had been my goal for quite a few years but – finally – it seemed within reach. Most people, of course, would have said it was a completely ridiculous and over-zealous goal for someone like me to have. Ok, so I’d made one AMV…but I’d failed miserably for about six-seven years running and the one AMV I HAD made wasn’t exactly anything to jump up and down about. Most anyone would have said it was a long shot – heck even I thought it wouldn’t happen – but I refused to even consider the possibility that I didn’t have what it took to do this.
So I made my second AMV – 'Bustin – and spent a good deal of time blowing off steam and de-stressing in my journal, without which I’d have probably have been even closer to a nervous breakdown than I already was after four months or so of work on that project. I was so burned out and frustrated by the end of it all that I had real doubts about whether the AMV was good enough to get into the competition. For one thing, I knew no one had ever really done anything like it, which possibly meant it was too bizarre and outlandish to be acceptable, and for another I was quite aware of how much the AMV had failed to live up to my expectations. I ran out of time to do everything I wanted and could personally barely stand to watch it anymore.
This kind of attitude led me to release ’Bustin prior to Anime Boston. In retrospect, if I'd had a clue what kind of reception it would get I'd have held off for awhile, but I didn't realize what I'd gotten myself into. I knew I’d made something unique, but I wasn’t sure if it was actually any good or would be …appreciated…by anyone. That AMV was a HUGE personal accomplishment on a number of levels…but most other people could care less about what it meant to me, about why it was so important to me long before it ever went public. The truth is that I was never as proud of my AMV (or myself) as I was the moment before I officially uploaded it here.
Holy Crap
That about sums it up. Although “You’ve got to be kidding me/OMG/Someone slap me/How the hell did THIS happen” also apply. My second AMV was greeted with an astonishing level of enthusiasm and praise and...I made it into the finals at Anime Boston.
The AB event went down far beyond my imagination. I'd attended its AMV competitions over the years and so was familiar with how the crowd (which is usually awesome at AB) reacted when the winners were announced, but this time I was the one who won - Best Concept, the only award I felt I actually had a decent shot at. It happened to be the second AMV winner announced and I saw " 'Bustin" come up on screen and - to my surprise - the whole crowd cheered. Things had seemed kind of subdued for my AMV during the actual competition screening, so this just came out of nowhere. Nothing like sitting in the middle of a filled-to-capacity main events watching thousands of people thoroughly enjoy your AMV to make you say "wow." I remember almost covering my ears when Vincent came on screen, because the fangirl screams (and probably fanboy, too) reached deafening levels. I sat there the whole time with my mouth hanging open thinking, "Whoa...I guess I got it right."
That was a pretty darn spectacular conclusion to many years of wanting very much to make AMVs and finally - after an enormous amount of hard work and failure after failure - succeeding. I didn't expect it to turn out that way, but it did and it was really awesome.
As it turned out, my AMV got into the finals of every competition I entered and won awards at all but one of those competitions. It was all very unexpected and it took me awhile to get a handle on it, which accounts for why I now say I would have done things differently if I’d had any inkling as to what WAS going to happen when I made that AMV. It also accounts for why - by the time it was all over - I felt it making a popular AMV had been a very unpleasant experience. A lot of stress, a lot of mistakes, a lot of getting involved in things I didn't expect to be involved in. I came very close to wishing I'd never made it, any number of times, but now I'm ok with it, now. It's my second AMV, an endeavor that represents a heck of a lot more than most people realize.
Number Three and Four
I released a third AMV which sometimes I call my second AMV, but usually call MSAMAMV (My Song Ate My AMV) which was something I’d mostly put together at the time ‘Bustin took shape. Didn’t announce it – MSAMAMV was just a failed experiment – and people stumble over it however they can. It did better than I’d expected, although after I took the “DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS AMV” headline out of the comments area, the ratings predictably started to drop because, I guess, less open-minded folks were watching it. hehe
Then, feeling like I wanted to put my second AMV behind me, I tackled one of my oldest AMV concepts – a video set to “Hoe-Down” – which unfortunately proved to be quite challenging and nearly caused me to fall back into my old ways, namely not finishing AMVs. With the assistance of several beta tester-type folk, I persevered and released my third/fourth AMV Takeout in fall 2008, almost exactly a year after I released my first one. It also was received better than I anticipated, but most of all gave me the satisfaction of knowing I could finish an AMV even if I didn’t like the cards I was dealt (which is good, given that I largely deal them to myself).
2008...
At the moment AMVing is taking a backseat - there are a number of things I’ve put off doing because AMV-related matters took up so much of my time, but I don’t want to put them off anymore. Plus, I am a very slow editor, often I say bad editor (because I’m slow) and admit I don’t really have any natural talent at this stuff. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that if I want results, I need to put in the time. I’m not as bad as I used to be, fortunately, which proves I’m making progress, but I am slow.
Also, right now I feel like I accomplished not only what I set out to do, but a ton of things I never even dreamed of accomplishing. My goals have all been met (they weren't extraordinarily high to begin with - make an AMV, get into the finals at AB) and now I have to set new ones. Fortunately I thrive on challenges, and I'm happy to say the proof is my AMVs.
I Want My AMV
One sometimes hears about life-changing moments, the kinds of moments – large or small – which mark a definite bend in the road and take the traveler places they otherwise would not have visited. This happened to me approximately 10 years ago when I accidentally saw half a commercial for Final Fantasy VIII on MTV. “Accidentally” because I never watched MTV, was not supposed to be watching MTV and never saw that commercial again. Nevertheless, my life altered course in those 40 seconds.
One aspect of my personality, which actually takes a lot of people a very long time to discover, is that I go through regular periods of obsessive interest in things. Most likely I inherited this trait from my father, although it’s much more obvious in him because it manifests itself in the hobbies he takes up. I, on the other hand, get obsessed about ideas. If those ideas happen to relate to someTHING then of course my interest gets a little more obvious, but even then no one usually realizes how much is really going on upstairs. If I am obsessed with something, I think about it 24/7, non-stop. A good example is when Advent Children came out. I lived, breathed and slept AC for about six weeks (particularly Vincent) and was absolutely euphoric the whole time. A psychiatrist once told me this is abnormal - that one should constantly be thinking about things - but I haven’t killed anyone yet so what’s the big deal?
In any case, this is how half a commercial for a game I’d never heard of (although I had heard of FF7) wound up having so much influence. I saw it, I had to find out more about it, I went online and landed on a site full of information about the game, discovered the fun of forums and chatrooms and eventually was initiated into the early realm of file sharing, a la bittorrent and IRC. This is Napster-era, I’m talking about, when you got your fansubs not from download links on Web sites, but by scouring the bittorrent/IRC highways and never really gave a second thought to fansub quality, viruses or whether it was ok to download anime for free. At some point one of my online friends passed me an AMV made with “Enter Sandman” and FFVIII, which I promptly fell head-over-heels in love with and would watch at least 20 times a day. At that time I didn’t know it was an AMV – in fact in 1998 it probably wouldn’t even have been called an AMV – and I’ve never found it again, although it might exist on the Tube. I was 21.
The Descent
By 1999 I had been introduced to all kinds of people who were introducing me to all sorts of other things, particularly anime, which I’d always been fascinated with but had never had a means of obtaining. Amazing what kinds of new worlds a cable modem can open up to you. By 2001 I was a bonafide America otaku and, in the course of searching for the FFVIII AMV (which I’d lost after my father reformatted my hard drive without my knowledge/permission), discovered a-m-v.org. Wonder and amazement ensued, along with another obsession.
This time, however, it was of a horrifically frustrating and depressing sort. For one thing, I couldn’t get my head around the technical aspects of the endeavor – it must require use of the side of my brain I don’t use very well – and for another, I became extremely…disgusted…with the AMV community found here, so much so that I eventually associated the place with a bunch of elitist bastards. A very closed community, one which made newcomers feel like outsiders - that was my general opinion. I hated that feeling and - not being the sort who grovels to people I feel are elitist bastards - after a year or two I basically said “screw you, a-m-v.org” and went off to be obsessive about other stuff. I wasn’t getting anywhere with AMVs, after all, and it didn't seem like the welcome mat was out for anyone didn’t make AMVs or who wouldn’t fall into step and worship those who could. The fact that I’d failed at something I really, really, REALLY wanted to be able to do burned me up, but I refused to admit defeat – I was *just* taking a break.
Anime Boston 2006
For the next few years I did my otaku thing without much in the way of hardcore AMVing and eventually wound up in the audience at Anime Boston’s 2006 AMV competition. That was the first year the con was held at the Hynes Convention Center and the year I got to see both “Hold Me Now” and “True Fiction” in person, on three huge screens in the middle of an audience of 4-5,000 people (not quite sure what the Hynes' crowd cap is, but I know they can pack a lot of people into main events).
To say I was blown away is an understatement. That competition remains the highlight of all my convention experiences, which is saying something considering what happened two years later. What particularly impressed me was the ability of those AMVs to get up in front of the crowd and say “Get ready, because I’m going to show you a REAL good time” and then put on a fantastic performance. Most importantly, it gave me the feeling that their creators were pleased to put on this show, that they greatly enjoyed the chance to contribute to an awesome con experience for thousands of people. I wanted to do that – I wanted to make something that was an EXPERIENCE for people (a really good experience). I drove home from AB that year with completely renewed determination and desire to make an AMV and had the fortune to hear a song on the radio as I was driving back (in the pouring rain at 11:30 p.m. – I remember it quite well) that literally made me shout “OH YEEESSSS!!” and begin to howl with mad laughter.
The Descent Part II
I spent the next year attempting to make that AMV and getting nowhere. I still felt I could make an AMV – in fact I felt sure I could make a really good one – but what I had taken to calling AMV gods were clearly against me. Every possible problem that one can imagine cropped up at every single turn. It’s really quite mind boggling, all the crazy stuff that seemed to happen just to prevent me from making AMVs. It got so bad and so unbelievable that I started – out of sheer frustration – chronically my spectacular non-progress in the nifty journal a-m-v.org had. It made me feel like I was a part of the community even if I was off in a corner somewhere, ranting and raving with only the occasional passerby checking in to say “Yep, she’s still at it and she still can’t do it.”
All-in-all, by 2007 I had probably spent upwards of 500 hours on AMV-related stuff with nothing to show for it. ZEEERO. I took to stating that I – with no AMVs to my name – could be said to have more experience at AMVing than someone who’d made 10 AMVs (assuming a 40-hour per project ratio). Meanwhile, I also decided that I really enjoyed graphic design and went back to school to get that piece of paper that said I had a knack for it. Getting more familiar with a variety of design programs improved my ability to work with video editing programs and gave me all kinds of ideas for fun things to do with AMVs that I wasn’t really seeing anyone else attempting…but I still thought of myself as an AMV editor wanna-be because I hadn't managed to finish one (or, more accurately, make more than 20 seconds of one...NOT for lack of trying).
Despite a vague kind of commitment to make an AMV and enter it in Anime Boston’s 2007 AMV competition, I failed utterly that year and contented myself with instead writing “An AMVer’s Guide to the Pen Tool.” It took about 80 hours, all told, bit I figured that at least proved to folks hearabouts that I was capable of undertaking a large project and finishing it. Plus, it was the first time I actually got the impression that the community had changed a little, that even if you weren’t a “real” AMV editor you still had something to contribute. That was cool. So I made it and - while I have no idea how many people have used it or what good it’s done - I also don’t see as many god-awful masks as I used to so maybe people got the hint and put down their dratted magic wands and lassos. I now intend to re-make it, because I can’t stand the way it’s put together, but I’m kind of busy with other stuff at the moment.
More Than “Just” An AMV
When AB 2007 rolled around, I had no AMV whatsoever. To make a long story short...I don’t really remember how it started, but it ended with someone making a theoretical bet that I couldn’t make an AMV that would get into the competition…or something like that. Well…that just really stuck it to me. I was getting to the end of my rope anyways, where AMVs were concerned, but that just sent me over the edge. I had a great deal more technical know-how than I ever had before, lots of ideas, a decent amount of intelligence…why the HELL couldn’t I “get” this AMV stuff? What wasn’t clicking?? Was I really incapable of making an AMV??
The issue was quite concerning to me, as my entire life I’d operated under the assumption that if I believed hard enough I could do something, then I could do it. I really did believe I could make an AMV…but if I gave up, if I failed, then one of my fundamental beliefs would be proved invalid, sending shockwaves through all sorts of other beliefs. This may sound very grandiose and dramatic…but that’s the way it was. I’ve done a number of things with absolutely no assistance from anyone else solely because I believed I could do them and this was the first time I had failed at it. The whole situation was just about incomprehensible and a real Big Problem, in terms of my self confidence. So, being that life had kind of smoothed at around me and I also finally had the time and resources to devote to AMVs, I decided it was do or die for AB 2008.
Ding Ding Ding
I made my first AMV. I don’t even remember, anymore, what I was originally working on – it was something with Advent Children – but I was up until 11 p.m. fighting with my footage (age-old AMV god curse going on), then I went to bed and had bad dreams about it and woke up to “That‘s All” by Genesis. Instant light bulb, instant obsession, instant ability to make an AMV. Looking back it was quite incredible, like someone threw a switch and suddenly I “got” it – I “got” how to put an AMV together. It still took me a heck of a long time and it was quite difficult, but I managed to muddle through and in the fall of 2007 released my first AMV, Sephiration Anxiety. Finally…after years and years of trying…I was now a “real” AMV editor. Most importantly of all, however, I had proved I could do what I believed I could do.
Do or Die
My next AMV attempt, I decided, was going to have to be my big AB AMV competition endeavor. I’d made an AMV…ok, but now I had to make a REALLY good one. I had to make it count, it had to be the very best I could possibly do, a 150% effort that cut no corners, that was designed exclusively to get into the finals of that competition. This had been my goal for quite a few years but – finally – it seemed within reach. Most people, of course, would have said it was a completely ridiculous and over-zealous goal for someone like me to have. Ok, so I’d made one AMV…but I’d failed miserably for about six-seven years running and the one AMV I HAD made wasn’t exactly anything to jump up and down about. Most anyone would have said it was a long shot – heck even I thought it wouldn’t happen – but I refused to even consider the possibility that I didn’t have what it took to do this.
So I made my second AMV – 'Bustin – and spent a good deal of time blowing off steam and de-stressing in my journal, without which I’d have probably have been even closer to a nervous breakdown than I already was after four months or so of work on that project. I was so burned out and frustrated by the end of it all that I had real doubts about whether the AMV was good enough to get into the competition. For one thing, I knew no one had ever really done anything like it, which possibly meant it was too bizarre and outlandish to be acceptable, and for another I was quite aware of how much the AMV had failed to live up to my expectations. I ran out of time to do everything I wanted and could personally barely stand to watch it anymore.
This kind of attitude led me to release ’Bustin prior to Anime Boston. In retrospect, if I'd had a clue what kind of reception it would get I'd have held off for awhile, but I didn't realize what I'd gotten myself into. I knew I’d made something unique, but I wasn’t sure if it was actually any good or would be …appreciated…by anyone. That AMV was a HUGE personal accomplishment on a number of levels…but most other people could care less about what it meant to me, about why it was so important to me long before it ever went public. The truth is that I was never as proud of my AMV (or myself) as I was the moment before I officially uploaded it here.
Holy Crap
That about sums it up. Although “You’ve got to be kidding me/OMG/Someone slap me/How the hell did THIS happen” also apply. My second AMV was greeted with an astonishing level of enthusiasm and praise and...I made it into the finals at Anime Boston.
The AB event went down far beyond my imagination. I'd attended its AMV competitions over the years and so was familiar with how the crowd (which is usually awesome at AB) reacted when the winners were announced, but this time I was the one who won - Best Concept, the only award I felt I actually had a decent shot at. It happened to be the second AMV winner announced and I saw " 'Bustin" come up on screen and - to my surprise - the whole crowd cheered. Things had seemed kind of subdued for my AMV during the actual competition screening, so this just came out of nowhere. Nothing like sitting in the middle of a filled-to-capacity main events watching thousands of people thoroughly enjoy your AMV to make you say "wow." I remember almost covering my ears when Vincent came on screen, because the fangirl screams (and probably fanboy, too) reached deafening levels. I sat there the whole time with my mouth hanging open thinking, "Whoa...I guess I got it right."
That was a pretty darn spectacular conclusion to many years of wanting very much to make AMVs and finally - after an enormous amount of hard work and failure after failure - succeeding. I didn't expect it to turn out that way, but it did and it was really awesome.
As it turned out, my AMV got into the finals of every competition I entered and won awards at all but one of those competitions. It was all very unexpected and it took me awhile to get a handle on it, which accounts for why I now say I would have done things differently if I’d had any inkling as to what WAS going to happen when I made that AMV. It also accounts for why - by the time it was all over - I felt it making a popular AMV had been a very unpleasant experience. A lot of stress, a lot of mistakes, a lot of getting involved in things I didn't expect to be involved in. I came very close to wishing I'd never made it, any number of times, but now I'm ok with it, now. It's my second AMV, an endeavor that represents a heck of a lot more than most people realize.
Number Three and Four
I released a third AMV which sometimes I call my second AMV, but usually call MSAMAMV (My Song Ate My AMV) which was something I’d mostly put together at the time ‘Bustin took shape. Didn’t announce it – MSAMAMV was just a failed experiment – and people stumble over it however they can. It did better than I’d expected, although after I took the “DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS AMV” headline out of the comments area, the ratings predictably started to drop because, I guess, less open-minded folks were watching it. hehe
Then, feeling like I wanted to put my second AMV behind me, I tackled one of my oldest AMV concepts – a video set to “Hoe-Down” – which unfortunately proved to be quite challenging and nearly caused me to fall back into my old ways, namely not finishing AMVs. With the assistance of several beta tester-type folk, I persevered and released my third/fourth AMV Takeout in fall 2008, almost exactly a year after I released my first one. It also was received better than I anticipated, but most of all gave me the satisfaction of knowing I could finish an AMV even if I didn’t like the cards I was dealt (which is good, given that I largely deal them to myself).
2008...
At the moment AMVing is taking a backseat - there are a number of things I’ve put off doing because AMV-related matters took up so much of my time, but I don’t want to put them off anymore. Plus, I am a very slow editor, often I say bad editor (because I’m slow) and admit I don’t really have any natural talent at this stuff. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that if I want results, I need to put in the time. I’m not as bad as I used to be, fortunately, which proves I’m making progress, but I am slow.
Also, right now I feel like I accomplished not only what I set out to do, but a ton of things I never even dreamed of accomplishing. My goals have all been met (they weren't extraordinarily high to begin with - make an AMV, get into the finals at AB) and now I have to set new ones. Fortunately I thrive on challenges, and I'm happy to say the proof is my AMVs.
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DriftRoot
- Joined: Mon Jun 09, 2003 7:18 pm
- Status: As important as any plug-in.
- Location: N.H.
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qyll
- Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 10:02 pm
- Location: underground
You know, I can’t remember when exactly I got into anime (not AMVs). While the past is like a grand panorama to some people, to me, it’s just a series of out-of-focus photographs. The first thing I do remember about anime was that I disliked it. Maybe it was because I was loyal to the cartoons of the day. Honestly, I didn’t even realize that Pokemon was Japanese until a while I was in middle school, and so I never thought that the Pokemon anime was Japanese. This was about ten years ago.
My first conscious encounter with anime was in the basement of my best friend’s house in 2004. It was an average summer afternoon, and we were two ninth graders doing some average summer afternoon things: swimming, eating, lounging around under the sun. Then my friend decided that he wanted to watch an episode of this new anime that he was picked up. Now, for some reason, that piqued by curiosity. I was only able to get a glimpse of the title before my friend swatted at me and told me to play some Xbox. I understand why now. Elfen Lied really isn’t a series that you watch with friends.
The name “Elfen Lied” stayed on the back burner for quite a while – A full year passed before one day while sitting at my computer, I decided to watch it. After I finished, I realized that I had just watched one of the greatest things in my short 15 year lifespan. It was better than any movie or book or TV show. And to this day, Elfen Lied still has a special place in my heart.
Fast forward.
It’s now 2006 and I’ve watched quite a few series already. Cowboy Bebop, Love Hina, Berserk, Mai HiME, etc. Youtube was on the rise at the time, and I saw a few AMVs, but they didn’t catch my attention. I read about the buzz on a new anime titled “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya”. I watch the first episode.
Yeech. That tasted like bad decision.
A month passes and the buzz doesn’t subside. I decide to watch the second episode, and the rest is history. You know that saying “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover?” Well, it should be “Don’t judge an anime by its first episode.” Yes, I’m looking at you, Texhnolyze.
In August of 2006, I made my first AMV. This is probably the most important part, yet the part I remember the least about. Unlike most of the posters on this forum, I’ve never been to an anime convention. AMVs first came to me through a 320 x 240 flash video. Never mind that it was pixelated and horribly edited, it was a breath of fresh air to me. You mean to tell me that I could find my favorite animes edited to my favorite songs!? That’s an awesome deal, thank you very much.
I suppose that the next logical step was for me to try to edit my own video. I’m embarrassed to say that my very first “AMV” consisted of me taking the intro music of Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni and pasting it onto the video intro of Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien. I was proud. Naïve, yes, but proud. I’m not exaggerating either: that’s the proudest I’ve felt after any video I’ve made since. You know that saying “Ignorance is bliss”? Well, it should be “Cheap copy-and-paste ‘projects’ belongs in the Louvre.”
A simple search of “AMV” led me to this site. I fell in love like a fat kid falls on a cheeseburger. I got an idea of what a proper AMV looked like. I guess it at that point that I simply told myself “I’m going to be good at this.” There really was no inspiration – just infatuation. I immediately went to work. A Hikaru no Go opening coupled with Haruhi!? BRILLIANT!!
I made my first legit AMV in less than an hour.
And then I made my next one in an hour twenty minutes after I finished my first one.
By early October, I had upgraded from Windows Movie Maker to Adobe Premiere. I went through the typical Premiere fanboy phase. Blurs were the new vogue, and lens flares were worth a million bucks. I retreated from the org for a few months to work on my editing skills, slowly learning from each bad cut and mistimed beat.
In March of 2007, I made “Lucid”, which is one of the few videos that matched my original vision. That month, I went on a Haruhi rampage and created three videos. The last one, Haruhi Sopranos Style, took a good half hour to make. I started to develop my own style by then that consisted mostly of “effects are awesome. Fades suck”. Five days after my last video, I was accepted to the college of my dreams. Things were looking up.
In the beginning of May that year, I made my most ambitious project up to that point. Good manga videos were lacking, and I thought I’d try my hand at one with the Fruits Basket Manga. That was the first video that required me to use heavy photoshopping to cut out characters and animate them in Premiere. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to use the pen tool, so all the cutouts were made from the magic wand + eraser combo. After it all came together, I knew that I had something awesome. Today, I look back and wonder how the hell I had the patience to make a video like that. Perhaps it was my massive supply of morale at the time.
Life went on. I made All That Glitters out of a glint of inspiration when I realized that All Star would be the perfect song for Haruhi. I stayed on campus that summer and was finally able to put my video editing skills to good use. I made a video for my film class that received an “A”. Celebration was had, and I laid on the mosh pit for ten minutes before my man, Martin Scorsese offered me the position of head editor for his next blockbuster.
I edited Awwwright during the fall term of my freshman year. Really, there’s not much else to say. I made two more videos in 2007. One of the FMA Manga to the opening of Full Metal Panic, and another one to Hoshi no Koe, which is still my personal favorite. After a half year hiatus, I picked up a project that I had scrapped earlier and made Everything: A Tribute to Kaname Chidori.
That’s it.
As for the future, I’m working on a BECK video right now. I like the way it’s turning out, and hopefully it’ll be done by December. School has got my by the balls right now.
My first conscious encounter with anime was in the basement of my best friend’s house in 2004. It was an average summer afternoon, and we were two ninth graders doing some average summer afternoon things: swimming, eating, lounging around under the sun. Then my friend decided that he wanted to watch an episode of this new anime that he was picked up. Now, for some reason, that piqued by curiosity. I was only able to get a glimpse of the title before my friend swatted at me and told me to play some Xbox. I understand why now. Elfen Lied really isn’t a series that you watch with friends.
The name “Elfen Lied” stayed on the back burner for quite a while – A full year passed before one day while sitting at my computer, I decided to watch it. After I finished, I realized that I had just watched one of the greatest things in my short 15 year lifespan. It was better than any movie or book or TV show. And to this day, Elfen Lied still has a special place in my heart.
Fast forward.
It’s now 2006 and I’ve watched quite a few series already. Cowboy Bebop, Love Hina, Berserk, Mai HiME, etc. Youtube was on the rise at the time, and I saw a few AMVs, but they didn’t catch my attention. I read about the buzz on a new anime titled “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya”. I watch the first episode.
Yeech. That tasted like bad decision.
A month passes and the buzz doesn’t subside. I decide to watch the second episode, and the rest is history. You know that saying “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover?” Well, it should be “Don’t judge an anime by its first episode.” Yes, I’m looking at you, Texhnolyze.
In August of 2006, I made my first AMV. This is probably the most important part, yet the part I remember the least about. Unlike most of the posters on this forum, I’ve never been to an anime convention. AMVs first came to me through a 320 x 240 flash video. Never mind that it was pixelated and horribly edited, it was a breath of fresh air to me. You mean to tell me that I could find my favorite animes edited to my favorite songs!? That’s an awesome deal, thank you very much.
I suppose that the next logical step was for me to try to edit my own video. I’m embarrassed to say that my very first “AMV” consisted of me taking the intro music of Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni and pasting it onto the video intro of Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien. I was proud. Naïve, yes, but proud. I’m not exaggerating either: that’s the proudest I’ve felt after any video I’ve made since. You know that saying “Ignorance is bliss”? Well, it should be “Cheap copy-and-paste ‘projects’ belongs in the Louvre.”
A simple search of “AMV” led me to this site. I fell in love like a fat kid falls on a cheeseburger. I got an idea of what a proper AMV looked like. I guess it at that point that I simply told myself “I’m going to be good at this.” There really was no inspiration – just infatuation. I immediately went to work. A Hikaru no Go opening coupled with Haruhi!? BRILLIANT!!
I made my first legit AMV in less than an hour.
And then I made my next one in an hour twenty minutes after I finished my first one.
By early October, I had upgraded from Windows Movie Maker to Adobe Premiere. I went through the typical Premiere fanboy phase. Blurs were the new vogue, and lens flares were worth a million bucks. I retreated from the org for a few months to work on my editing skills, slowly learning from each bad cut and mistimed beat.
In March of 2007, I made “Lucid”, which is one of the few videos that matched my original vision. That month, I went on a Haruhi rampage and created three videos. The last one, Haruhi Sopranos Style, took a good half hour to make. I started to develop my own style by then that consisted mostly of “effects are awesome. Fades suck”. Five days after my last video, I was accepted to the college of my dreams. Things were looking up.
In the beginning of May that year, I made my most ambitious project up to that point. Good manga videos were lacking, and I thought I’d try my hand at one with the Fruits Basket Manga. That was the first video that required me to use heavy photoshopping to cut out characters and animate them in Premiere. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to use the pen tool, so all the cutouts were made from the magic wand + eraser combo. After it all came together, I knew that I had something awesome. Today, I look back and wonder how the hell I had the patience to make a video like that. Perhaps it was my massive supply of morale at the time.
Life went on. I made All That Glitters out of a glint of inspiration when I realized that All Star would be the perfect song for Haruhi. I stayed on campus that summer and was finally able to put my video editing skills to good use. I made a video for my film class that received an “A”. Celebration was had, and I laid on the mosh pit for ten minutes before my man, Martin Scorsese offered me the position of head editor for his next blockbuster.
I edited Awwwright during the fall term of my freshman year. Really, there’s not much else to say. I made two more videos in 2007. One of the FMA Manga to the opening of Full Metal Panic, and another one to Hoshi no Koe, which is still my personal favorite. After a half year hiatus, I picked up a project that I had scrapped earlier and made Everything: A Tribute to Kaname Chidori.
That’s it.
As for the future, I’m working on a BECK video right now. I like the way it’s turning out, and hopefully it’ll be done by December. School has got my by the balls right now.
zzz
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trythil
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trythil
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Re: Art of concision: use less words
Hey, I just realized that the global financial crisis actually makes the plot work with my general feeling towards AMVs over time.trythil wrote:
Thanks, housing bubble!
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dwchang
- Sad Boy on Site
- Joined: Mon Mar 04, 2002 12:22 am
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Re: Art of concision: use less words
Unlike others which were tl;dr, this one I almost immediately understood. Given you didn't label the Y-axis so I don't know what we're measuring here Davidtrythil wrote:
.-Daniel
Newest Video: Through the Years and Far Away aka Sad Girl in Space
Newest Video: Through the Years and Far Away aka Sad Girl in Space
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trythil
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Re: Art of concision: use less words
"A picture says a thousand words" might be cliché, but there's some truth in it.dwchang wrote: Unlike others which were tl;dr, this one I almost immediately understood. Given you didn't label the Y-axis so I don't know what we're measuring here David :P.
I wasn't really sure how to label the Y-axis, because it's very hard to quantify something like "how much I enjoy AMVs at time t". I can say "I enjoyed it more at t than t'" and draw pictures accordingly, but I don't know how to attach numerical values to those feelings.
Probably just labeling the Y-axis might have been enough.
There's a second, much more practical, reason why I didn't label the Y-axis. I ganked the image off a screen capture of the European Central Bank's graph of EUR -> USD exchange rates, and only did minimal manipulations.
On a total tangent, the ECB uses jQuery in their web pages (check the page source). I thought that was pretty damn cool.