a Newcomer asking for help.

[Toucan Sam]

Hi, I'm Toucan Sam and I recently built an anime club for my school. Although we could just watch anime, I was thinking about offering a group AMV project for those who are interested in the club (Basically, we'd build an group AMV). I would like to see this happen, but I would have how to use the software involved.

Can anyone help me with the software issue? I do not know what I should be learning or what software i should be using during the few months I have to learn this. Sorry for the inconveniance.

(Also, if it helps, I have a windows vista at home and at the school, and the group has the anime and music resources we would need).

[mirkosp]

First thing, Read <a href=http://www.a-m-v.org/guides/avtech31/>ErMaC & AbsoluteDestiny's Friendly AMV Guides Lovingly Overhauled Largely by Zarxrax</a>. It comes with the software you'll need for the various technical things, and it will give you the knowledge you need to make the amv come along nicely and easily on the tech side.
With that out of the way, the software you're going to use depends on your taste. There are a number of free softwares for editing, but they are generally less powerful or less intuitive than payware counterparts. Over here on the org, most people like to use premiere, vegas, or magix. I would think that magix would be a good program to use since it is easy, has a lot of potential and is roughly 50$ at most in cost, so a pretty cheap yet valid alternative to premiere (around the 1000$ mark) and vegas (older versions are around 100$, but with newer version the price rises, though not as high as the price of premiere I think).
If money is not an issue, download the trials of the programs and see what you like the most, then buy that. If money is an issue, then you'll want to either go with magix or an old version of vegas (the pro version; the other version, while supposedly easier, comes with a lot of limits, much like premiere elements compared to premiere pro, which could end up being frustrating and make some effects or what-have-you complicated to pull off).
At this point, the only thing you might need, since the tech programs are all included in the amvapp, is some image editor, and GIMP will be a perfect solution for this: inexpensive yet powerful. If you have the money you might want to buy photoshop instead, especially if you'd end up using premiere, but I hardly think that you'd find the things that photoshop has and GIMP doesn't really useful for an AMV in most cases.

My 2 cents, hope this helps.

PS: technically you might also want to look into other programs if you wanna do complex effects (for example after effects or blender), but I don't think you wanna start out with complex stuff already.

[Scintilla]

At this point, the only thing you might need, since the tech programs are all included in the amvapp, is some image editor, and GIMP will be a perfect solution for this: free yet powerful.

Fixed. (And those who care may note that it's free in both senses of the word.)

[Kionon]

When I was your age the Anime/AMV club was called... A/V.

You might also want to read the GAMV stickies.

[Knowname]

Have you asked the club first? You might have somebody there who knows how to make an amv and can teach you? that'd be easiest. Well following the guides wouldn't be too hard... just I couldn't imagine teaching 5, 6, 7 whatever noobs how to rip/ cut/ edit and everything like that. Maybe it's just me, amving is not THAT complicated it's just.... something you gotta teach

You can learn the stuff in the guides well enough, but when the teacher is a noob just like you it sort of resembles a barrel of monkeys rather than an actual learning experience. You can do it that way, but hopefully you have (somewhere, might even be out of the anime club, like Kio said, does your school have a/v- audio video- programs or clubs? Ask them if they can show you how to use Windows Movie Maker or (Apple) Final Cut Express. Or if there is a photo club ask to learn photoshop from them, that's a needed skill too) someone who knows how to use an editor already. That will make things 1000x easier .

[Toucan Sam]

Thank you very much (all of you), especially mirkosp, for making it very so very easy for me to comprehend. Unfortunatly, my school is very new (made a year ago), so I cannot receive help from an a/v club. Fortunatly, I had already played around with many of the programs available for windows (GIMP and vegas). Thank you all very much for your support!

P.S (major props to the creator of the linked guide. Very simple, Very effective)

[Scintilla]

P.S (major props to the creator of the linked guide. Very simple...

I'm glad to see SOMEbody besides me thought EADFAG was simple to follow.

[Kionon]

Thank you very much (all of you), especially mirkosp, for making it very so very easy for me to comprehend. Unfortunatly, my school is very new (made a year ago), so I cannot receive help from an a/v club. Fortunatly, I had already played around with many of the programs available for windows (GIMP and vegas). Thank you all very much for your support!

P.S (major props to the creator of the linked guide. Very simple, Very effective)

My school was only half built when we moved there from an older building. There was no A/V club until my friends and I decided to work with the school district to get one. Actually the A/V thing is a bit of a joke, we actually did have a cooler name: Broadcasting Vocational Program. However we had a trump card: the city provided the guy who ran all their programming on the public access channel. His name is Phil Rogers. He is one of the most important people in my life. Today, in fact, is his birthday, and I sent him a video for it.

We started in a utility closet with a couple of SVHS decks and JVC cameras, a semi-sorta anchor desk. A few months later, Phill worked his arse off so we got our sweet, sweet Mini-DV JVC cams, and two beautiful wonderful, Windows 2K machines running Premiere 5.0. The good times of cursing premiere as it crashed, or did something squirrelly or just refused to work at all never stopped. And premiere still treats me the same way today. Ah, memories. We won national attention for a documentary we did on teen drinking and driving called shattered dreams and it was shown on Good Morning America. Then people started paying attention. People with MONEY.

By the end we had an entire lab built, with several workstations (now they're all macs, at least they were two years ago when I last visited the high school), a full featured radio station, an anchor desk with blue screens and green screens... And wonderful, amazing, Canon DV cams worth $5000 each. I miss those cams. ;_;

Did we edit AMVs? Yer damn right we did. But the editing skills came first. The ability to take what we had learned and use it in our future careers is also very important. Most of us have gone into some sort of technical field. I edited professionally for politicians for a few years. I think it might be more to your benefit to form an Animation Club, with an emphasis on the creation/editing aspect, which will impress your teachers and your district, and get you some much needed CASH. Back in my day, anime was not well known, so we needed to come up with lots of standard stuff (good for demo reels for job stuff), but you might have better luck now just skipping Live Action Broadcasting and focusing on animation, digital effects, etc. But maybe a Broadcast Club in general wouldn't be bad idea.

Get the school to pay for your legal copy of premiere. Mine did.