AMV Advice (FOR CONTEST). Please help.

[hamstar138]

Hey everyone. I have been a member here for a long time and I know I am not the most social butterfly on the forum but I would really appreciate for you all to help me out. I enter in Anime Boston's AMV contest for about 3 years now and I really want to get into the finals and perhaps win. I made this AMV and worked really hard in it. But I am looking for some advice on how to approve the video in some sort of way. Please help with advice I really want to approve with my AMVs so I can do well in contests and do well with making better and better AMVS in the future. Thank you.

LINK TO VIDEO: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... p?v=185227

Video Program I Use: Final Cut Express

Computer I Use: Mac Laptop

[hamstar138]

woops...i put this in the wrong place. o___o;; sorry.

[Kariudo]

Moved to Gen AMV. It was a toss-up between here and the Opinion Exchange.

I'll try to get at this after the holidays, but at any rate I'd still suggest posting in Op Ex if you want more advice on how to improve, specifically tailored to this particular video.

[hamstar138]

oh. Thanks so much Kariudo. ^_^;;

[Kireblue]

I actually really liked this video. I just sent you a pm with a full review.

[Kariudo]

I'd say you have yourself a pretty solid AMV right now. Romance vids aren't my strong suit, so I'm afraid any advice I'd be able to give would be quite limited.

I don't know the movie, but if there's another clip in there similar to the one at 0:55-1:05 I'd consider using it at 1:41 as well. What you have is fine, but you have one of the two most powerful points in the song right there...so I want to see more abrupt motion (right at 1:41) followed by tons of color (like at 1:42).

Moving your crossfades at 1:44 and 1:45 onto the bass line may work better. If you can find some more clips in that section, I'd try sticking with the bass line until 1:50 (or more if you feel it's working). Moving the train doors closing onto the triangle's ding (and the following cut to the lady's face to when the doors close now) may be worth experimenting with.

...so for general advice, I'd say that you should be mindful of the contrast between musical phrases, and exaggerate them with as much motion and color as you can.

[Shin-AMV]

I found it enjoyable overall and you have good beat sync and internal sync elements throughout the video, and the scene selection is good for the most part. I particularly liked the match and juxtaposition cuts you had. That being said, I think there are few elements that could be tweaked a little to help nail it all into place.

I don't know how I feel about the black and white part. 45 seconds of black and white is a long time and it makes up about 35% of the entire video. I understand the black and white from an artistic kind of standpoint, but does it really need to be black and white? The color comes in when the lyrics start and match with them in a clever way, but it doesn't "light up" or burst into the scene in a sense where the color comes in with a bang for that dramatic or haunting emphasis, it just fades in with the lyrics. I think the scene selection on its own matches the lyrics pretty well that you don't need the fade into color aspect with it, and the first half would be more readily engaging with color.

For some of the more subtle scenes, you might want to consider adding some subtle panning/zooming to add just a little more movement, enough to keep the eye engaged and refocusing on video. Just a little bit can go along way.

I think starting around 1:20 you can drop the overlays and just commit to one scene or another. You can shuffle some of the scenes around so you can have the close up of his face turning downward with dissappointment in it still, but I think it would be stronger if the scenes that are getting overlayed over that scene are just in the forefront on their own along with the beat sync going on there. Also it'll add a little bit of a stronger dynamic if it cuts between the scenes of him running and his memories or the scenes of them together and it'll elevate the emotional mood. As it is now, its hard to focus on one or the other and with them cutting back in and out from each other trading off for a chance at screen time it'll put more of a punch into the drama/conflict being portrayed there showing the past of what the character had and wants to keep and then his determination with chasing after it to really want to keep it. You can clip out some of the less dynamic parts of the scenes where he is running and really emphasis the determination more all leading up to the arm grab/kiss.

If you want to talk AMVs more just send me a PM.