How are AMV a part of life?

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 1:57 pm

Watching amvs never influenced me beyond wanting to see the episodes used in some videos, and promising myself never to watch the anime used in others.

Since making vids myself, my attention span has gotten shorter and I've become even more visually inclined than I was before. That's very bad for someone whose main work consists of long writing projects that require long-term focus and where the only visuals are letters on a page. Very bad.

I've also met a variety of new people, which has reaffirmed most of my beliefs about humans in general, young humans in particular. I think I'd do better in my psychology course if I retook it after being in the amv setting for over a year. In that light, amvs are a good thing because they make for a community of diverse people, all attempting to get along for the common theme - amvs.

On a more personal note, amvs have given me a chance to do something I've strived for since I first started writing - visualizing a scene. I'm not good at anything but writing, but my 'art' is simply bad. With anime characters, they're drawn out *in* the anime, so putting them into a scene you've imagined is a lot easier than trying to draw things from scratch. I'm very happy to have editing as a way to 'see' things. But the drawback - none of it is original. Even if the scene is mine, I'm still just manipulating someone else's art to make it bend to my imagination. It makes me lazy. I can't remember the last time I sat down and tried to draw what was in my head - I'd sooner grab a few frames and make them do the work.

Anime as a whole has been great, very good experience at working with characters and getting to know what readers want, and how they react to certain things they don't want. Amvs, on the other hand, seem more of a destructive impulse since I don't 'feed the viewers' the way I would with writing. Amvs are just a fun way to play with visuals - I only like editing because I see it as a puzzle to get the frames/clips to come together and make the picture I have in my head. I love puzzles. I just don't get into the community mindset (too selfish), so I miss out on the fun (?) of making things for the group at large. As long as I get my giddy little rush upon completion, it wasn't a waste of time to make the vid. The moment I lose that rush, I'll quit and go onto a new or different addiction.

Bulghod · Post by **Bulghod** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 2:28 pm

Beowulf wrote:I have 3/4 of my freinds because of AMVs.

do you keep the parts of friends that you still have in jars?

Pwolf · Post by **Pwolf** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 2:36 pm

Bulghod wrote:
Beowulf wrote:I have 3/4 of my freinds because of AMVs.

do you keep the parts of friends that you still have in jars?

i don't know about beo... but i do

have a whole shelf in my room dedicated to em... right next to my anime dvds

Pwolf

Sentient Satire · Post by **Sentient Satire** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 2:48 pm

Arigatomyna wrote:Anime as a whole has been great, very good experience at working with characters and getting to know what readers want, and how they react to certain things they don't want. Amvs, on the other hand, seem more of a destructive impulse since I don't 'feed the viewers' the way I would with writing. Amvs are just a fun way to play with visuals - I only like editing because I see it as a puzzle to get the frames/clips to come together and make the picture I have in my head. I love puzzles. I just don't get into the community mindset (too selfish), so I miss out on the fun (?) of making things for the group at large. As long as I get my giddy little rush upon completion, it wasn't a waste of time to make the vid. The moment I lose that rush, I'll quit and go onto a new or different addiction.

Well I never quite equated AMV releasing with the satisfaction of mind that comes with puzzles. That actually does ring true now that you mention it...
As someone who relies on writing for long periods during the couse of the day, I can't really say my veiwing AMVs or affinity with Anime in general (visual media) has detracted from my attention span to commit to manuscript or poetry. As a whole though, characteristics of anime, really assist in structuring visualization.

BTW, who says you can't place someone on a shelf whole? Jars are too utilitarian to get a good decor going.

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 3:22 pm

Sentient Satire wrote:As someone who relies on writing for long periods during the couse of the day, I can't really say my veiwing AMVs or affinity with Anime in general (visual media) has detracted from my attention span to commit to manuscript or poetry. As a whole though, characteristics of anime, really assist in structuring visualization.

I've always had a very short attention span when it comes to projects, sitting on a single project till it's finished. With amvs, it's easy to sit on a single one till it's finished because the hardware limits me - I can only have footage for one vid at a time. But that doesn't stop my mind from flitting all over when it comes to writing - no hardware limits with that.

What I really meant by shortened attention span is the 3-second scene glitch most visual media use. Watch a show or commercial, 3 seconds until the scene *has* to change. With amvs, it's shortened to a .5 second clip with most vids. That's a lot of information coming right to the eyes one after another. Trying to read stories that way (in amvs), and then shifting off to a slow (aka normal) pace where you have to imagine it yourself (in written work) - it's extremely slow in comparison. It gets boring, I want to skim ahead and just pick out the scenes that a person would use in a vid - forgetting that it's the whole that makes a story good, not those quick little fanservice scenes. I just get to thinking that amvs are destructive because they're so short and fast (by necessity) and as more people watch them, they become faster and shorter until all you have is a flash sequence of some 600 frames because anything more is too boring to watch. Did I mention I'm a pessimist?

But the stories and characterizations in anime - no complaints against that. I just think amvs take what's best about anime and package it into quick fanservice vids. And with my attention span, I'd rather watch the quick fanservice vids than the entire anime. That's where amvs are dangerous, you forget the big picture and look for immediate gratification.

Sephiroth · Post by **Sephiroth** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 7:14 pm

AMVs improved my golf game.

AMVs removed the ecoli from my system.

Of coarse i do AMVs because i want to do something no one else has. And i do.

genestarwind21122 · Post by **genestarwind21122** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 7:36 pm

AMV's are apart of my life at first because I thought it was cool and something interesting to do. Then I found out when I was making these amv's they also relieved alot of stress and emotion that was building inside of me for a few of them at least.

njamunky · Post by **njamunky** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 7:41 pm

amv's take songs that mean something to us, somehow, relating to our own lives , lives of others, or life itself, essentially, amv's are life. for example, take any john mellencamp song, make it an amv, and voila! you have an amv life mantra.

ifihadaninja · Post by **ifihadaninja** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 8:06 pm

amvs teach you things like how not to be seen. and that my REAL purpose for a ninja is to have that sucka give me free cable......WORD

Pwolf · Post by **Pwolf** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 8:31 pm

ifihadaninja wrote:amvs teach you things like how not to be seen. and that my REAL purpose for a ninja is to have that sucka give me free cable......WORD

I KNEW IT!!!!!!

Pwolf