Noobie AMV pitfalls - advice from the veterans?

[808-buma]

That is not necessarily true, because I've seen many a first AMV that were great. + If you keep thinking like that your first AMV will suck big time.

Well, I don't think it will suck <fingers crossed> - just wanted to attempt to make sure that the viewing public won't think it sucks. At least I can avoid 'obvious noobie' mistakes...

I think you may be a bit confused about encoding; your end video will have an .avi extension (or .mpg, .wmv, etc.), not VOB. In short, can't skip the deinterlacing, but it's not terribly difficult to do - just use the guides and you'll be fine.

Well, yes, the end downloadable product will probably be an .AVI file, but I'm using <gasp> Nero Vision Express 3 as my editor which produces VOB files as an end product. From there I'm pretty sure I have to use VDMod with AVISynth to help produce a good looking final. And, as far as I remeber, AVISynth will allow me to de-interlace (I think).

And about the 'remote' lip-flapping, I guess we'll have to see if it is distracting - just made a 'test' VOB file to see my progress so far (about 2 minutes into it right now - 3 minutes to go!).

[Arigatomina]

There are some situations where lip flapping will bother, but then again there are times when it does not bother at all and whining about it seems really odd to me.

Long message short: Point is that lip sync/lip flap are NOT a good thing/problem as such. It's how they are imbedded in the AMV.

You know, I've heard a few people say this in a recent thread as well - that lip flap is expected in vids and that an amv without lip movement is just odd. I wonder if these people give reviews.

The first constructive suggestion I received in a review was to cut out the lip flap. No mention of quality or poor editing - the lip flap was the first thing that stood out. Since then I've consistently gotten complaints on the rare occassion that I leave lip movements in a video (maybe 1 second in every 30minutes of amvs I've made). It doesn't matter how rarely I do it - if I do it, the reviewers will notice and complain about it.

That tells me for most viewers (at least - the viewers who leave reviews), you don't have lip movements unless it's lip synced to match the lyrics. Otherwise, expect to have people tell you to cut the lip flap the same way they tell you to cut the subtitles.

Do it if you want, though. I know a few people who actually like subtitles since they tell you what's going on in an anime you've never seen - making it easier to 'get' the video made from that anime. I guess if lips flapping up and down tell you something constructive, they can serve a similar purpose.

/my 'don't do'

Don't lip sync a serious song. It kills the mood and makes it seem silly. If I'm watching a dramatic video that makes me actually feel for the character, I'm going to be thrown right out of that the moment the character starts singing along with the music. It's like watching a movie with a dramatic song playing - only to have the actor pull an "Earth Girls Are Easy" lip sync section on me. Yeah, it's fun to watch, but not in a tear-jerking drama video.

[AquaSky]

Let's take the same scene and lip sync it. Now the scenes are enslaved by the lyrics and might give whole different meaning to the AMV itself.

I'm not advocating lip-sync as the solution to lip flap here - I'm talking in terms of lyric sync. And of course you wouldn't want to see a 5-second still shot with no movement, but that obviously calls for a different scene choice or trimming the clip - there are more effective ways of adding motion than lip flap. Eh, call me old-fashioned, but when I see yammering all over the place, it seems like there was a lack of effort on the editor's part. That's my standpoint on it, anyhow.

[staces]

Ah, lip flapping, the newest peeve to join my collection of pets. ^^;; While I agree that it's annoying, unless maybe it's like showing someone scream during a really emotional part of a song or something, or synching a word like "laughter" with a clip of the character laughing.

Anyways, I as a very lazy editor, usually take care of my lip flapping issues in a way that's easier than masking (in other words, in a way that doesn't require good software). Easier than masking the mouth and leaving a person standing there forever, is just deleting the frames with lip movement. I mean, make sure that you don't delete anything that would make it jerky (or add in a few still frames to keep the pace) but if you just get rid of the frames of talking and keep the motion you can have the good parts of the clip without the bad and not have your AMV be comprised of a long series of still shots. ^^;;

I hope that made sense, I'm not very good at explaining crap.

[FoxJones]

Eh, call me old-fashioned, but when I see yammering all over the place, it seems like there was a lack of effort on the editor's part. That's my standpoint on it, anyhow.

Funny.. I thought I was old-fashioned, going out against stuff like lip-sync and over-effecting which are considered nowadays more as a rule than exception

[Vlad G Pohnert]

Don't put in effects to impress people, use effects only when it's required or it actually enhances what your are trying to do. There is nothing wrong with using effects, But these days almost every 5th video must has some sort of effect distortion, flying boxes, moving frames, or even the simple flash to every single BEAT with no real purpose except to signify the beats or be impressive... I so sick of watching those. It's fine if that is what you want to do as this is a hobby, BUT don't expect everyone to think of how great it is...

And you don't have to try to do something on EVERY SINGLE BEAT. This is another illusion that lots of editors feel is a requirement. I've even gotten points taken off my videos in the opinions because I was told I missed one or two beats (and I don't mean accidentally)

Vlad

[trythil]

Eh, call me old-fashioned, but when I see yammering all over the place, it seems like there was a lack of effort on the editor's part. That's my standpoint on it, anyhow.

Funny.. I thought I was old-fashioned, going out against stuff like lip-sync and over-effecting which are considered nowadays more as a rule than exception ;)

Actually, I think current wisdom is that Going Against The Flow makes you more l33t.

[Beowulf]

Actually, I think current wisdom is that Going Against The Flow makes you more l33t.

Indubitably.

[Bakadeshi]

Ah, lip flapping, the newest peeve to join my collection of pets. ^^;; While I agree that it's annoying, unless maybe it's like showing someone scream during a really emotional part of a song or something, or synching a word like "laughter" with a clip of the character laughing.

I agree on this note aswell. Certain scenes of showing anger or conflict can be apropriate to leave the talking in the scene. The same could go for a lovy-dovy scene where it looks like the character is saying something sweet to the other character, provided its strategically placed in the song so its doesn't look like the character is singing the song. Also what godix said about people in a large crowd just conversing, thats normal to not expect to hear what they are saying exactly, since normally the brain automatically sees these scenes as not important.

Lip flapping can be anoying when theres too much of it, but in certain cases, its usually plausable if you edit it so that the lip isn't flapping endlessly, like mask over the parts that are easy to mask, and leave the ones on motion scenes that make it more dificult to mask, will be alot better than leaving it alone completely. If the song is instrumental aswell, or its an instrumental part of the song, generally you can also get away with lipflap. Its when it looks like the character might be trying to sing along with the song when its inapropriate, or badbly timed like a bad kung fuu movie is when its realy distracting and anoying.

[madbunny]

Instead of trying to focus on a myriad of funky little things that you'll pick up over time anyway, like lip sync, beat matching, or deinterlacing... you should just focus on being able to tell your story creatively.

Essentially, if you want to be good, and unique you have to figure out what works for you.

My advice: find someone that you trust to not sugarcoat things, and still be constructive to do betas for you while you're getting the hang of it.

Also, the best way to be able to spot stuff is to give lots of opinions, detailed opinions on other peoples videos. Then, while you're making your own you should be able to spot some of the 'more or less' common things that pop up.