Doubting your Project

(NERD Studios) Arturo · Post by **(NERD Studios) Arturo** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 3:04 am

I'm about halfway done with my first AMV and I'm starting to have doubts. It seems like the more I work on it the less inspiring the concept in general seems. I start getting these doubts that the song isn't good enough or the footage isn't clean enough or the song isn't complex enough or fast enough and so on.

Are these doubts normal? Is it a stage experienced in the creation of every AMV? Should I ignore them and plunge on into uncertainty? Or should I drop the whole thing and look for a song/anime combination that might work better?

AbsoluteDestiny · Post by **AbsoluteDestiny** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 3:06 am

Everyone goes through a period of "this video sucks", even Tim Park

BishounenStalker · Post by **BishounenStalker** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 3:08 am

More than normal. Especially on your first AMV. And especially if it's a long, drawn-out project. Any artist experiences these doubts, because as artists, we're often our own worst critics.

DreamsofaCobra · Post by **DreamsofaCobra** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 3:49 am

the doubts are normal, and total motivation killers. Just gotta press on. I left my current creation for about a month after I convinced myself I ran out of useable footage. Now I am getting ready to enter it into a contest! (my first BTW) If nothing else, just finish to finish, and when the motivation returns, redo anything you were not happy with. (beware, that can be a trap in itself!)

ZeWrestler · Post by **ZeWrestler** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 9:51 am

it happens to everybody. worst comes to worst, take a break and come back to it.

Kusoyaro · Post by **Kusoyaro** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 9:54 am

I doubted Sappy Self-Indulgence all the way up until I first showed it at AWA. In fact, I doubted it so much that I nearly didn't "release" it at all...I thought it was total crap. But people ended up liking it

So just do your thing and let things happen as they will.

The Wired Knight · Post by **The Wired Knight** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 11:29 am

Doubts are normal. Soemtimes they don't arrise but it's perfectly normal. I've actually scrapped an AMV project halfway through because it really wasn't going where I wanted it to go and just wasn't turning out well at all. While working on the video you have to sit back everynow and then and analyze what you made, so there's nothing wrong with having doubts.

Chaos Angel · Post by **Chaos Angel** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 12:18 pm

All the damn time.

Every damn project.

I've killed about 5 partially-completed projects because they sucked and I hated them. They have never seen the light of day. The ones that I bother to finish, just don't suck as much as the others. Hell, one of my videos I literally just cut it off right at the point where I decided "Ok, the rest of this looks like crap even in my head. Screw it, I hate this." It's about 45-ish seconds long.

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 1:32 pm

Chaos Angel wrote:All the damn time.

Every damn project.

Amen!

However, I just like to say "fuck it, this is gonna suck no matter what I do", and then just release whatever it is that I've had bottled up for months on end.

A project that you feel is crap is most likely a colossal waste of time, but it seems to me that it's an even more disastrous waste of time to delete a whole project directory...

Besides, you never know -- there's the one or two people out there who will see value in a work that you think sucks. Which is cool, I guess, even though it can be scary at times.

Koopiskeva · Post by **Koopiskeva** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 1:35 pm

Maybe I'm just an optimist, but I don't really have doubts about it... more rather that I just become lazy and need a break. |: