Anime in Academics

[Thorblitzer]

I doing my senior thesis on AMVs (my teacher is clueless about what it's really about ) and was hoping people could fill out a questionnaire for me. It’s not that long and would help me a whole lot!

I’m Dana, a Journalism major at Samford University and we have to do a media-related original research thesis. Of course, I thought of anime music videos and my teacher agreed! Unfortunately, there is practically nothing that I can find that refers to AMVs. So please fill one out!

Please go into as much detail as you can with each of the questions (the more detail, the better my grade!). Also, if you know anyone else who would fill out this questionnaire please point them in this direction. Thank you!

Sorry if some of this repeats stuff that's already been answered in other posts...

1. What is your name?
2. Do you have an online nickname/ studio name?
3. How long have you been making AMVs?
4. How did you get interested in AMVs?
5. How and why did you begin making AMVs?
6. How do you make your AMVs (concept, procedure, style, etc.)?
7. How do you think your style and method of making AMVs have changed since you first started?
8. How do the skills you have learned from making AMVs help you in real life?
9. What do you know about the history of AMVs (when people began to make them, who made them, how they made them, etc.)?
10. Who were some inspirations to you and why?
11. What do you know about AMVs in Japan?


Thank you so much!

[Zarxrax]

1. Alan Clontz
2. Zarxrax
3. About 3 and a half years.
4. I stumbled across some AMVs by accident, and I liked what I saw.
5. The fact that these weren't professional creations, they were just made by normal people! I figured, if they can do it, then I can too!
6. I like to try something different with each one. As far as my style, I like to think that I keep things varied enough such that I don't appear to have any particular 'style'. The process of making a video typically starts out when an idea pops into my head. I'll toy around with the idea in my head, trying to plan out what I want the video to look like. Often I'll realize that its not a very solid idea and give up on it. Other times, I will be able to figure out what I want to do, and I just try to remember what I want to do until I get a chance to start editing it (which can be years after I originally get the idea).
7. I didn't know what the heck I was doing back then, I mainly learned from trial and error, as well as watching and studying the works of others. Nowadays I like to at least think that I know what I'm doing, but its still very much a learning experience, all the time.
8. Hmm... I've become much more appreciative of all sorts of video art in general. I'm more alert to things such as direction and cinematography when I watch movies... I enjoy watching commercials on tv now, because I often find the motion graphics used in them fascinating. I have learned a GREAT deal about topics such as digital video and imaging, and the likes.
9. I dunno, try searching through old posts. Too broad of a question to really attempt to answer.
10. Above all, Kevin Caldwell. His works were what really got me interested. Some of my other early inspirations were AluminumStudios and ErMaC.
11. Quite a lot. Too broad of a question to answer without writing a thesis of my own :p

By the way, people have posted similar surveys in the past, you might uncover something usefull with the search feature.

[Pie Row Maniac]

1. Kirk Patrick Fryrear
2. Pie Row Maniac, of Donuts Inc.
3. Three to four years
4. Watched a few I downloaded, learned how to make them, made some.
5. I thought of it was something underground and fun to do; I was right, and continued making them. Nothing's changed since then.
6. Couldn't tell you; I have a hard time identifying my style from my perspective.
7. I'm more serious about considering concepts that come to mind when listening to music now. Before, I was throwing together whatever came to mind and not putting enough effort into it. Nowadays, it's quality over quantity.
8. I've learned that this is something I could do for the rest of my life as a career. I'm currently in school to make this possible. AMV-creating also gives me "bonus" experience in computers and art.
9. Back in the day, they used two VCRs to make videos. If I remember correctly, AMVs begansome time in the late 80s or early 90s and quickly became popular. Something along those lines. Like Zarx said, you could research it in this forum's old threads. I'm hardly a good source of information for it, heh.
10. Hsien Lee, MTT, Cryptonight Studios, DannyPoo, Kevin Caldwell, ErMaC, many others I can't remember.
11. Surprisingly little, I realize, now that I'm being asked it.

[Scintilla]

1. Peter J. Tom-Wolverton
2. Alias: Scintilla; studio: Aquiline Studios
3. Technically for two years; admittedly since March 2003
4. My friends who were into anime showed them to me
5. To be cool, have fun, and use some songs that didn't have videos but should have
6. It's different each time. For DV:UI, I had a sheet of paper going with all the lyrics and what scene I'd use for each; for everything else I just planned as I went. (Which may explain why it can take me so long to make a video sometimes, because I have to spend a good bit of time searching for clips. Well, that and my laziness...)
7. Style? Don't know. Method? It's much better, technically speaking; I actually know what I'm doing now with respect to digital video and encoding and filtering and whatnot.
8. I don't know about making AMVs themselves, but I think the personality I developed on these forums carried over into RL when I actually started meeting other AMVers at AnimeNEXT and Otakon this year -- I was actually, you know, <i>talking</i> and stuff, and being fairly energetic. (I have a history of clamming up when in new environments and/or around people I don't know.) I just hope I didn't come across as <i>too</i> eager.
9. Not much. Ask the people who've been around for longer than two years.
10. I don't know if I can say that anyone really was, because the early AMVs I was shown were from a wide variety of different sources, with not very many from any one group. And the better creators stood out to me not for making better videos, but for making <I>more</i> of them (that I'd seen). Like Kusoyaro and More Than Toast. So I don't know.
11. Zilch, except for things like the Cowboy Bebop-styled opening sequences with Azumanga Daioh and CCS/Pretty Sammy/something-else-that-abbreviates-to-"MTT" (thanks DokiDoki) that I've seen.

[post-it]

Hi Dana

1) Geoffrey Phillip Wolsieffer - Retired USAF

2) Post-it ( traxx, just like the Movie Title, Production Studio 7 )

3) back in 1993 they were not called AMV's - we called them Previews.

4) Reveal made a Capture Card and I usually saw things that others missed
so I'd Capture "it" and use it in my "debates" - it was a New Concept back then.

5) I found, by accedent, that I could swap the Audio files with My Own Sound Tracks - thus, traxx.

6) Companies like Adobe and Asymetrix were testing a New Type of Editer
which worked with .avi files. .Having the option of "wiping" from one Video to Another was quite the time saver and made my
captured video's look cleaner and more prepared for Presentational Scopes
in Audio/Visual arguements.

7) In the 1990's it was not common for anyone to used AMV's to express ideas.
Today, its a common event which can cause problems - if people do not know
that what you have made "it only a concept!"

8) It is very easy for anyone to make their point know Visually when you have
a "Media" which can present your concepts for you.

9) - no idea what they did, I just know what I've used them for.

10) Actually, I was very impressed when someone gave a Video Taped lecture
and made the entire history on "the Battle of the Roses" known to me through
that type of communicational resource - it blew me away!. From
that day forward, I made it my goal to present "all my idea's" in that style.

11) The style used in Japan, that which we refer to as Anime, is a Hand-Drawn
art form which is un-match by even today's standards.

- If you ever get the chance to see one of these studio's in person, go-for-it;
you'll be glad you did.

-traxx

[Tsunami Jones]

1. Mark Reagan
2. Tsunami Jones - Better Tomorrow Productions
3. A year and a half
4. A friend of mine just started downloading them and showed me the videos he thought were cool.
5. I thought that they were pretty keen, and I just began to think of ideas that I thought would be cool to do.
6. I almost always get the concept for a video by hearing the song, and the idea spontaneously manifesting itself from that. Other than that, I'm sure I have a style, but I have yet to really notice it.
7. I really had no idea what I was doing when I started out, and now, I'd like to think that I mostly understand what I'm doing. My footage quality used to be pretty atrocious, and now I actually think about why I'm placing a scene in a particular spot.
8. If they've done anything for me, it's been that they've helped me to become a more creative person overall.
9. Practically nothing besides that they used to use something called a "VCR" to make videos .
10. As I said, when I first started watching videos, it was basically what my friend showed me. So I basically never knew who made most of the videos that I was watching. Some of the bigger inspirations to me were Kevin Caldwell (gasp!) and a bunch of people who I never found out the names of. And now, they're still inspirations, along with a good deal of other editors, like AbsoluteDestiny, Kusoyaro, Fluxmeister, Scintilla, Tom the Fish, (the list goes on and on). These guys put out some really amazing videos and it makes me want to improve all around and become a better editor.
11. Pretty much nothing, besides from what I remember from reading the interview that Zarxrax did that's in the interviews section.

[Coffee 54]

1) Travis Thompson
2) Coffee 54/Crazy Vegeta Productions
3) About a year and a half.
4) My brother, who doesn't really care about music videos, or anime was given one by one of his co-workers. He thought it was cool, and showed it to me.
5) I though it was cool and decided to try it out. I had some expirence with Windows Movie Maker, but the only program I had access to was Adobe Premiere, I know, poor me. I had an old mp3 and some downloaded DBZ episodes and the rest is history.
6) Step One, Concept: Just whatever pops into my head, I like to use different musical styles to reflect my varied tastes. Step Two, Procedure: I like to take my chosen song one section at a time, you know, verse, chorus, verse, that sort of thing. Sometimes I work linearly, sometime I start at the end, with the last verse/chorus, and work my way back. Style: The style I have developed seems to be long cuts, tring to find scenes that move well to the music. This is especially true of my earlier work in which, say a four minute song would have no more then 15 to 20 separt clips.
7) Originally I worked only linearly, not knowing what clip would come next, this wasn't a big problem, as mentoned above, I was only working with about 15 different clips. I may actually go back to working along similar lines as it was just a little bit more fun.
8) There's talk of consulting work for a local school district. I also look at digital effects, TV commercials, and animation in general in a whole new light.
9) Not a clue. As a matter of fact, from when I started until I joined this site in May of this year I would have been surprized if there were more then a hundred people making, and actively distributing AMVs.
10) Everyone who's made a good AMV, ever. Seriously, even the ones I don't really like due to musical choice, or anime. For some specifics I'd have to credit whoever made that first AMV I saw way back when; MajinKenshinAMV, I'm a big fan of his video Toushi; and to kiss up a little to some of those who posted before me, Scintilla, who uses Premiere to it's full potential; and Zarxrax, who uses After Effects to its full potential. Those are only just a few examples.
11) I know in Japan AMVers are worshiped as Gods, also, they give you money. (note: I don't really know that.)

[Bulghod]

1. Chuck Collinge
2. Muddapunka
3. A year
4. I saw "Evangelion Opus" and "This is Otakudom"
5. was bored and found movie software... it went from there. wanted to play around with video in something i know
6. I get an idea, then watch the anime and think up ideas. then record it onto compy and cut, paste, cut, paste, effect, cut, paste
7. I started with serious AMVs, but i've gotten a lot sillier
8. I look, i think, i'm more created
9. Don't know, don't care but it would be nice to know
10. originally Evangelion Opus because it was so goddamn good. probably whatever the animes were.
11. I know they exist, and are in Japanese

[Devolution]

1. Chris Roesch

2. Devolution of Existentialism Studios

3. 2 years 8 months

4. A friend of mine presented his latest find from Morpheus, which turned out to be Engel by Kevin Caldwell. that was what hooked me.

5. well after seeing Engel, i though 'wow that was awesome, i wanna see more!', so i started downloading like mad, and after seeing a bunch of others, i figured i should try my hand at making them as well. so with what i thought was a solid concept, some crappy downloaded footage and a cool song, i started editing. why? a couple reasons. at that point i'd started seeing pictures in my head everytime i listened to music, and i really wanted to see what it would look like when viewed on my monitor instead of the backs of my eyelids :p and because i thought it would be fun to try my hand at something new.

6. Listen to a song, consider what anime would fit(or wouldn't fit, depending on my mood, and what i want to accomplish), rip the DVDs, encode footage, start editing and hope to go i finish what i start >< as for my actual style, i time everything nowadays. and i do mean EVERYTHING. i mix a little lyric-synch, a lot of action synch and in the end i like to think that what i create is at least slightly unique in some aspect.

7. when i started i used to complain about how it was so easy to make a video...i'd be finishing videos in 1-3 days time and liking what i made, so i kept whining about how all the 'pros' kept saying it took months. i later learned that it really DOES take months sometimes. other things, i used to never make clips. i'd just drag the whole file into premiere and edit. nowadays, depending on how much HD space i have and how ambitious i am, i'll make clips to (sometimes) speed up the editing process. as for my style, i used to rely completely on lyric-synch. i'd pick the perfect scenes(at least i thought they were perfect :p) and put them to the line in the song i felt it fit best. there was NO timing involved. if there was ANY timing in the finished product, it was done by accident, since i didn't even know HOW to time anything to the beat.

8. dunno really...i think it's helped me learn a ton of stuff about digital video, and related topics, and it's definitely gotten me interested in editing as a whole, so much that i'll be starting the media course at the local college next semester.

9. i know some, only what i've read from people posting this question in the forums.

10. DEFINITELY Kevin Caldwell. Engel is what got me into all this to begin with, though to a lesser extent i would have to credit Jesmaster as his old Eva vids were what dragged me even further into this.

11. very little, only what i read in omnistrata's journal, and what i've read in some posts about it on the forums.

sorry if any of this jumps around ^^ whenever i write a lot like this, i usually end up losing track of myself and the point i was trying to make at some point(damn my ADD! damn it to hell!)

[SnhKnives]

Lee Webster
SnhKnives

hmmm......I released my first video to the org in december 2003. However I has messed around with premiere maybe a few months before that... so not too long...maybe a little over a year?


About 4 years ago a friend of mine downloaded an AMV on his computer by accident. It was Kusoyaro's "Faith" video....As soon as I saw it I was in love. I was already an anime fan, and this just really seemed like my thing.

For me, AMVs is a creative outlet. I am able to release my anger, frustration, angst...whatever you may call it into a single entity. It allows me to put my thoughts into something tangible (kinda) and create something that might inspire others.

I start with an idea as most people do. Once i formulate this idea into amv-able...I perhaps jot down a few ideas of things I want to do at certain times etc..and then i just go. Many times I jsut start editing and let my imagination take over to create whatever it comes up with. Other times I have a strict gameplan of what to do and where.

Hmm...Probably a good deal. I didnt know nearly as much about technical side of everything as I do now. I also know many more techniques and such that help me edit faster and smoother. Also I have learned new technologies such as new programs since my first AMVs.

The skills I learned from AMVs can applied to all of my video projects that I undergo for class or freelance work. These skills are very valuable and help me understand the realm and dialct of video so much better. Also i can point out flaws in other peoples movies thay I normally wouldnt have. its wering watching my professors stunt bike DVDs and see interlacing = P

Not too much since I havnt been in the community too much. However Ive made friends with people who have been making them much longer than I so I learn as I go as far as history and past event go.

Koopiskeva was a big inspiration to me jsut because of the way he does so many things differently than other creators. Also the way he creates almsot a visual orgasm has always appealed to me. Also Kwasek from More than Toast has also been a big inspiration to me. Just his editing can sometimes be so simple, yet carry so much meaning. His timing is perfect and he knows exactly how lay out a storyline.

That they make them....>_>

lol no for real. I know its alot different for most Japanese music video creators. Also the MAD style of editing seems to be bit more popular over there, however not all japanese people make MAD style videos...