Freshman attempt. Senior criticism warranted.

[TheLuminaireShow]

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... p?v=185295

Video:Frenetic
Category: Action, Drama, Comedy, Dance
Anime: Angel Beats
Song: Pressure (Alesso Remix)
Artist: Nadia

Hey guys. As someone who has been watching AMVs for years, but it a newbie when it comes to making them, I would greatly appreciate some firsthand impressions and criticisms regarding my debut work. I'm very open to opinions and ways to improve but simultaneously, I feel like I made a pretty enjoyable piece for a first time. So any impressions would be welcome. I hope you enjoy it!

[JaddziaDax]

link fail. fixed for ya.

Also your links are indirect links not DIRECT. The top one is to youtube and the other two are megaupload... you might want to fix that.

/downloading video now

Looks like an experiment in stock effects.

[TheLuminaireShow]

Sure, how do I go about changing that?

[CodeZTM]

Sure, how do I go about changing that?

This is a handy guide.

I already left my opinion. Other than the stock effects and a lack of focus concept wise, it wasn't terrible for a first video.

Other than that, just watch lots of videos and see how they're generally done, and then add your own style/flair to them. But if you want my real advice, just go watch everything Shin-AMV edited this year, and you'll see basically every genre edited in a high quality.

[drewaconclusion]

But if you want my real advice, just go watch everything Shin-AMV edited this year, and you'll see basically every genre edited in a high quality.

Fanboy much?

[CodeZTM]

Not necessarily. I am a fan, but that really had nothing to do with it. Had it been 2010 when this was posted, I would have said Ileia/Crossfade, because they edited pretty much all the different genres in a high quality as well. Or if they were a lip sync editor, I probably would have highlighted Haunter103. Dance videos I'd recommend JadeCharm, ngsilver or Judgeholden. Comedy videos would be Kosmit and FallChild. Romance I'd throw them to AimoAio, xDreww or Magnus. There's a lot of different editors I'd recommend for different situations, and it just so happened that Shin fit this particular situation.

[Taite]

The most important part of this amv is the fact that you didn't oversync it or undersync it. Some may disagree, and could say some parts were slightly too slow: take 3:53 on the yt video for example. In my experience, the only thing it lacks there impact. How you go about creating that is up to you -- you can add some effect, or switch clips, blah blah.

Honestly though, there is not much to critique. My main irks are that it has some very generic transitions and effects, but all you have to do now is go experiment with them, and manipulate them so they don't look so "stocky."

The highlight of this video is how it ends -- by establishing this link with the beginning of the video, it's no longer just some random thing. And though most of the video does appear quite random, I believe this ties it all together magnificently. Now, I've seen the series, so someone who hasn't, this link means nothing to them. That's why I believe a theme or story is very important in an amv. Your amv mostly explores the events of the series, and there's nothing wrong with that, but you'll find that other people enjoy amvs most when there's a sense of consistency and no randomness. However, it all depends on what you believe; I hate videos that are for everyone, and if you haven't seen the series in some cases and then piss on me with critique that just says "I didn't get it, blah blah" then screw it, I really don't care. Go see the anime in that case.

So it doesn't matter too much that people who haven't seen the series don't get it, but when you have people who have seen it and just think "god that's random," then it matters. At least to me.



Anyhoo, it's a great first video. I just recommend you mess around with the transitions and effects so it's more original, or geared more towards your style, which you'll discover through editing more as well.

Also, I criticize harshly for people who ask for critique, so don't mistake my good critique for you as a "Oh, that person's just nice, they're just saying that." I've given terribly harsh critique to people who have been editing forever, and to those who haven't. What I've said is my honest opinion. Keep it up

[seasons]

Literally every other AMV that someone dumps on this forum gets a " sweet vid bro" while this one gets dismissed? I thought this was pretty fantastic for a first video. But I guess he wants real criticism so here goes.

There are some video quality issues that need to be addressed here (was this footage from DVDs or something else? did you deinterlace it?) and it's not exactly the most original concept in the world -- though as Taite said the beginning and ending keep this from becoming an otherwise "random" AMV -- but I thought it had a lot of energy and got me interested in watching the series. Not really a fan of the inverted color effects either but aside from that, I thought the rest of the effects were fine. I rated it pretty highly but if you want to improve, my only advice is to keep watching more AMVs and to try look at them with a critical eye or to just be more involved as a viewer.

[TheLuminaireShow]

Thank you for the feedback everyone. I concede that my video isn't particularly focused. It was more a test of my editing and synch skills and a way to get my feet wet in this hobby I'm oh so interested in. My main goal was that people walked away having had a good time with the upbeat song and the visuals. I think it's also pretty apparent which parts of the video were phoned in as opposed to come naturally. In future videos, I plan to rectify such choices.

[Shin-AMV]

Looks pretty good for a first amv. I like how you experimented with a lot of different effects since I think thats one of the best ways to learn things is just to mess around with different effects and over time it gets combined with other knowledge you've picked up through experimenting and you can start doing more intricate things with them all blended together.

That being said I think some of the transitional effects felt a little unneeded. I like to think less is more and utilizing a hard or soft cut would maybe look a little better and call more attention to the scene selection than to the transition effect being used. Some of the star wipes and those similar transitions should be left to George Lucas and Star Wars. I thought one of the strongest areas was around 3:00-3:22 where it used more of the hard cutting, flashes, and subtle/quick fade to blacks between scenes and the rest of the video would have been a little more consistent and stronger if it looked like that throughout the whole video. I have mixed feelings about the colored pencils/find edge effects, it looks cool in some ways but in others it feels sort of stock in terms of effects and you'll probably get mixed reactions in that regards in general from people and you'll probably find that non-editors/general viewers will like it more often compared to other editors and peers who will find it kind of meh more often. In the end though, you should always edit for your own personal preferences regardless of what anybody else thinks.

As mentioned earlier, one of the best ways to improve is just to watch other videos and really study what they're doing. Maybe even download the videos and bring it into the video editor and go frame by frame to really see whats going on, how long a transition or scene lasts, what kind of masking or coloring techniques are being used, etc etc. I would take a look at all the editors CodeZTM has mentioned and a few others I can think of to check out would be some of the Foreign editors like Kain-x-Spirits, S.A. Robert, Nostromo, ThePooh, Padre, Vidok, Snowcrash, and Aggressor. There are so many good editors its hard to name them all specifically, but in general just study other videos both good and bad across all genres and figure out what they're doing well, what they're not doing well, and just keep making AMVs.