Modes of expression in AMVs

[Orwell]

Lately I've been working on putting together a basic composition of a long amv [20 minutes] and thinking about how to provide enough style variation that will both emphasize the emotional aspects of the story I'm trying to present as well as keep the viewer interested when otherwise they might be turned from such a long project.

One example of a mode of expression that I've considered, and only in a few videos I've seen is chiaroscuro. A few examples on wiki in art, and some screen shots from Conet which can be found here, here, and here. A single amv example can found in Aluminumstudios 'Closer'. Through these modes of extreme shading, we might give character to otherwise meaningless people, personify objects, and indeed cast a subjective good vs bad light over all presented to the viewer. Not only can we bring to life otherwise inanimate objects and subjects, we might foreshadow, giving a taste of what's to come or to otherwise leave a red herring.

Related to that, we might also provide definition by abscence, masterfully presented in The Plot Thickens. Arguably, this is as much carried by the music, but would it not be a matter of scene selection to create a similar aura in another video? All these unrelated scenes suddenly falling into place as we realize that, aha, this is important to the story because of reason x. A mechanism for changing the mood and development of your plot without having to resort to a plain linear story. Though hopefully in execution, that aha moment comes for your viewers, not just you. (as is the case in many videos I've seen. At least that's what I hope what they were doing, otherwise it's just fail)

One final one that comes to mind, and which the community has either looked down on, or simply ignored, is typography. Pulp Fiction in Typography. Perhaps not the best example, but it contains it through out the entire video. A very limited use of it that I rather liked was in Kaxi's video Sacrifice. Unfortunately it's only used towards the end, but for it's liimited purpose and use it accomplished it's goal.

Another reason I'd like to point out Sacrifice is that it uses actual characters expressing emotions and provides a clear emphasis on them. I find it far easier to emphasize with these characters presented over Kenshin looking sad about whatever-her-name-is dying. He just sits there. And then does some stuff. It's not the focus of the video, it's just, here's x, it expresses z. Why does it do that? Part of this comes down to music selection again, but part of it is just the fact that if you want to hammer in a emotion deeper than chuga chuga chuga boom = action, what and more importantly HOW your showing it matters. Some of you may want to keep this in mind when editing. Make us care at least remotely about those your presenting, don't just show it. There's a real difference between the dead guy on the news and your dead friend.

I'm sure there are many more modes of expression in videos, I invite you to post them with examples if they exist. Note, this does not mean naruto punching/kissing sasuke to the tune. This does not mean "I left the subs in because their relevant". This is not, I uploaded with the shitty quality and interlacing on purpose because it represents shounen boys altered perception of the world. (However thinking on it, clean footage, plus manipulation of targetted distortion may make for a interesting presentation. F.E.A.R would probably qualify as an example of this.) This should ideally be either a alteration of the original sequence, such as contrasting the highlights and shadows, or something like a logic of scene selection, no one is revealed in The Plot Thickens. We have some hands, and the back of an old man walking through a door.

Your test to see if it works; Do I care about this character at all? I realize not all amvs are gonna accomplish this for a variety of valid reasons. Sometimes you just wanna watch the girls in skimpy outfits dance around or there's something wrong with the auras and only massive amounts of destruction and asskicking can fix it.

[godix]

There's the artistic use of color in AMV as well. Humans do respond certain ways to colors and focusing mainly on scenes with certain shades can help convey whatever emotion you're after. If you aren't overly familiar with what the colors tend to convey you can read up on it <a href="http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-me ... l">here</a>. A rather simplistic use that is common are the fades to white/black (and I suppose other colors although I rarely see that done). One thing to not is that a lot of this is cultural. For example, the color yellow has a specific meaning in China that few others would get (it's associated with royalty). Even if we know what yellow means to a Chinese person the association is not an instinctive response. Similarly Americans have a lifelong associate of green indicating wealth, other nations who don't use that shade on their currency wouldn't respond to the color the say way Americans do. Another thing of note is that this is a rather subtle effect and can easily be overridden by song or what the scene is actually showing. A light blue sky may evoke feelings of tranquility but if you're showing an impending doom coming from the sky that totally destorys the feeling (think the infamous EOE scene of the white Evas being dropped into battle for example). Although that can be used intentionally if you'd like, I'd guess gainax intended to convey tranquility being shattered in that scene. There aren't many examples that I can think of where this is an intentional choice of the creator instead of just how the source was though. Aluminum Studios <a href="http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... 83">Dreams of Red</a> is one of the only ones I know of offhand.

Closely related is the brightness level. F.E.A.R. wouldn't work nearly as well if his scenes were bright outdoor scenes where you can clearly see what's going on. OTOH most upbeat/dance videos focus on scenes with bright primary colors rather than dark moody scenes. This is one of those things I think most decent editors unconsciously pick up on. They may not be thinking 'that scene is too dark for my dance video' but they probably are thinking 'that scene just doesn't look right'. They've picked up on the idea without explicitly knowing what they picked up on. Note that chiaroscuro is a specific use within the general idea of brightness.

Dreams of Red also highlights another artistic choice that's used somewhat more frequently, the use of black and white with a small bit of color to draw your eye to what the creator wants you to notice. That video does it with a B&W background and a colored overlay of the same scene but zoomed in to what he wants you to notice. The movie Sin City is an example of how to use color within a B&W scene.

Combined these ideas could lend differences in how parts of a large project feel so it doesn't end up as 20 minutes of the same thing over and over again.

[JaddziaDax]

Disney taught me that color matters when setting the mood

[CodeZTM]

Disney taught me that color matters when setting the mood

x2

My happy videos have a lot of red, pink, yellow.

My sad videos have a lot of purple, blue, grey, black.

To me, color matters a lot.

[Infinity Squared]

Musical pacing definitely plays a part in maintaining interest, both in your editing and in viewer interest. One very good way of keeping someone's attention on your video is to have music that gradually builds up. It creates a feeling of anticipation in your viewer. Sustaining that anticipation is hard though the longer your video is and one thing that keeps people interested in watching MEPs (the good ones ) I believe is that there are ups and downs in this anticipation level. You just have to make sure you don't fall in the trap of waiting for too long to up the ante if you decide to have low moments in your soundtrack and editing.

[PaperIsland]

It sounds like a difficult project, but it'd be worthwhile if you can pull it off. Since you mention chiaroscuro, maybe you could incorporate elements of noir style (not the anime, the film style). I don't know what type of AMV you're thinking of making, but if you can convey some mystery in terms of identity or events, I think it'd contribute to maintaining someone's interest through the whole duration. I may be going out increasingly on a limb here when I don't really know what kind of AMV you're thinking of, but you could consider using masking to change environments or move characters from one environment to another in order to give yourself a wider range of expression and create situations which complicate normal attitudes we associate with characters (like a clumsy like-able main character appearing to act more like a detective or something).
If you're interested in personifying objects, you might consider thinking about or looking into German Expressionism. It also uses chiaroscuro I believe and it would also contribute to a sense of mystery. This might be a little abstract to actually use at this point, do you have any idea what shape your AMV is taking?
Oh, and my last idea was that you could use typography as a kind of environment. I saw a music video that did something along those lines, having a taxi created entirely out of the word taxi and things like that. But you might be able to adapt that idea into something different and a way to change the meaning of environments.

[Bote]

I don't really think a video requires this much philosophy to be carried out properly. Before you start editing you have at least 2/3 of the project finished in your head which occurs the first or second time you hear the song or watch the anime. That also includes all the things you mentioned: editing style, the magnitude of the music and scene selection. All that matters is vision and vision comes in an instant. If you had one such burst of inspiration for this 20 minute video you talk about then it really doesn't matter which colours show which mood because everything should be already worked out inside your head. Of course many of things will change in the process of making.

Just start doing it and you'll see it'll all work out in the process

[Bote]

I don't really think a video requires this much philosophy to be carried out properly. Before you start editing you have at least 2/3 of the project finished in your head which occurs the first or second time you hear the song or watch the anime. That also includes all the things you mentioned: editing style, the magnitude of the music and scene selection. All that matters is vision and vision comes in an instant. If you had one such burst of inspiration for this 20 minute video you talk about then it really doesn't matter which colours show which mood because everything should be already worked out inside your head. Of course many of things will change in the process of making.

Just start doing it and you'll see it'll all work out in the process

[BasharOfTheAges]

yea, general AMV is for mindless bickering and bringing up the same issues over and over again not coming up with thought-provoking conversation.

[Bote]

yea, general AMV is for mindless bickering and bringing up the same issues over and over again not coming up with thought-provoking conversation.

I'm trying to save him the time and energy. I didn't mean to sound like a cynic.

But yeah, thanks to people like you it is. Way to go "philosopher".