The Great Debate: Effects and Presets

[dreamawake]

effects suck

You = My new best friend

[EvaFan]

If the fx is enhancing the amv in some way and isn't just there for the sake of being there, then it doesn't really matter.

Presets are just standards that work relatively well in most situations.

Using your own settings is mainly just changing things to fit the situation in the best way possible or in a way that suites the creator.

[Brad]

Alright.

What this all comes down to is familiarity. What is the viewer used to seeing? What has the viewer worked with on their own (ie; have they also messed around with effects/presets/etc.)? And aside from familiarity, what is the viewer looking for in a video to begin with?

The answers to these questions are going to have an enormous impact on whether or not using presets in a video is going to be successful or not. It can also be why some people could look at something like daydream and not be as impressed by it as somebody who is experienced and knows exactly what went into it. As Mitch (Niotex) keeps driving home, he would refer to the people who are impressed by presets as "the IGNORANT MASSES" and thusly hate/ridicule them. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that there are many people who do put a lot of effort into making completely original effects and then see the amount of success a video like Spoil (or to a lesser extent, Rampage) has, and just say "OMG WTF NOOBS."

I'm not trying to say that Spoil is a great video or that it's use of presets was fantastic or whatever (although I will say that people were practically trying to say that all Spoil was was "Push button, receive completed video" when it simply wasn't. It's a ridiculous argument. I know they used presets and I understand the argument to SOME degree, but I think people in the review were just taking it way too far). What I'm saying is that everybody has a different amount of experience and know how. This lack of experience doesn't deserve such derogatory backlash.

As far as whether or not presets are okay, just as everybody else has said, they have their place when used correctly. I do believe that it's always the best idea to either come up with something completely on your own, or if you're going to use a preset, change it up enough that it becomes something of your own, and not something you were trying to emulate from another video. It comes back to that issue of familiarity. If an effect becomes over-used, it becomes too familiar to many people, and it's appeal becomes diminished. But at the same time, AMV's are a hobby. It sounds cliche to say but at the end of the day, it's true. If you make a video using a bunch of presets and you watch it and you love it, then by all means, you keep it up. Just don't be surprised or offended when people who have seen it countless times before simply don't care for it.

[Douggie]

I just want to add to AtomX' post is the fact that familiarity of certain effects rises when they become presets - in other words, easier to use and everybody starts using them, just because it's so easy. Remember when an effect called "drop shadow" became one click instead of duplicate layer, decrease lightness, blur and shift layer? And all other effects, like buttonize or emboss. The whole wide web was suddenly full with drop shadows and buttonized buttons and lens flares, etc.

But I actually like presets, mostly due to the fact that can be changed at ANY time, so can be applied WITHOUT harming your picture, composition, timeline, whatever you're editing. I mean, I can do emboss or apply blending modes the hard way, but why should I?

Eventually you should be impressed by the WHOLE video, regardless whether you know how to do the effects or not. If you watch a video and are only impressed by certain effects used, then I think there's clearly something wrong. I mean, technique can be eventually learned if you have enough time, but making good videos altogether... well, I think that's a whole different story.

[Corran]

Presets are absolutely fine with me as long as they are used well.

Custom effects can be awesome too, as long as they are used well.

[Yok/0]

Presets are absolutely fine with me as long as they are used well.

Custom effects can be awesome too, as long as they are used well.

Fully Agreed.

Though, I liked Dirge for more of the reasons of "Oh look a Johnny Cash/Cowboy Bebop vid that isn't HURT".

You got to use what you have and use it wisely.

Spoiler :

See Macgyver at your local wiki

I haven't kept track with this preset/effects very much. But if you ask me I never heard much about this issue over presets til Spoiler/VCA wormed it's way.

Though I want to believe it's more of the reason of familiarity as Atom mentioned. |:

[godix]

As one of the ones bitching in the Spoil review let me clarify something: I do not give a fuck what effects you use or how easy/hard it was unless the effects are so up front and in your face that they're the entire video. This kinda goes back to the <a href="http://www.animemusicvideos.org/phpBB/v ... -review</a> about a month ago. I don't know what other people got out of that but what I got out of it is that you should approach each video different and try judging based on what the video was trying to do rather than come in with a fixed viewpoint which might not match the goals of the video at all. So some videos it really matters how much effort and thought was put into the effects and others it isn't a big deal at all.

Some videos have nothing else to them other than effects works, Decoy's technique beats come to mind as does Metro's True Fiction. Personally I think Spoil is in that category as well. So when judging the video all you can really do is judge how good the effects work. In these cases using stock effects is very bad. It indicates you spent little effort or thought on what was the whole point of the video. Praising stock effects in a fx vid would be like praising a comedy that didn't even appear like it tried to be funny or an action vid that was just three minutes of people staring at each other. This is where all my review comments of Spoil come from, it's entire point was the effects so it's all about how much thought went into the effects.

OTOH you have the majority of videos made where the effects aren't the whole point. Take doki's work just to use something well known. Most of his videos have effects in them but I have yet to see where that was the focus of the video. So if doki used a stock effect it wouldn't be that bad, his goal is to make you laugh not to wow you with his effect mastery. So if you got a comedy or drama masterpiece that needs an effect and a stock effect works, go for it. No one is going be astounded by your effects work but you aren't trying to do that anyway so it's not important.

In short, if when making the video you were looking forward to tons of 'great effects' comments then avoid stock effects like the plague. If that wasn't your goal then don't worry about if the effect is stock or not.

As a kinda side note, if at any point your effects are so prominent and obvious that a viewer actually thinks 'that's an effect' to themselves then do you really want the viewer to be thinking 'that's an overused and tired effect...'? Just something to consider before you slap that shatter on your timeline.

[Ingow]

I think it's about competition. In the first days of any hobby when its in its first stages there are barely any people that are really good at it, so it's easier to get recognition from the masses (for example when parkour/free running got popular all of a sudden there were only some french guys being able to jump from roof to roof, now it's become an international sport with lots of competition for the french).

When AMV creators noticed that making a plain romance video without effects wasn't cutting it any more they decided to add more effects everywhere so they could stand out. See, I'm not talking about the effects whore genre which was there from the beginning but from throwing effects on a video no matter if it needs any or not just to get some more positive feedback from the masses and presets help especially those that aren't normally interested in developing effects-skills but instead just want to present the viewers a bit more of an interesting video.

The development of video editing is much similar to picture editing/Photoshop IMO and no matter what way you look at it there, one day the whole thing about presets and effects just froze up. There are no lens flares, presets or big effects on posters in the streets or playboy photos. I think that you just sooner or later reach a point where some things are definately important (like in this example touching up on a photo with some minor presets and old ways of doing it) and some things that just are completely useless (nobody adds one of those fancy vortex dbz banner backgrounds anymore into ANY pictures).

My point is that the AMV community right now is in the phase where everyone still has the need to stand out as much as possible so some decided to copy other videos by using presets and others decided to look the best by making everything custom and unique. The thing everyone forgets about is that both ways are just about overloading your videos to the point where it gets ridiculous and that everything that's new now will most likely start to get older sooner with every day (one year ago scanlines were totally awesome, now they are already total suck).

So how much is all of that worth when it's already outdated and boring after one week in comparision to something like Tainted Donuts that withstood all tests of time?

Everyone should stop caring about those little details and please start remembering that the concept is what's important, what's keeping your video alive and what's making it unique. Every custom effect could be a preset the next year.

[Yok/0]

Presets: So Easy a Caveman can deew eeet?

[-MD]

unoriginal to use FX packages out of the can without thinking outside the box. The point of these things is to stimulate and supplement your ideas, not be the video. If you're making the vid and using these to just give it an "OMG FX!" feel then you're using them in the wrong way.

I'm all for originality and creativity. There's millions of way to implement these FX and alter them so greatly that it becomes your own work and not just someone else's. And there's many vids that use these FX and totally throw basic visual composition concepts. The reason to use FX in the first place is to create mood and realize your concepts, not just act as wow! factor.

So my stance is, if you need to use them then go for it. But use them to create your own look. Don't just toss them in the way you've seen them used in tutorials or previous videos and expect other FX editors to not be rolling their eyes. Make something that you can call yours, not something that's trying to capitalize on other popular vids.

I like this guy