The impossibility of making an AMV out of a anime SERIES

iserlohn · Post by **iserlohn** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 9:50 pm

I only make AMVs of shows that I really love. Seriously. For Officer Lockstock (the codename for my Otakon video), I had to watch forty episodes of a series, without subtitles, on VHS and scan back and forth looking for clips. If I didn't know the series in advance and didn't love the series and have a clear picture of what I wanted, I'd have gone crazy. I'm currently working my way through about 28 episodes of a series that I love but haven't seen before (I haven't seen these episodes, have seen plenty of the rest). What I've been doing for these is watching it through and then grabbing footage as I find clips which are either 1)blatanty appropriate or 2)showing potential to be of use.

On average, I'd say that I grab about 8-12x the amount of footage I need for a video. This includes clips running way longer or composed of multiple shots, different clips, alternatives, unused potentials, experiments, etc. By going through the source first and grabbing as I go, I'm able to save myself the hassle of running back to the original episodes a month down the line to track down that one clip that I simply HAVE to have.

Of course, this can also vary - I kept 17-20 min. of footage around when I made Haru to Ashura (a 4:40 video) because I knew that I wouldn't use the rest of the source film. Take some time before you capture and think - is there a one-off character that you need? Are you using any of them? If not, scan over anytime they're onscreen and your protagonists aren't. Hell, I'm going to be able to save myself full episodes that way...

Anyhow, enough rambling. To sum up: Plan what you think you'll use, watch and grab, take more than you think you'll need, and then go back later if you're missing the money shot. Stay organized and you'll be fine.

Mr Pilkington · Post by **Mr Pilkington** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 11:31 pm

is it mandatory for an AMVka to go thru the whole series just to find the series?

Yes and no. It depends. Most videos I do I tend to have a very good idea of which scenes I want to use, and in what quantities. However I will put down on paper (well... In word) atleast 2 or 3 ideas of what I want where. This way I have potential backup scenes incase some wont fit or are too long. Also I do rewatch the eps several times, at full length, just to get a good idea. For instance, in Speed Bossa Nova I had to watch the same 11 eps 6 times each just to get a good hold on which scenes I needed. I still felt like it left something to be desired but with only 11 eps at my disposal options were limited. This does give me a good 20-30 minutes of potential footage to play with, per vid. Also good because what ever I don't use there (and some I do) can be tossed into my new project. Kind of cheezy to reuse an anime that way but, what ever works!

King_Cold · Post by **King_Cold** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 11:43 pm

I believe looking back throught a whole serie is the toughest part. I just can't watch an episode thinking about what scene would be good or not for my AMV. And as I go trought the serie I keep finding better footage for the same part of my AMV or so I think just because I saw it after. So I have to rewatch the other footage I tought was good before to see if the new one is really better and I can never decide. That's why I prefer using movies. It's only between 1 to 3 hours of footage to look trought. Or if I really need to do a serie I'll browse trought it quickly with a PC media player but it gives you poorer result and it's true scene selection is one of the most important part of the process.

Ashyukun · Post by **Ashyukun** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 12:40 am

I'd definitely agree that watching through the series you're going to use at least once before you start working on it is an extremely good idea. When I was getting ready for my NES Project video, I watched through all the DVDs again. If you have a computer and your series is on DVD (which a lot of what we work on nowadays- but not all- is), there's a fairly easy way to make it a bit less painful. WinDVD has this wonderfully useful feature where you can have it play things back at faster than 1x- you can basically go up to 2x playback in varying increments. Since I already knew the series in general, I watched through it at 2x to refresh my memory as to where the scenes I needed were, and made note of which episode they were in. Once I got started, I would scrub through the Bait'n'Switch MJPEG files in Premiere to find any scenes that I needed that I hadn't explicity written down. I don't think that for a regular-length TV series it's that hard. For something longer (Kenshin, UY, Ranma, DBZ *shudder*, YYH, etc.), yeah, 48+ episodes could be a bit of a pain to deal with.... in that case it's much, much better to simply know the series entirely too well already...

Masterdeeds · Post by **Masterdeeds** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 1:17 am

I haven't made a Gundam Wing vid yet but I plan to sometime soon. I've watched each of the 49 episodes at 3 times, and some of them more then that. I still go back to it and watch it to...

But, to the main question, I agree with most of the things people have said here.. what I did for a new vid I just finished (it isn't up yet but will be soon) was scan through the eps without copying them to my computer and noting the exact eps I needed so I didn't have to rip the whole dvd and get rid of almost all of it.
Plan the footage carefully, otherwise you end up with a crappy video.
*shutting up*

Masterdeeds

OmniStrata · Post by **OmniStrata** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 2:00 am

it's VERY hard to make an amv without at LEAST seeing the anime you're using...

Cole · Post by **Cole** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 2:10 am

Last weekend I started screening my Crest of the Stars collection for suitable footage for my next video. (I don't think I'm so familiar with any series that I could know exactly what episode to look in, but I don't know if that's good or bad

). I spent about 5 hours doing that. I don't know how the average AMV creator makes their videos, but I really took this one seriously since my last two were just half-assed goof off projects. Essentially I ripped about an hour and a half of footage, then made a long string of clips of all the scenes I wanted to use. That came out to 16 minutes. The song I'm using is like 5 minutes long. So I spent the better part of this week (after work, of course) and this weekend trying to trim it down and juice it up.

For a series like Noir, you can get a broad range of pretty much any kind of material you're looking for at least every other episode. That whole run was moody, going from light-hearted to dark and back again (though, light-hearted in this context means they smile and talk about the meaning of life after having just shot somebody 13 times; not that they go frolicking in the poppy fields). It's been awhile since I watched the show, so I couldn't tell you specific episodes, sorry. Having just gone through a whole series myself (with the fast-forward button a constant friend), I wish you luck.

AbsoluteDestiny · Post by **AbsoluteDestiny** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 2:59 am

OmniStrata wrote:it's VERY hard to make an amv without at LEAST seeing the anime you're using...

Unless you're Hsien Lee.

(bachelorette, my iron lung and a lot of self titled were both made without watching the shows)

Bahamut God · Post by **Bahamut God** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 3:29 am

Zarxrax wrote:I like to stick a whole episode into premiere, zoom out a ways, then scroll through the episode really fast and see which scenes catch my eye...

That's what I do mostly. I do however watch the whole series at least once. ¬_¬

I have a pretty good idea about the general concept of my video before I start, but sometimes it ends up owning me. I do rip a LOT of footage for a project though. I pretty much take the whole series, no mater what. But, right now I'm working on a video with Ranma, Trigun, Tenchi Myuo, Mansion Ikoku (spelling -_-), and love Hina. I ripped all of Trigun, Tenchi Myuo, 10 eps. of Mansion Ikoku, and about 40 eps. of ranma. Needless to say, my hard drive is full. (I had to leave most of the files as vob's.) However, generally, when working on just one series, of about 26 eps., I will convert everything to dv, and then delete the scenes I know 100% I won't use. (If I'm doing a video on vash and rem, I don't need scenes with wolfwood.)

I might be tempted to watch the series for scenes if I had a digital pass though to capture, rather than the time it takes to rip something, but I don't. Besides, that hurts the final video quality anyway, or so I hear.

By the way, I just fell in love with the word AMVka, just thought I should let you know. (even though I'm pretty sure it does not work, I still am so using that rather then "creator" since that could be for any form of art.)

As for your original question, I have not seen Noir, sorry.

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 7:58 am

When I was making my AMV, I only used 4 (initially - just 3) episodes of the show, and before working, I went through them and cut them down with VirtualDub to under 20 total minutes of footage. You just gotta know what you want in your AMV, and take out the rest! If you have a theme, figure out which scenes would work for it and which don't.

My preferred motto is 'honor sufficiency'. Try not to get caught up in too much footage you don't need...