Effects Discussion

[Arigatomina]

I know there have been various threads about the use of visual effects in amvs, but most were little more than flame wars, or arguments. Think of this as an invitation to share views without flaming anyone or riling anyone. Just limit the discussion to the questions - and there should be no reason for a hot debate to break out. Just limit it to what you like or would prefer rather than complaining about the things you *don't* like.

What do you think effects should be used for? What do they add to a video? When would you use them? When would you like to see effects used in someone else's vid? What sort of effects do you like and why do you like those particular effects? Do you link certain effects to a certain result when adding them to your own vids (or - for the non-creators - do you put meaning behind certain effects regardless of how they're used)? When you see a particular effect, does it matter what is going on behind the effect, or do you like it because of how hard it was to add? What are your favorite effects? Do you prefer non-duplicatable effects (or effects that take more than a button-click to add)? When you see a visual effect in a video do you stop to think how difficult it was to do, or do you enjoy it on face value? When you watch effects that you like - do you enjoy them because of what they are or because of the way they change the original footage? How attached are you to effects? Can you imagine watching your favorite video sans the visual effects (particularly if you like vids that use a *lot* of visual effects)? Would you still like the vid, or do the effects make all the difference to you?

And if you speak of a particular effect, it would help to use the name given in the editor used to make it (if it's a button-click added effect), or an example of a video that effect was used in - so others can see exactly what you're talking about.

I have my own reasons for asking this - considering the most common feedback I get is - "needs more visual effects". But I think a calm discussion could be interesting and possibly helpful.

Just don't post the one-liners, "As long as the effects are overdone it's fine" or the old "if they don't add anything don't add them to the vid", or the usual quick responses that don't really tell anything. Specific examples are a lot more useful than general statements. And if you *do* choose to make a general statement, give some examples to back it, or explain why you made that statement.

[OmniStrata]

Being a special fx junkie and Shueishiga MAD psycho I had to post something here...

My beliefs are mine alone so I expect very few people to agree with me.

For me, effects are something I add [and name] to my vids because I for one just like them. ^_^

Effects which are well timed and edited TOO THE SONG for me will always add to a video's "impact". A video without impact can still do it though but being the "fx junkie" that I am, I like vids with good fx better.

Vids that can convey emotion without any sparklies has my respect. I have trouble doing such things...

Effects also should be something that's not too "canned". Point and click, drag and drop, one-shot effects that most novices use aren't very good. "Premiere's Transitions" are best example.

"Custom" effects [especially neat-yet-simple layering ala Euphoria] that "moves with the music" are always cool for me.

My vote, I like effects, if you don't, then hey, make your videos without them. [there's a good chance someone will love it anyway ^_^]

Why do the majority of people seem to like effects? I honestly don't know...

[Tash]

For me effects are a way of enhancing a certain part of a song. It can be used to make one of those powerful explosions in a song alot more impactful compared to the rest of the video. To me effects arn't a rule to use but if every video has some unique add on to it, its makes the video a lot more interesting.

I'm not really an effects person but I try to use one every now and then to enhance. If I do use one I try to incorperate some photoshop elements or just simple image matts. One day I may do soem masks in AE but thats not for awhile and till I really need it.

(I suck at grammer so don't hurt me)

[Katsumi_AMVs]

Yay double post

Erm . .

when I use effects is just to help me to sync a beat or a instument of the song , nothing more than that , a tool to help to sync beats/intruments when I don't want to cut a scene ^^

Yep ^^

When I search for an effect I choose one that I can match the mood/pace of the song and the visuals of the scenes.

[downwithpants]

hummm, i'm a wmm user, so my knowledge of special effects is quite limited. and these so-called "effects that take more than a button-click to add" are beyond me.

but lets see how i do on this quiz:
What do you think effects should be used for?
They should evoke more emotion from the user, be it excitement, awe, sadness, love, humor...

What do they add to a video?
They make the imagery fresh to those who have already seen the anime.

When would you use them?
When it makes sense to add it in the video. When adding them makes my video more like I want it to look.

When would you like to see effects used in someone else's vid?
It doesn't really matter if they use them or not. I like videos for their overall effect on me.

What sort of effects do you like and why do you like those particular effects? What are your favorite effects?
I don't think I have favorite effects, but these are some effects I like-
For music-action synch:
Mmm, I like that effect when the video alternate between two scenes frame-by-frame during 16th/32nd/64th percussion notes (like a strobe effect). Uhh, dunno what it's called. It was done in Kevin Caldwell's "Believe." I like this effect because it gives the video a lot of energy.
I also like when the video blurs on bass hits or other low-frequency sounds. I saw this done in JBone's "Urban Ragnarok." And basically it makes you feel like the music is so intense it's making your entire body vibrate. (happens when you're in a car with powerful speakers or really bad suspension)
For storyline:
Effects can be very powerful in transitioning two scenes that otherwise wouldn't flow well. Cailet730's "Ordinary Day" had several transitions where she editted the image to have scenes flow right into the next.
For emotion:
Hard cuts can work surprisingly well for dramatic effect. Grover's "Bed of Lies" has such a sequence of simple cuts towards the end that made the sequence really dramatic.

Do you link certain effects to a certain result when adding them to your own vids (or - for the non-creators - do you put meaning behind certain effects regardless of how they're used)?
Hmm, I usually use fade to whites on a cymbal roll. Fades to and back from black usually signify a change in scene and time.

When you see a particular effect, does it matter what is going on behind the effect, or do you like it because of how hard it was to add?
It definitely matters more what goes on behind the effect. Mainly because I don't know how hard they are to add. But the effect shouldn't break up the direction of the video behind it.

Do you prefer non-duplicatable effects (or effects that take more than a button-click to add)?
I don't really have a preference. One-button effects can be just as powerful as complex effects. Non-duplicatable effects done neatly tell me that the creator spent a good amount of time and effort on the video.

When you watch effects that you like - do you enjoy them because of what they are or because of the way they change the original footage?
I don't always pay attention to what effects are used, or how they change the original footage. I like the effects that I like because of their results.

How attached are you to effects?
Not much. In creating videos, I don't have much of a useable selection in wmm (aside from fade to black/white, which I use pretty often.) In watching videos, it doesn't really matter if the video has effects, how much I like the video depends on the effect of the video.

Can you imagine watching your favorite video sans the visual effects? Would you still like the vid, or do the effects make all the difference to you?
My favorite video doesn't have any visual effects, but watching my favorite video that does have effects, without the effects, might be a bit disappointing. I would still like it, just not as much.

[Zarxrax]

Since I've gone to actually creating some vids entirely in After Effects, I guess I ought to voice my opinion on the matter as well. There are a variety of different reasons that I use effects. It all comes down to what I'm trying to do with the video. For example, in my video "The Way She Loves Me", I used some simple effects both to help sync to the music and to give the video a "look". The effects in the video are canned... anyone can do the same effects if they wanted. Do they add anything to my video? I think so. I just can't imagine the video without them.
On the other hand, sometimes I might do effects just because I think they look cool. A good example of this is the huge mosaic at the end of my "The Star Man" video. In these situations, its not really about trying to get any sort of message across, its just about having fun! They are fun to make, and fun to watch!
And theres still yet another category of effects. The kind of effects that the entire video is dependant upon. There's some good examples of this in the DDR Projects and the like. AbsoluteDestiny's 3d eva video for instance, or Vlad's Forever Young video. The "effects" are so ingrained into the actual concept of the video that the video simply cannot exist without them.

[godix]

>What do you think effects should be used for?

Entertainment. Is there really any other purpose to AMVs much less a certain aspect of AMVs?

>What do they add to a video?

If done well, they help make the video great. If done so-so they help add originality and set the video apart from others, although not that much. If done poorly they make me wish I had never downloaded the video.

>When would you use them?

In my current project, every damned second of the video. In other projects, well, depends on what I'm after. Effects tend to not help slow drama AMVs and are almost required in action/dance AMVs although there are well done exceptions to that.

>When would you like to see effects used in someone else's vid?

When it's well done, matches the mood of the video, and doesn't scream out 'I just figured out how to do this so I threw it in the video to show how cool I am'.

>What sort of effects do you like and why do you like those particular effects?

In general I prefer effects that aren't so overbearing that it prompts me into thinking 'That was an effect'. The videos I like best though are where the entire point of the video are effects, IE Ermacs Soul of an Angel, Mamboleo, or pretty much anything done to DDR. It doesn't have to be a complex effect, Soul of an Angel could have been done with nothing but transparencies (although Ermac did a lot more than that), anything that makes the video more than a string of clips can do it.

>Do you link certain effects to a certain result when adding them to your own vids?

Oh yes, but that starts getting into color theory and other psycological things. For example, quick bright solid flashes means exciting video while semi-transparent dark colored slowly fading flashes means emotional or introspective video.

>When you see a particular effect, does it matter what is going on behind the effect, or do you like it because of how hard it was to add?

I admire a difficult effect but I'd still think the video sucked if it didn't fit.

>Do you prefer non-duplicatable effects (or effects that take more than a button-click to add)?

Yes for the simple reason those are the effects that haven't been killed by being overdone.

>When you see a visual effect in a video do you stop to think how difficult it was to do, or do you enjoy it on face value?

At first I just note it and enjoy it for face value. If it's an original effect I go back later to see how if I can figure out how it was done.

[Qyot27]

I have my own reasons for asking this - considering the most common feedback I get is - "needs more visual effects".

I get that a lot too. Personally, I don't use many effects because I don't know how to make the things I'm imagining in my head either 1)work at all, or 2)work without looking bad. I also don't know how to execute most of the crazy effects I see and like, so it'd be pointless for me to try until I take the time to learn. Until then, I try to focus on getting as much impact through without them.

My favorite effects from my own videos (other than the crossfade transitions) would have to be the fades to grey and ghosting I did in my Peter Murphy video, or the overlay transparencies that crop up in two or three of my videos. I did them all with Premiere, and in the case of the greyfade it was just cutting the clips in half, tinting the latter one grey, and doing a crossfade. The overlays were a little easier to do since that's already pretty much built-in for Premiere. A crossfade blend about 50% and Alpha Channel transparency on the video 2 track does it fine. One of the fades to grey in the Peter Murphy video was accompanied by a ghosting effect as well, and for that I believe I had to chop the clip in thirds, ghost the center third, chop the center third in half, tint the latter half of the center third and the entire third after it, and then do the crossfade between the two halves in the center third. Then I made the last third fade to white after inverting Premiere's default Black Video option and doing a crossfade. This effect chain appears as the last scene in the video.

I probably have to say my favorite uses of effects from other creators are in DOKool's "Calling All Alters" video, and in E-Ko's "Busters 3". These videos' effects seamlessly flow with the progression of the music, and they just look freakin' cool. Trying to point out the best ones would be impossible, but the video "scratching" in "Calling All Alters" puts me in awe every time I see it and the constant video screen effect in "Busters 3" looks like it's just perfectly normal, like the source footage looked that way.

Overall, I believe that the effects and/or transitions (whether it be lack thereof or an abundance of) can make or break a video, so I choose effects that seem to match the flow of the music. When the music seems to flow easily from one lyric to the next, or one chord or riff to the next, I use crossfades. When it seems brash or hard, I use straight cuts or various other visual effects to simulate some sort of transition, like I did in the track I contributed to Animix 3. I don't know about other creators' decisions on how they choose a particular effect for a particular clip, but most of the times I've seen a video that contained complicated effects, the synching of it was perfect and there would've been a good reason the creator must have put it there, whether the reason is obvious in the video or not.

Some vids are just built on effects, and those probably couldn't be as well-received without them. Stripping out the effects from those videos while leaving them alone in every other way would seem to me to be like throwing someone naked outside into a snowstorm. Although it might be able to hold out for a while, it'll quickly get frozen by another, more technically impossible video. The effects in an effects-heavy video give the video the BAM! it needs to be remembered. Granted, videos that have notoriously few visual effects and rely on straight cuts alone or at least, very few manipulations of the original video footage can stand the test of time and be remembered, but I believe this is mainly because it stood as one of those technically impossible zeniths for a long time, or because no one had ever seen something like that before (Kevin Caldwell's "Engel" comes to mind right now).

Of course, carrying the "Engel" example, videos that have very few effects in them can rival the most effects-heavy videos out there because the creators have to put much more into the mood or tone and can come off more poignant and seemingly amazingly edited on that point alone. DreamsOfACobra's "Asuka's Wonderland" is a prime example of this, and that was their first video.

Wow, this is one behemoth of a post . Okay, well, I guess I'd better leave it at that.

[SarahtheBoring]

For two reasons - because I'm only in this as a hobby (i.e. I don't feel like devoting 40 hours a week to it) and because I have no visual ability at all - I'm in the group that doesn't use effects and probably never will.

That said, I do -whatever- to the footage (change it from the original visual) whenever the sound suggests something that the original footage can't fit. In any instance I try the original visual first, or my mind starts with the original, and then things are added or tweaked if the image still needs more of a push to fit the song.

F'rinstance, darkening a shot because the original was too bright and looked jarring against a subdued section of a song, and no other clip choice came to mind to fit that part better.

Those aren't effects, though. You could probably do that in WMM.

Generally, in other people's vids, I think it's one of those Catch-22s - you shouldn't use them unless you're good at them, but hell if I know how you GET good in the first place. Don't ask me, I don't use effects.

But when used well - and "used well" depends on the vid, IMO it means "serving the song" - they're another tool to get sound to match visual. Personally, that's all they are to me.

[badmartialarts]

1. What do you think effects should be used for?
2. What do they add to a video?
3. When would you use them?
4. When would you like to see effects used in someone else's vid?
5. What sort of effects do you like and why do you like those particular effects?
6. Do you link certain effects to a certain result when adding them to your own vids?
7. When you see a particular effect, does it matter what is going on behind the effect, or do you like it because of how hard it was to add?
8. Do you prefer non-duplicatable effects (or effects that take more than a button-click to add)?
9. When you see a visual effect in a video do you stop to think how difficult it was to do, or do you enjoy it on face value?

1. Well, it depends. Effects, in my mind, have two uses; they can be used to create something the original footage lacked, or remove something unwanted. Most of the time, you're adding to the footage.

2. The effects are what takes footage that everyone's seen before and places the mark of difference on it. "I've seen the spider-tank thingie shoot at Kusanagi (is that her name....been a while since I watched Ghost in the Shell) many times, but I didn't know that Lain of the Wired was controlling it!" (example of effects from Kusoyaro's "Transformation" video).

3. Example from my new project that I'm slowly working on. I'm doing my best to take Gasaraki footage and make it look like the Matrix. Effect design is killing me, because my imagination is far greater than my ability. But the reason for the effects is just that. Sure, I could make the video with straight cuts, but it just wouldn't match the feel of the song. My imagination demands that the footage look just so, and the original footage doesn't cooperate that well.

4. "Wherever they fit." It's a pat answer because it's true. Overkill seizure flashes are plain annoying, but in the right situation (and moderation) they add to a video. Some things I like to see are beats, either in the footage or effects or both. When I hear a 'boom,' I want to see a 'boom.' I didn't do a perfect job in my first video, but I took that as a learning experience for future projects.

5. I love good transitions from one clip to the next. Sometimes a straight cut is called for, but usually a good fade to black or white or grey, or a crossfade or dissolve fade is what's needed. Once I learn this trick, I'll be happy with my videos.

6. My storyboard for my Gasaraki project calls for lots of transitionary effects that fit symbolically with the song. Since it's a repetitive techno piece, you hear the same sounds over and over, and I'm looking to create an economy of effects so when you hear a 'be-wah,' you see the same effect or transition. It's a goal...

7. Heck, I'm a newbie. I'm still impressed by strobe lights.

8. I'm more impressed by someone overlaying an animated image mask than a simple beat flash, yes, but the simple beat flash might say loads more than any crazy animated stuff.

9. Enjoyed on face value. Then, if it's really impressive, I might try to dissect for future, um, 'homage.' That's it, homage.