How important is motivation?

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 1:50 pm

Corran Productions wrote:Also having seen the anime used is a big background factor. Did a Grave of the Fireflies video impact you more before or after watching the Movie?

I've never seen the movie, but that hasn't stopped the videos from effecting me one little bit. I haven't seen 4/5 of the anime used in videos I watch - or heard the songs before in most case.

Maybe that's the problem - I base videos off what they hold rather than what they add to an anime. Sure, I've watched enough Hellsing videos to have built the plot of the anime from those videos - but I'm still judging the videos themselves rather than the anime. Because I don't know the anime. Same for Eva, Akira, Ah My Goddess, Akira, FLCL, Love Hina, Bebop, Trigun, Naruto, Voice of a Distant Star, and most of the other popular non-overused anime that I only know about from the dozens of vids I've watched.

I know some things require background information - after all, you won't understand some stories unless you're aware of the gimics used and played upon - but that doesn't make knowing the person made the video for a loved one affect me more. It's still just a video of a romance that either works to inspire an emotion in me or doesn't. Knowing the inspiration ahead of time tells me why the video was made, but it doesn't effect the way I see the video - as a successful piece inspiring an emotional impact or something done only for the creator which can only be appreciated by him and his loved one.

I guess I can blame peer-to-peer networks for this way of looking at amvs. If you get a vid off kaaza, you aren't going to know the motivations, the explanations, the story behind the story - the video either stands on it's own or doesn't. Once it's separated from the author, it becomes the viewer's property per-say - it either affects him on its own, or remains misunderstood because the viewer isn't the 'informed' audience.

Katsumi_AMVs · Post by **Katsumi_AMVs** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 2:29 pm

I always read the video comments , because I haven't seen almost the animes used on AMVs

If I don't read the video comments I know that the only thing that I'm gonna be able to judge , it's the technical aspects of the video , and that isn't fun , watch AMVs like that could be boring

godix · Post by **godix** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 5:43 pm

I generally view decriptions as an explanation to why the video looks the way it does. A good decription can change my opinion of the creator. For example, I tend to assume that a creator is bad at judging when to use effects if they have lots of annoying and distracting crap in the video but if the description mentions that the video was made for a specific person who likes lots of annoying and distracting crap then I'll assume they knew what they were doing and I happened to not like it. Doesn't change my opinion of the video itself but I'd be much more inclinded to view future videos from the same creator because I'm not assuming they suck. This is generally what I read descriptions for and how I try to write my own.

The other type of description, and the ones I hate, are where they try to explain exactly what the AMV is meant to show. If I can't tell the AMV is a love story between X and Y, a character profile on the serious side of X, etc. then the video failed. This is the main reason I'm not particularly happy with my latest video, I think I had to explain it in the description to make it understandable.

As for how much I care about the personal story, I don't. The video isn't made any better knowing it was made for your SO, spouse, parent, dog, etc. That can explain certain things about it but it doesn't actually make the video any better. You used the example of Schindlers List and you're right, that movie is much more powerful becuase of the knowledge that it's actually true (or as close to true as Hollywood gets). However AMVs take both their song and video from other sources so I find it difficult to picture someone making a 'true story' type AMV. Even if they did the emotional connection is greatly weakened by knowing the footage/song aren't true even if that particular arrangement of them is.

TallonKarrde23 · Post by **TallonKarrde23** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 5:51 pm

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 5:56 pm

To misquote my Shakespeare professor:

"If you can summarize a work in cliff notes, then it's not worth reading to begin with."

TallonKarrde23 · Post by **TallonKarrde23** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 5:58 pm

Arigatomyna wrote:To misquote my Shakespeare professor:

"If you can summarize a work in cliff notes, then it's not worth reading to begin with."

maybe thats my point

[size=0]...though its not

[/size]

Flint the Dwarf · Post by **Flint the Dwarf** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 6:02 pm

Ugh, it'd take me a good hour to read this whole damn thing.

So I'll just briefy give my input, and don't crucify me if I'm repeating some things.

Motivation does matter some to me, depending on how much of an impact the motivation actually has in the video. If I can watch the video and not see whatever it was that motivated them, I view it as a failure for the general audience. Maybe it had an impact on whoever the motivation was (if it was a person, that is), and then that's okay I guess. If I can see that it was inspired by something, meaning it's really evident in the video, then I view it as a success.

If, in the description, I see that a video has an inspiration, it doesn't make me any more inclined or disinclined to watch. What still matters to me is the basic concept, anime, and song.

Basically, any motivation comes into play after I've seen and thought about the video. Depending on how successful they are, I may like or dislike it even more.

It also depends on the motivation. You mentioned Schlinder's List earlier. If I had seen that movie and not known anything about the Holocaust (even not knowing that it existed) I would have seen a damn emotional video and I would have loved it (because I did love the movie). But that it actually happened really makes me look back at the movie and put myself in the place of those who suffered, because it is reality.

Then in Titanic's case, I didn't care at all. It was just a love story that happened to take place on a luxury cruiser that met a tragic end. That it was a real ship that met a real end didn't affect me at all because it was nothing out of the ordinary... and it focused on this love story rather than the tragedy, even though the tragedy really affected the love story. So with that movie, I basically ignore the motivation. It's just a tragic love story.

Hope some of that makes sense.

CaTaClYsM · Post by **CaTaClYsM** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 6:08 pm

Arigatomyna wrote:To misquote my Shakespeare professor:

"If you can summarize a work in cliff notes, then it's not worth reading to begin with."

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/litnotes/shakeglossa-e.html

Well at least your teacher can admit when he's wasting your time.

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 6:20 pm

CaTaClYsM wrote:Well at least your teacher can admit when he's wasting your time.

She. ^.~

And the main point is that cliff notes can repeat every main detail in a story, summarize it - but if it truly tells everything then it would replace the experience of reading it for yourself. Any story that can be summarized so well that the summary reproduces the experience of reading it, is a story that doesn't need to be read. Her argument would be that while cliff notes can try to summarize a play, they cannot take the place of the experience of actually reading that play - so they are not a complete summary. At best, they're used to help understand what you read - to pick out the main events for those with short attention spans, and to pinpoint specifics that may have gotten lost in the actual reading - good only when used after the fact, not as a replacement for the writing they attempt to summarize.

Look at it this way, if you can summarize "Euphoria" then there's no point watching it - because just reading the summary would tell you exactly what the video is.

If I summarized my posts, then I'd be saying there's no point reading them. In which case, I wouldn't have typed them, I'd have just typed the summary.

godix · Post by **godix** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 6:20 pm

CaTaClYsM wrote:http://www.cliffsnotes.com/litnotes/shakeglossa-e.html
Well at least your teacher can admit when he's wasting your time.

<a href="http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/b/shak ... html">I</a> <a href="http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/b/shak ... >prefer</a> <a href="http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/b/shak ... ">these</a> <a href="http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/b/shak ... tations</a>. <a href="http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/b/shak ... They're</a> <a href="http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/b/shak ... l">much</a> <a href="http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/b/shak ... funnier</a>.