Memories of making your first AMV

[NeoQuixotic]

I started out around 2000 on a PII and Windows 95. I used downloaded footage (yes, it was Dbz .) I put it on floppies from any sucker that allowed me on the internet. I messed around with AVIedit, VideoMach, and VirtualDub. The stuff I created was horrible to say the least. I also used footage from other amvs and blended them into my own. Eventually in 2001 I got a capture card and Magix Music and Video Maker 6. Thus, more Dbz video goodness came about.

In the fall of 2002 I got my new Dell with Windows XP. I was very happy, so I installed my Magix and went at it once again. I actually redid one vid on my new computer and created a few more. It wasn't until the fall of 2003 when I got cable internet that I began to attempt to work with DVD's. I was so happy when I got Vegas around that time too. So long story short, I actually read the guides and used the forum on the a-m-v.org and learned so much! Its been a fun time to get to the knowledge I have now. However, I still suck at editing, but I understand the technical aspects of digital video and compression very well! And yes, I do watch my old videos and try to learn from them.

[OmniStrata]

Ah my first piece o' shit amv...

Inu Yasha downloaded footage to...

Moonlight Shadow by Missing Heart [yes, the DDR ONE!]

I can't dance to ddr at all but I love their songs to amvs. I got some people who I thought were "big names" to take a look at them and grill me [they did a good job too, they said ' YOU SUCK ' very politely and showed me exactly what I wanted to see, pointers on how to not stink as much...]

I'm glad I managed to get help on my first amv. I was VERYY lazy and didn't make many cuts at all. It was when

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... php?v=4976

came along that I learned [many cuts is GOOD] more is better ^_^

[FoxJones]

Ah.. memories... memories from the time when I came up with "hey.. I know about this vdub-thingie.. I wanna try out making these AMV thingies with this.. VDUB! \^.^/". Time when I did the timing with teh notepad(tm) straight from the wav-file. Time when this notepad-timeline showed me when to switch scenes.. which then meant "append the next clip in vdub". Time when I saw that "this can't be done like this... start over" and "this can't be done like this either.. start all over again". Ah... those countless hours of pure pain ^_^ It was sometimes more math that editing.

..and to show how thickheaded I can sometimes be let's mention that it took me two more AMVs from hell before I thought that "there must be a better way to do this".

[Scandia]

It was in March 2003. I think it was on a Sunday because I had seen it on a flyer advertised. I bought the Dazzle 80 at Office Depot. A guy I had taken a class with was the salesman that handled the transaction.

I made it to MKR, which was my fave anime of the time. I used a Van Halen song because I love Van Halen. I only took a break to go to the gym. I remember a friend called me on my cell phone and I told her what I was up to.

Not knowing much about editing, I had to recapture stuff several times. Plus it was on VHS. And I had to do it while sitting on the floor cause I was using my brand new laptop instead of my desktop from 1999.

It took me well into the next day to finish it. But I did. Video quality looks nasty due to its being VHS and MPEG-1. I submitted it, along with my second AMV which I made shortly afterwards, to FITCON 2003's AMV contest. Neither won anything. But I was still proud to see them shown onscreen.

[Otohiko]

/rises

Making my first AMV involved, among other things, placing my very first cuts in any video editor. Given how well and true (IMHO) the video came out to what it intended to be (aside from a few minor technical screwups caused by complete lack of experience), I'm still as completely happy with it as I was the day I finished it. I don't watch it very often compared to some of my other vids, but I'm not ashamed to give it another look every now and then.

I guess what was pretty amazing about making it was how it all just started coming together naturally for me even if I never tried my hand at editing any video before. I learned what worked and what didn't work very quickly. In fact, (in my view) you can even see the editing improve (though it's still very rough and basic) as the video goes on, with the latter parts coming out (IMHO) the best.

If my first video came out any different, maybe I wouldn't be here now.

Speaking of me being here,
/dies

[Castor Troy]

It was around fall of 99.

I used an old 1988 jvc camcorder hooked up to my $50 capture card with an RF switch and I used commercial and fansub dbz tapes with Premiere 3.0 LE.

I released my first 15fps, mono, 160 x 120, cinepak encoded into mpeg masterpiece 3 hours later.

Good times

[Kusoyaro]

Hmm, it was back in 1999, I think. I used downloaded mpegs of Rurouni Kenshin fight scenes and a skip-ridden mp3 I got off my school's network. The software was Ulead Media Studio Pro, which I ended up using for every video up through My Iron Lung. It literally took me about 24 hours, because I was editing MPEG-1 files on a PII-450 and every time I moved, trimmed, deleted, manipulated any clip in any way, it would take my computer about 30 seconds to catch its breath.

Months later, I redid the video from scratch and came up with Kyoto Kombat

[OzzieArcane]

My first video? That was back in 1999 or 2000. I really had no idea what I was doing. I just kinda put random clips of Nappa beating people up to "Dragula" by Rob Zombie. Even though my choices had been pretty much random, it somehow came out better then my like next 5 videos after that I made that I actually tried on.

I still watch my old videos everynow and then, but compaired to stuff other people make nowadays they are utter crap and now I no longer have the patience or desire to make new videos. (It doesn't help that Ulead keeps crashing)

[SarahtheBoring]

What about you guys/gals do you still watch your first amvs? and compare your current work with what you have done in the past?

My first video was made entirely between ...something like... midnight and 6 a.m. one night. I had to stick with game footage because I didn't have a DVD drive; I wanted to use the ending of Star Ocean 2 because it was so pretty. (I was already totally in love with the ending of that game; I'd beaten it before just to watch the ending. Credits, rather. Ending credits.) There wasn't a point to the video, but I knew that. (I'd been watching videos for a year or two by then; give me a little credit. ) Just chilled music and chilled pretty visuals and whatever timing I could get out of what I had.

And then I slept for a few hours and made another that afternoon. They really sucked, but the thing was, I was so excited that I could finally try it myself. I get carried away, y'know... The exports were awful and had weird color flickers, but the first of the two had a few things going for it. A diplomatic reviewer suggested some improvements, and I ended up redoing it some time later.

I watch them every so often, but not as often as most of the others, which get a spin once a month or so.

Heh, I think I'm doing a little better now in terms of what I know how to do - but oddly, I think that first one still had something going for it. It's still more artsy than anything I've made since. And it was still fun to stay up all night trying to figure things out.

[megaman917]

My first AMV

The first AMV that I completed, 01 Rurouni Kenshin, was the very second one that I started working on, with WindowsMovieMaker1. Like many I was excited and I did use downloaded footage. That was last March/April. I had to re-edit a few times with MovieMaker2 before I uploaded it here back in October. Until recently this was my lowest scored video. But, it's my video and I still watch it.

My second AMV, 02 The Life Of An Outlaw, was the first one I started working on with WMM1. Once again I had re-edit with WMM2. When I uploaded it in October, it became my most dowloaded and highest rated video. Now it's like my second most downloaded and has an average score like the rest of my vids.

[devilmaykickass]

My first video...I remember it so very clearly...

I had not long ago discovered the work of Aluminum Studios (William Millburry), and I was utterly amazed by his videos, namely the Sailor Moon videos. Over the past few months I had been downloading alot of Sailor Moon footage, so I used that an some clips from Aluminum's vids, and a few others, with Pink's "Don't Let Me Get Me", a song I really liked at the time, in Adobe Premiere 6.0 on a 200MHZ CPU with 64MB RAM. I made sure I didn't take the parts I could tell at that time were edited by the AMV creators. It ended up being exported in WMV at 256Kbs. It was about 5MB. When I finished it I was so proud and thought it was such a big deal and I put it on this site via direct link from some free server, only because I was still in my lazy stage where I didn't want to figure out what FTP was. It's a good thing though, cause it used stolen footage anyway, which is a site nono. =p

Yeah, I look back on it every once in a blue moon and laugh. If not for the stolen footage I'd upload it.

[temaranight]

hmm..lessee...In 2002 I saw my first AMV, then upon further searching..found and watched my first Trigun AMV, and then watched Trigun, and decided I too could make these wonderful creations called AMV's!

With downloaded subbed Trigun footage...Premire 5.0 and Virtual Dub and no real knowledge of just what in the hell I was doing, I proceeded to make Vash, The Hero

Thankfully, with the helpful ops left by the likes of Beowulf ("Also why was it in 15 fps? Was that your source? My humblest condolences if it was "), EC, Sierra Lorna, and Hitori (all of whom called me on the subtitiles and poor source footage, but in a nice way ^^ ) ..I think I've managed to come quite a long way from that one to what I'm able to do now.

Do I still watch it? Of course I do...it was my first and no matter how newbish it may be..it's still near and dear to me..but that also doesn't mean it won't get redone in the future >=p

[Infinity Squared]

My first AMV was done to a mix of anime and to Shining Star by Nami Tamaki.

Back then, I had just recently joined my universities anime club and they usually give out sampler disks (fansubs) to every member that signs up. I think back on the glory days of Jezmaster was when I first really got into AMVs and I just wanted to try my hands on it...

So there it was, I had the anime footage, I also realised that I had to 'free' software there on my computer... WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER!

There was nothing else forme to wait for... I started clicking away, cutting here, mixing there... in the end the result was... crap.

Yes, the final video was horrid by almost anyone's standard. It had subtitles, there were widescreen videos mixed in that of course on a 4:3 aspect ratio mean get squashed vertically. There were very very very few timings indeed that made it in time! And I'd say the most horrid of them all was the fact that because I used WMM on a hdd with a speed less than 7200rpms, there were annoying ginormous sized pixel blocks all over any fast paced scenes.

But you know what? I was proud of it... I enjoy it as much now as I did back then... because it was something that I made, because it was a video done to a song that I really liked listening to. Granted I don't watch it as much as I did anymore, but still the love is there.

[zeke-kun]

well so far ive only made 3 ^^;;
but my first waas not great but i liked it because it was a strange combo it was a golden boy and athf AMV i donno if having athf makes it non AMV but i liked it

i might submit it here later