AMVs: What's next?

[FirestormXIII]

Well, I've been meaning to post this topic up for a while, but haven't gotten around to it until now. I've seen some threads on the Org that have touched on the matter, but none that have addressed it directly. But from what I've heard, the consensus seems to be that there's nothing new coming out of AMVs, and all that people are doing is using already existing techniques and not developing anything new and exciting.

What I was wondering was: Where do you see AMVs going? (Whether it's in the next year, two years, or 5 years, or whatever)

Personally, I see that as the technology factor becomes less of a factor in AMVs (with the advent of corrections of older methods by AMV creators themselves; the AMVapp/AVIsynth plugin fix is a prime example of this. Also included in the closing of the technology gap is easier access to MV/AMV producing equipment by the general population.) that creators will begin to develop their own filters, new plugins, and other tools to personalize their AMVs more. The 'psychodelia' effect in Shameless Rock Video comes to mind, and though AD didn't make the filter himself that is the type of development I imagine will become more prevelant in AMVs in the future.

In a lot of ways though, I see the state of AMVs like I see music: Everything has already been done, now the task is finding a way to put it together in a way that's not like anything else out there.


A side question of discussion: I saw ErMaC mention not too long ago a problem that's developing among Drama videos: The formula of dramatic song+dramatic scenes=dramatic video. In his exact words,

"One thing a bunch of creators and I have commented on over various messaging services and in person at cons is the proliferations of the dramatic-song-plus-dramatic-scenes-from-angsty-show formula that's just getting dumb. It's like the only reason the video is dramatic is because the scenes they were using were dramatic to begin with. Like a FuYu vid I saw at Fanime this year. It was just take-dramatic-scenes-and-string-them-together. It would've been just as dramatic without the audio at all."

Personally I've seen this in a lot of Drama videos and I have some thoughts on it, but I want to put the question out there...

Do you think the abundance of drama song+drama scenes=drama vid is something that mostly all creators are guilty of? Or just another misconception of up-and-coming creators of what a drama video should be?
And also, what would you suggest as the solution to the problem? Or is it up to the individual to realize 'hey, a drama video isn't neccesarily like that [drama+drama forumla]'?

[trythil]

Or just another misconception of up-and-coming creators of what a drama video should be?
And also, what would you suggest as the solution to the problem? Or is it up to the individual to realize 'hey, a drama video isn't neccesarily like that [drama+drama forumla]'?

A misconception, and an unfortunate one.

I've always liked taking scenes and manipulating them so that they create a storyline that never existed in the anime I'm editing. Some people say that this doesn't capture the spirit of the anime, but who cares? There will be people who have never seen the anime you're editing, and all that "spirit" therefore counts for nothing.

An AMV -- any genre -- should be able to stand on its own, and not have to rely on elements in the anime to make it work. Because of this, I find that drama videos are the hardest of all to pull off: you must not only have the technical know-how to wow your audience, but you must also be able to conceive of a compelling storyline, and visually communicate that storyline.

In other words, you're stressing both the right-brain and left-brain, if you still believe in that model.

Oh yeah, and if you rely on any elements in the anime, they'd better be made clear, aurally and visually, or else you're dead.

Just my opinion.

[trythil]

For my next trick, I'll remember to answer the question in the subject:

I foresee AMVing going straight down the toilet, as more and more people flock to it without having a clue what the work of the masters was like, and start to churn out crap.

People like me.

No, really, I'm serious. This happens with anything that becomes popular.

[AbsoluteDestiny]

Yeah but I think inevitably those who continue making them, and are good, will still make very good videos and the gap between the average video and the best will widen - it's already happening now.

I'm certain there are many great amvs to come but the golden age of amv making is over.

Personally I think the technological advancements were only significant during the transition stage between the analogue and digital amv eras. There are key videos that exist as a realisation of the capabilities of modern digital editing but just because these videos were a digital epiphany, so to speak, I don't think that means that everything else has been done.

What I'm saying is that the technology doesn't need to advance to get better videos. (although I think there will be a video in the future which will take everything a step further, and possibly out of reach but that's an aside)

There will always be things that will do something new, whether it be a techique, a style or even just a concept. We still have many innovators out there and I'm sure there will be more innovators in the future. Vlad's Transcending Love didn't cover any new ground in terms of video editing but the idea of creating a completely new dramatic narrative with characters and scenes from completely different sources was a reasonably novel one. I think it's that sort of conceptual innovation rather than a technical one which will distinguish some of the best videos in the future. The rest of the best will just be videos, in a manner we've seen before, that are JUST DAMN GOOD

[MistyCaldwell]

As I have seen examples in many things, people associate the best days of something as to when they were involved...emotionally. It may see like a stretch to say amv creators are involved emotionally with their works but it's they thing that makes you feel passionate about making "something". Whenever the time was that you first saw an amv and became inspired to rush to your nearest store, pick up some dvd's and get going, that was the time you obviously thought amv's were at their best.

So, different people reach that point at different points. This in my opinion explains why so many creators who have been involved for awhile see a slide downhill. I started out at the end of the linear age of editing. Things were built on story and less on visual effects. Thus, that is what I look for in a good amv. I see a lot of visuals and special effects today that look very professional, but I am just not all that impressed with the amv as a whole.

But people just getting into amv's today are going into their own "golden age" and of course they will look at these as being the best ever. That's my opinion...so when you look at it that way, amv's aren't going down the toilet. They are just changing in the ways all things change. And we...well we are becoming those old folks that talk about the good ol days

But, it's not as if this applies to everyone either...

[The Wired Knight]

I doubt the prediction of developing personal filters will ever really happen s a trend. Generally if you watch all the work of a creator you can see they haev a style in their videos that is normally appearent, enough so that I doubt anyone will shoot for special filters as their goal. If that were to happen it would feel less like a competition of AMVs but a competition of customized designs. Generally I think AMVs have just about hit their peak, we've gone about as far as we can go and we seem to be able to stay here nicely enough. popularity keeps growing to the point where it is almost but not quite as popular as cossplay. But I don't see the technology factor coming into play in the near future.

As for drama..yeah I agree. I've seen plenty Grave of the Fireflies videos that fall to this problem. often all you need is the dramatic song and it doesn't even need to be synched well to the video to convey its point. now I don't think all creators are guilty of this, I think the drama catagory is a matter of effort and taking more than just dramatic scenes and putting them together. Tony used a lot of plain ordinary scenes from CCS and managed to make a aoutstanding AMV of it. For my Blue Sub video a lot of teh scenes I took aren't taht dramatic alone in the show but it becomes dramatic through the tone of the music. The trick is to make a video that is not just a dramatic song plus dramatic footage. The trick is to take a song and make it work WITH the footage to initiate drama. The job of the video is to convey the emotion through both mediums.

[Kai Stromler]

It's pretty much impossible to predict where AMVs will "go" in the near future, just as it is impossible to predict where 'popular' music as a whole will go. Back when there was a single musical youth culture, trend analysis could produce valid results, but now......how does the up-and-coming rapper in Houston move in the same direction as the young metal guitarist in Helsinki, or the wannabe beat-jockey in Singapore?

The same is getting to be true of AMVs. Just look at the .org, with more than 3,000 creators registered, worldwide, across the age spectrum. They're not all watching the same videos, going to the same cons, reading the same forum threads, getting involved in the same anime titles or musical scenes.

If there's anything that's going to happen for sure, it's that there will continue to be a flood of n00bs, and while many of them will make 1-3 videos and give up and go away, there will be a bunch who stay, really get into the hobby, and ask themselves what they can do to set their videos and themselves apart from the community at large: what they can do to get some recognition.

There are going to be more visual hooks in the AMVs of the next few years. More people are going to use alternate tools to give their works a different look and feel from the normal. In amidst the continued Linkinball-Z-or-equivalent crapflood, there are going to be some extremely ambitious projects, like nailz's 14-minute And Then There Was Eva (now in progress) or the X video in AWA Pro where the video ran in reverse. More people will remix their audio source or apply effects to it, or put in their own CG artifacts. Tainted Donuts and Dragon Bebop Z are going to see a whole bunch of imitation, some of it great and some of it crap.

I know for a fact that there IS a killer-app technique out there that will cause the biggest change in AMV creation since the shift to digital if widely adopted, but such will require widespread MPEG2 editing capability and a mental paradigm shift. However, widespread adoption of this technique is unlikely, since it requires abandoning a large number of assumptions about how a video goes together that are almost omnipresent in the scene and strongly reinforced by the guides. Not happening.

I know this much is true: regardless of how AMVs or the scene goes, people will continue to post favorites threads and ask questions easily answered somewhere else.

--Kai

[Castor Troy]

popularity keeps growing to the point where it is almost but not quite as popular as cossplay. But I don't see the technology factor coming into play in the near future.

Think of how the technology factor has affected cosplay....

Characters are now literally jumping out of the screen!

Although there has yet to be a Faye that impresses me...

[mexicanjunior]

popularity keeps growing to the point where it is almost but not quite as popular as cossplay. But I don't see the technology factor coming into play in the near future.

Although there has yet to be a Faye that impresses me...

I saw a decent looking Faye at A-Kon but we didn't get any pics of her.

[Tycho2k]

I foresee AMVing going straight down the toilet, as more and more people flock to it without having a clue what the work of the masters was like, and start to churn out crap.

People like me.

No, really, I'm serious. This happens with anything that becomes popular.

I tend to agree, but only partly. I think you are right, we will see more and more hastily put together AMV's with action scenes almost put to stuff like Linkin Park, with hardly an attempt at adding a twinge or heart or creativity to the vid. But I think the old-school AMVers will still do what they do best, and make good vids. I think the whole concept of AMV's will divide into two factions. AMV's (High Art) will be what we all look for in a good video, the kind that sends shivers down your spine with every beat of a highly thought out, creative piece of beauty. Then there will be AMV's (Low Art), the aformentioned LinkinBall vids, the kind where people don't even attempt to have the video sync up with the pop music of the week.
I know this sounds very similar to a classic Calvin and Hobbes, but I do so love that comic. I hope all that make sense anyway, really tired....