Jazz AMVs

[JakeWasHere]

So what if 3/4 of jazz music is instrumental? It seems obvious to me that there's a HUGE undiscovered mine of AMVable music in this genre.

Here's a few songs I'd suggest:

"Maiden Voyage," "Watermelon Man," "Rockit," Herbie Hancock
"Take Five," "Blue Rondo a la Turk," Dave Brubeck Quartet
"Goodbye Pork Pie Hat," "Pedal Point Blues," "Haitian Fight Song," "Better Git It In Your Soul," Charles Mingus (I'm convinced Kanno listened to everything this guy recorded before she wrote the BEBOP soundtrack)

[Bakadeshi]

although I like jazz, I can;t see it working too well in AMVs... at least the slower relaxing ones, they'd be incredibly boring to watch I think. Only some of the faster songs might have a chance with some shows like Beepop where the atmosphere of the show matches that of the music. And possibly Samurai champloo. some of the songs are doable, but probably like rap, kinda hard to pull off in most cases.

[Koshi (Aryllis)]

It annoys me when I hear people saying "oh, such-and-such AMV can't be done/too hard", whether talking about music, anime, effects or whatever. I don't understand what makes a song/anime good for AMVing. AMVs can be anything. A creative and versatile AMVist can make anything work well.

That said, I saw "Jazz AMVs" and was all; hell ya! Mostly because Shiina Ringo's "Jazz-a-Go-Go" (actually I don't know the original artist, but I love her version) is one of my fav songs recently. That's one of the faster jazz, like Bakadeshi was talking about.

I'm thinking Bleach or Furi Kuri would be workable... er, interesting at least.

[RamonesFan2020204]

I'm not too crazy about jazz music, but there's a couple of exceptions, like Herbie Mann, for example.

[blaku92]

I've come to realize that many viewers prefer fancy special effects and animes that match to the downbeats of certain mainstream songs. A lot of jazz in its nature is more easy going (not every jazz tune is "Tank" from cowboy bebop) and emphasizes the upbeats. This is why I think most people stay away from jazz. Plus there are a TON of really cheesey newer jazz tunes out there that are just plain awful.

[shrink_laureate]

The trouble is that viewers' perception of time has changed over the years. The constant influx of movies, adverts, soundbites, AMVs and the like means that people are now tuned to a fast pace in their video. Something too slow and lazy often leaves people feeling bored. I disagree with those who declare this to be a 'dumbing down', but there's no denying that a change has taken place.

Which isn't to say that slow AMVs can't be done - it's just that the successful ones tend to build slow out of fast - if that makes any sense. Instead of still frames, they use constant motion to reinforce the lack of fast movement. My first AMV was to Nina Simone singing The Other Woman, and feels incredibly slow and dull - i didn't understand how to make interesting slow movement rather than boring stills.

I'm doing an AMV right now to the Grange Hill opening (yeah, i know, a long way from jazz just hear me out), and finding that to keep the eye's attention, i have to move, switch clips, etc about twice as fast as the original. And that's only 30 years ago. Time and the audience's mind have changed.

[emerpus]

Great topic! This is exactly what I've been looking for.

I completed one to Sun Ra's "Plutonian Nights" a few weeks ago, featuring footage from Galaxy Express 999:

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... p?v=116952

Please feel free to rate and comment because I would love to get more input. I'm not getting too much so far - perhaps a 27 year old anime and a 50 year old avant guarde jazz piece might be a little off the map here.

I'm playing around with clips representing sequences of notes, so that when those sequences are repeated, so does the shot. This happens a couple of times in the above video and a lot more in the one I'm working on now.

I should finish another Sun Ra/GE999 amn in a couple weeks, hopefully sooner. I've got some ideas for amvs to Mingus, Coltrane, and Duke Ellington too, as well as instro/surf music by the Ventures.

I think the lack of lyrics should be looked at as an advantage which allows the editor/artist to interpret the sound and image as whatever he or she wants.