Have Hell Videos Jumped the Shark?
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Zarxrax
- Joined: Sun Apr 01, 2001 6:37 pm
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The Wired Knight
- Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2001 3:22 pm
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If I had a fundamental disagreement with them I wouldn't have entered the SAST contest at AWA or voted for Hello Fairy for best comedy in Pro. It's a completely different type of video and it has its purposes. The long and the short of it to me is that it might go the way of Dragonball Z - Linkin Park videos eventually. There are some great works out there but they might eventually start getting burried under rubbish.
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dokidoki
- c0d3 m0nk3y
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Well, since I'm guessing that Hellø Fairy was one video that prompted The Wired Knight's discussion, I thought I'd mention some of the thought processes behind it. If you're not interested, you know how to scroll down.
Most years, I spend a lot of time early in the year working on a video for Otakon/Anime North/etc. This leaves me with less time and energy to work on a new video for Pro, but I like to do it anyway since I like the blind judging idea. I hit upon the idea of doing an overwrought Hell video to try and poke fun at the concept. I thought that, "If people laugh, I win" (not in the literal contest sense) and "If people think it's stupid, I also win", since I'm playing on some peoples' feelings on the genre.
Basically, I pretty much agree with AMV_4000, but not as vehemently. The frequent Best Comedy wins of multi-audio source videos --
Azumanga DIE-OH: MTAC
Azumanga DIE-OH 2: AniZona/Anime Central
Fullmetal Hell: Anime Boston
Montage: Fanime (fanvote) (is this available anywhere?)
BS AMV Hell: Aniventure (ditto)
Narutowned: A-Kon
AMV no Baka: Anime Vegas
AMV no Baka 2: Anime Mid Atlantic
Lifestyles of the Animated and Fabulous: AnimeNEXT/Otakon
Channel Surfin' 2: Animethon/Dragon*Con
Kill Excel: Kumoricon
Hellø Fairy: AWA Pro/Manifest
-- can be a bit annoying when you want to see a larger and more cohesive concept pulled off, but in the end it's their contests and their rules. The whole issue doesn't bother me enough to start complaining to the cons about it. (no offense implied to Sean for starting the thread)
What I wanted to do in making the video:
- Have fun. It was a lot of fun to make, partly because it was relatively easy. Maybe it was more fun for me than for the audience. If members of the audience didn't like it, then screw you guys, I'm going home.
- Hide jokes in the transitions. I realise the transitions were a little long, but they were done with an AviSynth function so it's easy to change.
- Rip off some of the other Hell videos a little, such as the Believe segment and some of the transition jokes. But honestly, some of the stuff that also appears in other Hell videos I had forgotten about. ie: I forgot about the "Commando" segment in AMV Hell 3, I forgot that Fullmetal Hell used the Indiana Jones song (but come on, it's too obvious for that episode of Bottle Fairy), and I forgot that "Lifestyles" used the Ooga Chaka song. That's probably where I remembered it from, but forgot where I heard it.
- Spread a little anti-Hell sentiment, but hopefully in a jovial manner, not a bitter or spiteful one. Is making a Hell video about not making Hell videos hypocritical? No more than spending a lot of time indoors making a video telling people to go outside.
- (re-)Introduce people to Max Headroom. The term "blipvert" comes from the show, which I love and wish would come out on DVD. (I first saw Ashyukun use the term to describe these kinds of videos) I had already made the "cube" animated background for another video that I never got around to doing, anyway. (BTW, even though there is no DVD release of the show, it can be found online if you look hard enough. The video used material from episodes 001, 101, and 201)
So have Hell videos jumped the shark? It depends on who you talk to. While creators, as seen in this thread, may be annoyed with them, with at least 16 convention wins so far this year they are still popular with fans and/or judges. I think what is more interesting, at least to me, is the decline of "traditional" comedy videos, and the relative difficulty in creating both types.
In closing, I don't intend to make a habit of making this kind of video. (I may still contribute to others, though) My previous video of this type was four and a half years ago.
Did anyone ever complain about the Weird Al medley videos?
PS: If anyone was wondering, different edits of HF were sent to different cons to comply with their time limit rules.
PSS: There's a parallel thread on this subject on the AMV ML, and Nic Neidenbach just made a good post on the subject.
Most years, I spend a lot of time early in the year working on a video for Otakon/Anime North/etc. This leaves me with less time and energy to work on a new video for Pro, but I like to do it anyway since I like the blind judging idea. I hit upon the idea of doing an overwrought Hell video to try and poke fun at the concept. I thought that, "If people laugh, I win" (not in the literal contest sense) and "If people think it's stupid, I also win", since I'm playing on some peoples' feelings on the genre.
Basically, I pretty much agree with AMV_4000, but not as vehemently. The frequent Best Comedy wins of multi-audio source videos --
Azumanga DIE-OH: MTAC
Azumanga DIE-OH 2: AniZona/Anime Central
Fullmetal Hell: Anime Boston
Montage: Fanime (fanvote) (is this available anywhere?)
BS AMV Hell: Aniventure (ditto)
Narutowned: A-Kon
AMV no Baka: Anime Vegas
AMV no Baka 2: Anime Mid Atlantic
Lifestyles of the Animated and Fabulous: AnimeNEXT/Otakon
Channel Surfin' 2: Animethon/Dragon*Con
Kill Excel: Kumoricon
Hellø Fairy: AWA Pro/Manifest
-- can be a bit annoying when you want to see a larger and more cohesive concept pulled off, but in the end it's their contests and their rules. The whole issue doesn't bother me enough to start complaining to the cons about it. (no offense implied to Sean for starting the thread)
What I wanted to do in making the video:
- Have fun. It was a lot of fun to make, partly because it was relatively easy. Maybe it was more fun for me than for the audience. If members of the audience didn't like it, then screw you guys, I'm going home.
- Hide jokes in the transitions. I realise the transitions were a little long, but they were done with an AviSynth function so it's easy to change.
- Rip off some of the other Hell videos a little, such as the Believe segment and some of the transition jokes. But honestly, some of the stuff that also appears in other Hell videos I had forgotten about. ie: I forgot about the "Commando" segment in AMV Hell 3, I forgot that Fullmetal Hell used the Indiana Jones song (but come on, it's too obvious for that episode of Bottle Fairy), and I forgot that "Lifestyles" used the Ooga Chaka song. That's probably where I remembered it from, but forgot where I heard it.
- Spread a little anti-Hell sentiment, but hopefully in a jovial manner, not a bitter or spiteful one. Is making a Hell video about not making Hell videos hypocritical? No more than spending a lot of time indoors making a video telling people to go outside.
- (re-)Introduce people to Max Headroom. The term "blipvert" comes from the show, which I love and wish would come out on DVD. (I first saw Ashyukun use the term to describe these kinds of videos) I had already made the "cube" animated background for another video that I never got around to doing, anyway. (BTW, even though there is no DVD release of the show, it can be found online if you look hard enough. The video used material from episodes 001, 101, and 201)
So have Hell videos jumped the shark? It depends on who you talk to. While creators, as seen in this thread, may be annoyed with them, with at least 16 convention wins so far this year they are still popular with fans and/or judges. I think what is more interesting, at least to me, is the decline of "traditional" comedy videos, and the relative difficulty in creating both types.
In closing, I don't intend to make a habit of making this kind of video. (I may still contribute to others, though) My previous video of this type was four and a half years ago.
Did anyone ever complain about the Weird Al medley videos?
PS: If anyone was wondering, different edits of HF were sent to different cons to comply with their time limit rules.
PSS: There's a parallel thread on this subject on the AMV ML, and Nic Neidenbach just made a good post on the subject.
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karu58
- Joined: Sun Dec 19, 2004 3:41 pm
- Location: Orangevale, CA
Thank you. I was just about to ask what the hell jumping the shark even meant.dokidoki wrote:So have Hell videos jumped the shark?
Now I don't have to bother posting! \o/
booyeah suckerfish!!
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DriftRoot
- Joined: Mon Jun 09, 2003 7:18 pm
- Status: As important as any plug-in.
- Location: N.H.
Just 2 cents here, but I know for Anime Boston there is not a large pool of comedy vids even being submitted, so the resulting finalists aren't necessarily chuckle-fests (last year's was amusing, but especially so if you understood the whole spoiler fest theme). As I understand it, the AB judges have dozens to choose from in the action and drama categories but only a tiny fraction of that amount in comedy (and romance). I don't know if there's a magic number of submissions - would the judges just not even run the category if only one or two videos (and bad ones, at that) were entered? Hmm...
Saying Hell incarnations have swept the competitions needs to be qualified by adding that there may not have been many (or any) decent comedy AMVs to seriously challenge with them. As was pointed out, it's easy to pile a bunch of quick jokes and get the audience laughing, it's a lot harder to sustain that over the course of 3-4 minutes. People are going to remember what got them going, and usually it will be a really excellent comedy vid or one packed full of one-liners.
Instead of complaining about Hell incarnations, editors should get to work making good comedy vids. YES, I am! Been at it for two years now and it's still not done. *is very ticked off about this* Anyone ever need ideas, I've got way too many to ever handle...hey, it's a new eBay concept: AMV ideas to the highest bidder! Sort of like those mystery boxes people pay ridiculous amounts of money for...
Saying Hell incarnations have swept the competitions needs to be qualified by adding that there may not have been many (or any) decent comedy AMVs to seriously challenge with them. As was pointed out, it's easy to pile a bunch of quick jokes and get the audience laughing, it's a lot harder to sustain that over the course of 3-4 minutes. People are going to remember what got them going, and usually it will be a really excellent comedy vid or one packed full of one-liners.
Instead of complaining about Hell incarnations, editors should get to work making good comedy vids. YES, I am! Been at it for two years now and it's still not done. *is very ticked off about this* Anyone ever need ideas, I've got way too many to ever handle...hey, it's a new eBay concept: AMV ideas to the highest bidder! Sort of like those mystery boxes people pay ridiculous amounts of money for...
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Illia Sadri
- Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2003 6:33 am
- Location: Wisconsin, USA
- Contact:
Well I will say one thing I am noticing with comedy in contests is that particularly with hell style vids being dominating, even they are not consistently funny in many cases. Heck, AMV Hell3 in all honesty has some stuff that works wonderfully and a lot of absolute crap. People like it for what they remember, which will be the extremely good segments, not the mediocre. That I think is a large part of their success in competition.
But yep, the solution is to get people to make full length comedy. Finish a full song, do it well, get it to the cons.
However I do wonder if attendees at cons are so used to every line being funny (because there is no buildup to jokes but rather lots of unrelated one liners) I wonder if the traditional comedy vid is going to be well received anymore.
But yep, the solution is to get people to make full length comedy. Finish a full song, do it well, get it to the cons.
However I do wonder if attendees at cons are so used to every line being funny (because there is no buildup to jokes but rather lots of unrelated one liners) I wonder if the traditional comedy vid is going to be well received anymore.
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MCWagner
- Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2001 11:37 am
- Location: Atlanta, GA
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Yeah, God forbid if you just wanna be funny.AMV_4000 wrote:hell videos should be banned cause you can use as many 1 liners as you want to make people laugh....
Look, just like every other trend in comedy AMVs, this one is funny now, will be popular for a while, then everyone will get tired of the flood of mediocre attempts, and it'll die out. It happened to Weird Al vids, it happened to pop-up-video, it happened to mis-placed lip-synch, ironic trailer matches and it'll happen to this. People forget that frequently the objective is to entertain an audience, not accomplish some gymnastic or endurance feat of editing. If it's funny and people like it, why not?
And I can further confirm the relatively barren wasteland that is the comedy category. By far the "shouty angst" of angry music to sad widdle characters who just bleed black gothy-ness has taken up the slack where comedy used to dominate in the last couple years. After marathon judging sessions, I welcome any comedy that still gets made in any form available.
Oh hell yeah. That was the "only funny because the song is funny" complaint from years ago...dokidoki wrote: Did anyone ever complain about the Weird Al medley videos?
Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt.
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dokidoki
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The Wired Knight
- Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2001 3:22 pm
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