I studied music in school, with a concentration in audio recording. I have never taken any classes or lessons in video editing, but during my second school year, I stumbled across Hsien Lee's awesome FLCL/Iron Lung video and that lead me here and that lead me to fumbling around and trying my own hand at AMVs.
My second video, set to a song by Tweaker, was linked to on the Tweaker fan forum, and the hits ended up seriously pumping my server (I didn't post the link, I had no desire to pay overage fees) and costing me around $60, because my "cheap" webhosting was a ripoff in the event of going over the bandwidth limit (I'd rather they had shut access down...). After posting on the board that I was flattered with the attention, I explained that it had cost me quite a bit, so I was pulling the vid.
Jeff Antebi, founder of the Waxploitation record label, which plays host to Tweaker, sent me an e-mail and said he would gladly pay the fees if I put the video back up - he wanted to show it to Chris (Vrenna - aka Tweaker)!
So I did, and Jeff cut me a check for $90, and I got a nice letter, some free swag (like Tweaker's first album and the Alice soundtrack - also by Chris Vrenna) including a drumstick autographed by Chris Vrenna himself - as a big NIN fan, this was a really big event for me. It inspired me to keep making vids.
I only made a couple more, but I am thinking about getting back into it now. Specifically because I recently had a job interview to be an audio and video editor at an advertising firm.
They wanted a Rennaissance Man, who could work on both audio and video. I brought two of my AMVs to demonstrate my video editing abilities, and I got the job! Lucky for me, they were looking for someone to work primarily with audio, which is my speciality. However, I am quite sure that if I hadn't had anything to show them to prove that I could work with video, I wouldn't have got the job.
So, just like Fatal1ty's parents may have told him he would never get a job by playing games all day, don't let your parents/significant other/friends tell you that you can't get a job by making AMVs, because they just might be the visual aid that sets you apart from the rest of the job applicants.
See you at Otakon 2007!
- Aaron B.
