I need advise on using manga in amv's

Lepidopteran_Productions · Post by **Lepidopteran_Productions** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 6:27 pm

I really can't do this certain AMV i have planned without it, and i will be doing a mixture of the anime, as well as images that came from the manga hopefully, but i have never before attempted something like this, and haven't seen it too much on here also.

Can anyone help with any advise? Warnings? Problems that might arise that you may have dealt with? Or if it's even rather acceptable in here?

I am at a rather early stage with my amv but i'm passionate about trying to work on it. I am pretty new with making them, which is why i'd like to ask those with more experience than me... As i'm still learning ^^; (which is as it should be - you should never stop especially when you think you know 'enough', but i'm so far back twards the beginning of the scale that i think outside help rather advisable)

dj_ultima_the_great · Post by **dj_ultima_the_great** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 6:36 pm

Rather than give you advice, I'm going to give you something that could potentially be equally as useful.

This is a thread that was started a few pages back, and it asked for suggestions on manga music videos. Of course, the editors suggested "the best" (their favorites). I think that you should watch them and try to observe for yourself what you think works and doesn't work. See why they're good, you know? I believe that that will help you as much as anyone throwing out advice - at least, on the creative side. For technical stuff, you probably should ask, as creators tend not to cover that in the video descriptions, and it's tough to infer things on your own just by looking.

Anywho, I hope that helps you. ^_^

- Jen

shumira_chan · Post by **shumira_chan** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 8:23 pm

A couple of years ago I made a manga/anime AMV
set to "Video Girl Ai" and "Take On Me" which
was inspired by the a-ha video (the best music
video ever, IMHO). Alas, my talent was simply
not up to the concept but I had quite a bit of
fun with the manga portion (and watched a lot
of other - better - MMVs in the process).

Afterwards, however, I came to realize that MMVs
seem to try very hard to infuse movement into
the images (some very successfully, I might add).
I think the idea is try to make it more
palatable to the people used to seeing AMVs
frantically move along all the time. It occurred
to me that this actually means working against
the source material, instead of playing to its
strengths. Not having to deal with movement allows
you to work much better with ideas rather than
actions.

I later went in the opposite direction: took
a few dozen anime frames to make a nearly static
AMV. This doesn't look as nice since manga is
usually better drawn than any given frame of anime,
but it was so much easier to focus on the story
instead of the flow that I found the trade-off well
worth it (you also avoid a lot of other encoding
issues).

So, my suggestion to you is, at least for the manga
part, to try to be faithful to the source and don't
attempt to make it something it's not (then again, I was
guilty of this myself in reverse ;)

Lepidopteran_Productions · Post by **Lepidopteran_Productions** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 8:27 pm

Thank you ^^ Seeing others could be rather helpful. Another question that's rather more important is the manga itself. I own the English volumes. as well as the newer volumes still in Japanese, but don't want to DESTROY them in the process of re-scanning them through a friend's scanner - although if that's the only way acceptable to get them, I'll do it if i have to o.o My problem is that i can not find them online raw. There's only the scanlations and i don't want to have to use them if possible.

What can i do about that? The only reason i'd be reluctant to submit this in a contest also would be because of the scanlations, and the fact that i'd feel... SO bad to the people watching it because it's likely to be UBER-Extreme spoilers -i can't even stress to the degree that, that alone would make me not submit it. (You can't exactly leave the room at amv contests - though i guess you could avert your eyes, but who does?)

That's why i want to know the stipulations on manga in amv's though also. Would anybody know?

btw- if need be i will actually go into paint and re-edit all text out if it IS that big of a problem, even if i'm not so good at it and it may take forever -_-

Lepidopteran_Productions · Post by **Lepidopteran_Productions** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 8:35 pm

Thank you for the advice shimura-chan, but i have something of an idea HOW i would go about trying to mix the two for my own style, i just need some help on obtaining information about things... and most likely I'll have to get searching (or scanning ><) where i can find raws -_-

Plus i don't have as much of a choice in utilizing manga for this amv, since it would just fall short in so many ways without it, and i don't have the option of waiting until the series gets there to take clips from it's anime, since it's finished, and there will never be any more. So i need to mix what is there, with what else I've got. i do actualy like the effect of manga well done in amv's though as a personal preference that i've found. It allows for more opportunities to portray things that you otherwise couldn't if you had to stick only to the anime renditions of things, that may, or may not have the scenes that you may need, or are looking for.

Not that i'm very good with these things to begin with, but i know the gist of what i'm looking to do right now. I really need to know more what's acceptable - before i pour my guts into the project only to realize i have to re-do it.

shumira_chan · Post by **shumira_chan** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 8:42 pm

Lepidopteran_Productions wrote:I really need to know more what's acceptable - before i pour my guts into the project only to realize i have to re-do it.

Very well then, here's my advice in that regard: don't worry
about what's acceptable to others, just focus on what's
acceptable to you :)

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 8:46 pm

As for the text bubbles, it's a double-edged sword. I wouldn't use English-texted subs, not because of spoilers (as plenty of traditional AMVs contain spoilers as well), but because it's distracting to the eyes of those that speak the language, and if the panels aren't distributed in a sensible, chronological fashion, it's just going to be confusing. A way around that is to either A) blank out the bubbles completely or B) use the Japanese originals. When I edited an MMV (or would it technically be a DMV, since it was doujin?), I used the Japanese since I find the blanking out method more distracting, but I still got comments that the text should have been removed. In the end, it's ultimately up to you and what looks good to your eyes.

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 8:47 pm

Qyot27 wrote:I wouldn't use English-texted bubbles

I need to go to bed.

Lepidopteran_Productions · Post by **Lepidopteran_Productions** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 9:29 pm

Thank you ^ ^

My problem right now is that i would use the original Japanese if i could get them >.>

I may blank some things, but overall some of the pages i need are very text heavy. It will be Loveless, and since that is a very dialogue heavy series, just for the concept alone, it might look, as you said, rather weird to have that much obvious blank spaces.

I also don't want to use someone else's hard work translating for my AMV. Also it's being licensed as a secondary concern about using something that was fan-done.

Though i'm getting to the point where i want to order the magazines from Japan itself, and ask a friend to let me borrow her scanner...

JaddziaDax · Post by **JaddziaDax** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 9:47 pm

most of the good ones i have seen found some way to slightly animate parts like falling leaves or backgrounds and stuff, they used many layers and came out rather neat..

what you could do is photoshop out the bubbles so that they are blank. ive seen a few good ones that do that.