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Jadd
2006-07-05 12:23:15
Laziness is no excuse... believe it or not, Rina did write hers as well, albeit not here :P
Where are those histories?!
Hand in your papers children. ^_^ -
Verm and Judgey...
2006-07-05 09:45:43
Where are your histories?!
Queen Jub stayed up for that... you owe her this much! -
A look back...
2006-07-05 04:19:50
Hmm...
After the Eminence concert last Sunday night and then with a conversation with a friend of mine the very next day, I've had a chance to reminisce about just exactly where AMVing has gotten me.
My first AMV was made sometime back in March of 2004 if memory serves me right. It was done to some Japanese music and was a stitching together of about 8 different anime which I happen to have the first few episodes to at that point. It was done in Windows Movie Maker, had subtitles, macroblocking (because my hdd speeds were not up to specs with the crap WMM needed) and even had the titles with the fansubbers marks on them. Was it bad? Of course.
Sometime later, maybe a couple of months, I finished my Scrapped Princes video. It was still done in WMM, and had some of the technical issues associated with that but upon premiering it to an anime marathon of my friends and I, it was pointed out that this was rather good. These are my friends so of course there was some bias but nonetheless it boosted my confidence.
At this point, I've known about the org and have been downloading and such but I've never really taken part in it. The forums were hostile, there were too many links to various things which were hard to decipher, and quite frankly I was heavily involved in other online communities already at that point. This was probably a good thing as it meant that neither of my first two videos made it here nor will they ever. First impressions here seem to last longer than they should.
Anyway in between that and November of 2004 I've come to make friends with the conventioning crowd at Manifest. As such after taking video footages of our antics and editing them together to some form of AMV (mixed in with whatever I could get my hands on at the time and made absolutely no sense). I probably made about 3 of these live action/anime videos. This was also the first time I moved from WMM to CyberLink PowerDirector. I haven't looked back since.
Talk To Me was created somewhere in October 2004 I believe and this is the first video listed on my org profile. It was an idea that came about out of pure chance. I wasn't looking for a project to do at that point. Quite frankly back then, I didn't think in terms of "projects" per se. I felt no compunction, no real push to make videos, no purpose. Talk To Me occured because I just finished watching Midori no Hibi and my sister lent me a CD containing Kerry Noble's song "Talk To Me". That's it. It was just a great combination and I just made it.
Just for laughs, I sent it in to Wai-con (Perth, Australia) which had their first convention on December of that year. Little did I know that it was going to be the catalyst that spirals me down this obsessive path. I remember the night of the convention and me being all the way on the other side of the country and how I fretted back and forth in their forums. I hounded anyone and everyone who was there to tell me something, anything!
At last someone said something along the lines of "oh, I think the winner was this Midori no Hibi video" and after I made sure there was no one else who made one, and getting official confirmation a few hours later, I was just ecstatic. My first win and it happened with my first ever entry into a competition. I remembered it was probably 1AM then and everyone was asleep. I was left to jump around and scream silently alone in celebration.
I might as well mention at this point that I proceeded to create Reason soon after the success of Talk To Me. At that point it was still just merely a case of me wanting to make a video to a song I was listening to at the time and to an anime I was watching then.
Soon after, somewhere in the beginning of 2005, I joined the Manifest Organising Committee and after realising the previous year just how much was left wanting in the AMV competition, I decided to run for AMV coordinator. I ran un-opposed, not because they thought they couldn't beat me, but because no one else wanted the job. That just strengthened my resolve in that I had to make this position much more than anyone else ever wanted it to be then.
Stand Your Ground and Look To The Stars were then the next videos that I created and were the first ones that I ever really treated as "projects". If you read the descriptions I make it sound like I've got such a purpose. Prerogatives of being a noob I suppose, in that you believe in your own highnest even if it didn't exist. Trouble was, after Stand Your Ground received awards in AnimeAU and then in Sakura Con too in the US, I sort of began believing there must be more to what I was doing than I first thought. I never really got big headed over these things, but it did mean from that point on that I had to do better each time.
Sometime after that was my visit to Hobart. As some sort of AMV expert... Me? I got a free trip (airfares and accomodation) to another state to judge their club's AMV competition. Wow... I mean... wow. I liked where AMVing was getting me at that point.
Bratja was next to come after that and it was mainly just one of those videos that had to be made again because of the music I liked at the moment as well as Naruto reaching the height of it story somewhat. This was sometime near Manifest and all the AMVing stuff of 2005 was sort of going towards a climax for me. There we had the AMV comp, and the Iron Chef competition for the first time too. After how much people wanted to attend the competition screenings, it was obvious that people were indeed wanting more, as well as having so many entries that year means I did my job in pimping the competitions. It was great.
I also premiered Dedication in Manifest. I think by this point in time I've come to realise just how much into AMVs I have gone. When I started hearing people comparing it to Waking Hour, I thought, "well, this is different". Looking back at it now, I know there's still a tonne of things I could improve with Dedication, but comparing it to most things around, I can say now with some degree of confidence:
I'm no longer a noob.
Round about a year after I really did anything in terms of the org, November 2005, I got into the Online Iron Chef stuff... big names in this league. I failed on the first round of course, but nonetheless to me this was like some sort of "hazing" process. Many of these people afterwards knew me. I was surprised later when I started going on #amv just how much people have known who I was.
Then came the journal people... yeah... you.
It's like getting access to instant opinions. I swear, once you're in this circle, you'd never really have to go back to the op exchange forums. They butcher and bitch about your videos enough that you'll get the idea eventually of what's good and what's bad editing. If you didn't, then you're denser than lead. <3 to the Journal Junkies.
In a vain attempt to take the title I first coveted in Wai-con the previous year, I cooked up Listen To Your Heart almost in the span of one day. It wasn't really successful in that regard, but with it being in Wai-con once more a realisation came to mind. Almost half the entries in that year's competition were videos made by me and my fellow studio members in Amvience or at least were involved with us at some point or another. Somehow or other, we've been able to gather some of the good AMV creators of this country which was a hard feat seeing as how it's hard to find Australian AMV creators to start with.
At the beginning of 2006, I was even more greatly amused to find that Listen To Your Heart and Dedication got into semi-finals of the Viewer's Choice Awards. I was stunned, but at this point, not as surprised as I was when Talk To Me won the AMV competition in Wai-con more than a year previously. At this point, I've seen many many videos, and I've come to realise the level at which I have improved. I could be proud of what I achieved but you know, I still hate saying that. I never feel completely right receiving such high praises sometimes.
I'm always of the belief that the more praise I get, the more I become detached from those I'm receiving it from, and it's a lonely place to be someone who is admired and held in some sort of regard. So I go about all this feeling half guilty, half happy and mostly actually trying to avoid getting noticed.
The days of the MEP started when I got into the Christmas MEP. It was an interesting idea, and quite less frustrating than a full video actually. But yeah, I found myself doing this generally because it was editing with friends, the other bonus of all of this. Finding people that share the same ideas and passions as myself.
Anyway, at some point in time, ever since 2004, Anime Academy Heroes was probably the result of all this "improving" I've beend doing. It was worth it. I think you've heard enough about it for me to be able to stop here about it. It's become the video that I could ask strangers, "have you seen AAH?" and tell them, "yeah, that was me."
Then came the Valentines MEP and Piyush Juneja. With Piyush Juneja winning another Australian AMV competition, I've now been able to win all the AMV competitions in the country except for Manifest (which I ran, so ethically I don't enter my own competition) and AVCon (to which I'm sending my latest two videos, still un-released here ;)
Alice Spiel would be the last thing you'd see here listed on my profile at the time of me writing this journal entry. It was created purely to get back into the rhythm. It served its purpose.
So what's been happening in the past couple of weeks?
I've created some videos which were made with nothing behind them besides some sort of will to be even better than before. I feel this drive behind me now, a voice telling me "you're crazy for doing this" but at the same time saying, "meh, you've gone this far, just keep going."
The Eminence concert was a surprise for me. It was such a delightfully fun night and to see something I created be part of all that beauty really did send shivers down my spine as I listend to the magnificent music. It was a surprise to me in that, when I thought it couldn't get any better with how Anime Academy Heroes went in Sakura Con, now I get to become part of this.
My question still remains though... Could it possibly get any better than this?
Now you've read this far, let me read your AMV history XD - dang 2006-06-27 07:33:25 Crap... I fell asleep at 5... in the afternoon... and I woke up now at 9:30PM... and no matter how much I push myself I just can't make my eyes shut anymore. Crud... my sleep patterns are so stuffed.
- stalking? 2006-06-25 10:53:02 Seems like you girls have had a busy day.
JOURNAL: Infinity Squared (Mark )
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