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AUTO BIOGRAPHY HAS BEEN ...um...fixed?
2008-10-25 13:19:46
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=1187839#1187839
So now it's in that thread - an abridged and extended version I much prefer over what I initially posted here.
And I realized after the fact that FF8 was released in Japan in 1999, not 1998, and so therefore all my pre-2000-ish dates are off by one year. *bonks self on head* I don't know why I persist in doing that, I know very well when it came out because that was the spring I graduated from college and was in danger of spending more time on that game than on my school work. Although I did all my thesis work in my junior year, so actually my senior year was not so bad...
It's the weekend and Drift is making lots of journal posts!!!!!
She also accidentally overdosed on her new meds and feels like she just drank two dozen cups of highly caffeinated coffee within the space of a half hour!! *bounces off the walls* -
:( a.m.
2008-10-25 07:52:53
Perhaps that thread is by invitation only, but since I already invited myself and I have a habit of making a lot of journal posts, my *cough* little AMV autobiography is going to vanish very quickly. I guess I should post something permanent in the thread to correct things...
This is when I really wish there was an edit option in that forum. Grrr
Oh!! Ordered my music for XII yesterday. I am biting the bullet and attempting to make an AMV that I'm not terrible enthused about making. I feel like I need my own cheerleading squad. -_- -
:(
2008-10-24 21:29:27
Why do I always feel like hiding under a rock after I make a personal journal entry?
Because you say things that can be taken the wrong way!!
Yeah...I guess. I read it and I go "eeeech...that sounds bad."
But you're being honest, at least!
Well, yes, but honesty on the Internet often causes a lot of trouble. I know. Believe me.
Who's going to get on your case for being self-centered in your journal? It's YOUR JOURNAL.
I still don't quite understand what the .ORG put the journal here for, actually. I mean, what do they want us to do with it? Write personal stuff? Objective stuff? Talk to one another? Comment on AMVs? I don't quite get it.
It's probably there so people can talk to themselves. There's a lot of lonely folks around here, after all.
Really?...hey. I've got my dog. I'm not lonely!!
Then stop talking to yourself in your journal, already. Yeesh. You've got nothing better to do on a Friday night than make journal posts?
This is rural Vermont. Unless I'm going out cow tipping, there is not much to do within a 40-mile radius. Plus, I have to work tomorrow morning, so it's not like this is a real Friday night anyways. I haven't had one of those in a long, long time.
ok, fine.
Besides, I'd get in more trouble if I were to talk about other people in my journal. If it's just me, me, me then it's ok.
I suppose.
....
This was better that time I was a choreographer and was yelling at the dancing girls in Dirge of Cerberus.
Oh yeah, that was fun.
Or the time right before Anime Boston when I was fussing about my tabloids getting all fuzzy on a big screen. THAT was fun.
Yep. But the choreography bit was better.
I guess...but I'm tired right now...even though I can feel my heart beating unnaturally fast...I hope this new medicine doesn't give me a heart attack or something. Technically it's my old medicine, but I haven't been on it for over a year so who knows what's going on.
CALL THE DOCTOR
I will on Monday. -_- Jeez. You sound like my mother.
Note to self: journal posts get more crazy on this medication. Split personality disorder or just high spirits?
I don't know, you tell me. -
My AMV Autobiography - Drift's longest journal post ever? mebbe...but I kind of doubt it
2008-10-24 20:26:34
Factual, condensed version:
1998 - Saw first AMV and fell in love with it, even though I didn’t know it was an AMV.
2001 - Discover AMV.org and (amusingly) vow to make an AMV like no one had ever seen before.
2001-2006 - Try sporadically to make an AMV and fail, racking up hundreds of hours of editing with nothing to show for it. And I do mean nothing. Also get disgusted with the elitism of the amv.org community and vacated the premises for quite awhile, not to mention AMV plans. Attend Anime Boston’s AMV competition in spring 2006 and am inspired all over again to make an AMV and, more specifically, get into the AB finals.
2007 - Create “An AMVers Guide to the Pen Tool” with a certain lessening of disgust for AMV.org community. Renewed determination to make an AMV and prove a personal belief that I can do anything as long as I believe I can do it and try hard enough pay off in the fall, when I finish my first AMV, “Sephiration Anxiety.”
2008 - Create and release my second AMV, “ ‘Bustin” to much ado, entering five competitions and winning awards at four. Screw up and earn the scorn of almost the entire AMV community. Release a third and fourth AMV, “My Song Ate My AMV” and “Takeout” in the spring and fall, respectively.
Factual, weird, extended version: (one can tell I’m on my new meds because my writing style is all choppy. I feel great, but man…it kills my writing…)
I Want My AMV
One sometimes hears about life-changing moments, the kinds of moments – large or small – which mark a definite bend in the road and take the traveler places they otherwise would not have visited. This happened to me approximately 10 years ago when I accidentally saw half a commercial for Final Fantasy VIII on MTV. “Accidentally” because I never watched MTV, was not supposed to be watching MTV and never saw that commercial again. Nevertheless, my life altered course in those 40 seconds.
One aspect of my personality, which actually takes a lot of people a very long time to discover, is that I go through regular periods of obsessive interest in things. Most likely I inherited this trait from my father, although it’s much more obvious in him because it manifests itself in the hobbies he takes up. I, on the other hand, get obsessed about ideas. If those ideas happen to relate to someTHING then of course my interest gets a little more obvious, but even then no one usually realizes how much is really going on upstairs. If I am obsessed with something, I think about it 24/7, non-stop. A good example is when Advent Children came out. I lived, breathed and slept AC for about six weeks (particularly Vincent) and was absolutely euphoric the whole time. A psychiatrist once told me this is abnormal - that one should constantly be thinking about things - but I haven’t killed anyone yet so what’s the big deal?
In any case, this is how half a commercial for a game I’d never heard of (although I had heard of FF7) wound up having so much influence. I saw it, I had to find out more about it, I went online and landed on a site full of information about the game, discovered the fun of forums and chatrooms and eventually was initiated into the early realm of file sharing, a la bittorrent and IRC. This is Napster-era, I’m talking about, when you got your fansubs not from download links on Web sites, but by scouring the bittorrent/IRC highways and never really gave a second thought to fansub quality, viruses or whether it was ok to download anime for free. At some point one of my online friends passed me an AMV made with “Enter Sandman” and FFVIII, which I promptly fell head-over-heels in love with and would watch at least 20 times a day. At that time I didn’t know it was an AMV – in fact in 1998 it probably wouldn’t even have been called an AMV – and I’ve never found it again, although it might exist on the Tube. I was 21.
The Descent
By 1999 I had been introduced to all kinds of people who were introducing me to all sorts of other things, particularly anime, which I’d always been fascinated with but had never had a means of obtaining. Amazing what kinds of new worlds a cable modem can open up to you. By 2001 I was a bonafide America otaku and, in the course of searching for the FFVIII AMV (which I’d lost after my father reformatted my hard drive without my knowledge/permission), discovered amv.org. Wonder and amazement ensued, along with another obsession.
This time, however, it was of a horrifically frustrating and depressing sort. For one thing, I couldn’t get my head around the technical aspects of the endeavor – it must require use of the side of my brain I don’t use very well – and for another, I became extremely…disgusted…with the AMV community found here, so much so that I eventually associated the place with a bunch of elitist bastards. A very closed community, one which had nothing but scorn and derision and made newcomers feel like outsiders, that was my general opinion. I hated that feeling and - not being the sort who grovels to elitist bastards - after a year or two I basically said “screw you, amv.org” and went off to be obsessive about other stuff. I wasn’t getting anywhere with AMVs, after all, and the welcome mat definitely was not out for anyone didn’t make AMVs or who wouldn’t fall into step and worship those who could. The fact that I’d failed at something I really, really, REALLY wanted to be able to do burned me up, but I refused to admit defeat – I was *just* taking a break.
Anime Boston 2006
For the next few years I did my otaku thing, sans AMVs (I actually refused to download them from amv.org), and eventually wound up in the audience at Anime Boston’s 2006 AMV competition. That was the first year the con was held at the Hynes Convention Center and the year attendees were treated to “Hold Me Now” and “True Fiction” going head-to-head.
To say I was blown away is an understatement. That competition remains the highlight of all my convention experiences, which is saying something considering what happened two years later. What particularly impressed me was the ability of those AMVs to get up in front of the crowd and say “Get ready, because I’m going to show you a REAL good time” and then put on a fantastic performance. Most importantly, it gave me the feeling that their creators were pleased to put on this show, that they greatly enjoyed the chance to contribute to an awesome con experience for thousands of people. I wanted to do that – I wanted to make something that was an EXPERIENCE for people (a really good experience). I drove home from AB that year with completely renewed determination and desire to make an AMV (plus an urge to still say “screw you, AMV.org”) and had the fortune to hear a song on the radio as I was driving back (in the pouring rain at 11:30 p.m. – I remember it quite well) that literally made me shout “OH YEEESSSS!!” and begin to howl with mad laughter.
The Descent Part II
I spent the next year attempting to make that AMV and getting nowhere. I still felt I could make an AMV – in fact I felt sure I could make a really good one – but what I had taken to calling AMV gods were clearly against me. Every possible problem that one can imagine cropped up at every single turn. It’s really quite mind boggling, all the crazy stuff that seemed to happen just to prevent me from making AMVs. It got so bad and so unbelievable that I started – out of sheer frustration – chronically my spectacular non-progress in the nifty journal AMV.org had. It made me feel like I was a part of the community even if I was off in a corner somewhere, ranting and raving with only the occasional passerby checking in to say “Yep, she’s still at it and she still can’t do it.”
All-in-all, by 2007 I had probably spent upwards of 500 hours on AMV-related stuff with nothing to show for it. ZEEERO. I took to stating that I – with no AMVs to my name – could be said to have more experience at AMVing than someone who’d made 10 AMVs (assuming a 40-hour per project ratio). Meanwhile, I also decided that I really enjoyed graphic design and went back to school to get that piece of paper that said I had a knack for it. Getting more familiar with a variety of design programs improved my ability to work with video editing programs and gave me all kinds of ideas for fun things to do with AMVs that I wasn’t really seeing anyone else attempting…but I still was an AMV editor wanna-be.
Despite a vague kind of commitment to make an AMV and enter it in Anime Boston’s 2007 AMV competition, I failed utterly that year and contented myself with instead writing an “AMVer’s Guide to the Pen Tool.” It took about 80 hours, all told, bit I figured that at least proved to folks hearabouts that I was capable of undertaking a large project and finishing it. Plus, it was the first time I actually got the impression that the community had changed a little, that even if you weren’t a “real” AMV editor you still had something to contribute. That was cool. So I made it and - while I have no idea how many people have used it or what good it’s done - I also don’t see as many god-awful masks as I used to so maybe people got the hint and put down their dratted magic wands and lassos. I now intend to re-make it, because I can’t stand the way it’s put together, but I’m kind of busy with other stuff at the moment.
More Than “Just” An AMV
When AB 2007 rolled around, I had no AMV whatsoever. To make a long story short, I don’t really remember how it started, but it ended with someone making a theoretical bet that I couldn’t make an AMV that would get into the competition…or something like that. Well…that just really stuck it to me. I was getting to the end of my rope anyways, where AMVs were concerned, but that just sent me over the edge. I had a great deal more technical know-how than I ever had before, lots of ideas, a decent amount of intelligence…why the HELL couldn’t I “get” this AMV stuff? What wasn’t clicking?? Was I really incapable of making an AMV??
The issue was quite concerning to me, as my entire life I’d operated under the assumption that if I believed hard enough I could do something, then I could do it. I really did believe I could make an AMV…but if I gave up, if I failed, then one of my fundamental beliefs would be proved invalid, sending shockwaves through all sorts of other beliefs. This may sound very grandiose and dramatic…but that’s the way it was. I’ve done a number of things with absolutely no assistance from anyone else solely because I believed I could do them and this was the first time I had failed at it. The whole situation was just about incomprehensible and a real Big Problem, in terms of how I lived my life. So, being that life had kind of smoothed at around me and I also finally had the time and resources to devote to AMVs, I decided it was do or die for AB 2008.
Ding Ding Ding
I made my first AMV. I don’t even remember, anymore, what I was originally working on – it was something with Advent Children – but I was up until 11 p.m. fighting with my footage (age-old AMV god wrath going on), then I went to bed and had bad dreams about it and woke up to “That‘s All” by Genesis. Instant light bulb, instant obsession, instant ability to make an AMV. Looking back it was quite incredible, like someone threw a switch and suddenly I “got” it – I “got” how to put an AMV together. It still took me a heck of a long time and it was quite difficult, but I managed to muddle through and in the fall of 2007 released my first AMV, “Sephiration Anxiety.” Finally…after years and years of trying…I was now a “real” AMV editor. Most importantly of all, however, I had proved I could do what I believed I could do.
By this time, of course, my journal activity was quite extensive and I was participating more in AMV.org…stuff. It felt like the site was a little better than before, people were more open-minded and helpful and there seemed to be more of a goodwill effort to simply enjoy the hobby. I didn’t detest the place like I used to, but I was still wary of it…not quite sure that I even wanted to “belong” (or that anyone actually wanted me to).
Do or Die
My next AMV attempt, I decided, was going to be my big AB AMV competition endeavor. I’d made an AMV…ok, but now I had to make a REALLY good one. I had to make it count, it had to be the very best I could possibly do, a 150% effort that cut no corners, that was designed exclusively to get into the finals of that competition. This had been my goal for quite a few years but – finally – it seemed within reach. Most people, of course, would have said it was a completely ridiculous and over-zealous goal for someone like me to have. Ok, so I’d made one AMV…but I’d failed miserably for about four years running and the one AMV I HAD made wasn’t exactly anything to jump up and down about. Most anyone would have said it was a long shot – heck even I thought it wouldn’t happen – but I refused to even consider the possibility that I didn’t have what it took to do this.
So I made my second AMV – “ ‘Bustin” – and spent a good deal of time blowing off steam and de-stressing in my journal, without which I’d have probably have been even closer to a nervous breakdown than I already was after four months or so of work on that project. I was so burned out and frustrated by the end of it all that I had real doubts about whether the AMV was good enough to get into the competition. For one thing, I knew no one had ever really done anything like it, which possibly meant it was too bizarre and outlandish to be acceptable, and for another I was quite aware of how much the AMV had failed to live up to my expectations. I ran out of time to do everything I wanted and could personally barely stand to watch it anymore.
This kind of attitude led me to release ’Bustin prior to Anime Boston. I knew I’d made something unique, but I wasn’t sure if it was actually any good or would be …appreciated…by anyone. That AMV was a HUGE personal accomplishment on a number of levels…but most other people could care less about what it meant to me, about why it was so important to me long before it ever went public. The truth is that I was never as proud of my AMV (or myself) as I was the moment before I officially uploaded it here.
Holy Crap
That about sums it up. Although “You’ve got to be kidding me/OMG/Someone slap me/How the hell did THIS happen” also apply. My second AMV was greeted with an astonishing level of enthusiasm and praise. I made it into the finals not only at Anime Boston, but every competition I entered, and won awards at all but one of those competitions. Other cool stuff happened, too, like Vlad nabbing it for his AMV comedy hour thing. It was all very unexpected and it took me awhile to realize what I’d done, which accounts for why I now say I would have done things differently if I’d had any inkling as to what WAS going to happen.
Spring/Summer 2008
I released a third AMV which sometimes I call my second AMV, but usually call MSAMAMV (My Song Ate My AMV) which was something I’d been messing with at the time ‘Bustin took shape. Didn’t announce it – MSAMAMV was just a failed experiment – and people stumble over it however they can. It did better than I’d expected, although after I took the “DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS AMV” headline out of the comments area, the ratings predictably started to drop because, I guess, less open-minded folks were watching it. hehe *insert Holy Crap some more, around the beginning of July*
Also of note during this time period is that at some point I made a terrible mistake during an #amv-review discussion which happened to coincide with a certain medical condition of mine getting out of hand (thanks to the idiocy of my physician, no less). The mistake being my offhand, joking comments not meant to be part of the discussion wound up looking LIKE part of the discussion and me like an egotistical ass. Mistake also being thinking AMV.org was a kinder, gentler place than it used to be where people are willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt, rather than slit their throat the second one drops their guard. Silly me. So I got yelled at, in some cases by people I didn’t expect to be yelled at by, and I (thanks to illness) got very upset and didn’t make things any better. Bad, bad scene. At the time I was convinced that I had effectively destroyed everything my second AMV meant, everything it stood for, and went from having fond thoughts of it to nearly wishing it had never existed. After awhile a few people (I guess) decided I wasn’t Evil Incarnate and DID give me the benefit of the doubt…which was surprising, but also reassuring. … so after I sort of got a handle on things (not to mention my new medication) I said a few more things I wanted to say and Moved On.
Moving On included tackling one of my oldest AMV concepts – a video set to “Hoe-Down” – which unfortunately proved to be quite challenging and nearly caused me to fall back into my old ways, namely not finishing AMVs. With the assistance of several beta tester-type folk, I persevered and released my third/fourth AMV “Takeout” in fall 2008, almost exactly a year after I released my first one. It also was received better than I anticipated, but most of all gave me the satisfaction of knowing I could finish an AMV even if I didn’t like the cards I was dealt (which is good, given that I largely deal them to myself).
2008...
At the moment AMVing is taking a backseat - there are a number of things I’ve put off doing because AMV-related matters took up so much of my time, but I don’t want to put them off anymore. Plus, I am a very slow editor, often I say bad editor (because I’m slow) and admit I don’t really have any natural talent at this stuff. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that if I want results, I need to put in the time. I’m not as bad as I used to be, fortunately, which proves I’m making progress, but I am slow.
This time issue is a huge problem in more ways than one. I work at a computer 40 hours a week and to come home and sit down and work some MORE is very difficult. I have some neck/back/shoulder/hip/knee problems which are exacerbated by computer work, so most of the time I’m making AMVs (not to mention making a living) in a state of some kind of physical pain. I physically cannot devote extended periods of time to computer work without suffering from things ranging from blinding headaches to screaming back muscles. Plus I have carpal tunnel. In both wrists. No, folks, making AMVs is not easy for me on a number of levels and it definitely affects what I can do and how fast I can do it. Gimme a break, ok?
Also, right now I feel like I accomplished not only what I set out to do, but a ton of things I never even dreamed of accomplishing. My goals have all been met, which necessitates setting new goals. It’s unfortunate the nature of the beast demands these new goals be bigger than the old and that I feel like I’m forever going to be trying to recapture the feeling of reaching those old goals. It’s very hard, really. To have suddenly, almost overnight, accomplished so many goals which, for years on end - despite how hard I tried - I could not reach. It’s not all downhill from here, but going uphill is going to be a rather daunting task. Fortunately I thrive on challenges, and I'm happy to say the proof is my AMVs. -
THE FORUM HAS TURNED INTO A CONDENSED VERSION OF MY JOURNAL
2008-10-24 13:00:46
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=91280&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
See!! I'm not the only one who gets long winded about the topic of themselves and AMVs!
My entire...no...a lot of my AMV history is in this journal, which is why I write it. i kind of wish there was some way to make it more bloggish, so I could go back and find things I've written or whatever. I tend not to remember certain things because I've written them down. @_@
I will inflict my own journal with an autobiography some time this weekend, just for kicks and to reiterate my bizarre and tumultuous AMV career (only term I can come up with, sorry).
JOURNAL: DriftRoot (Lauren C.)
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