Forum - View topicAnswerman - Are Anime Music Videos A Dying Art?
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D00dleB0Y
 Posts: 120 |
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Lol, it's funny because almost every AMV made has a linkin park song in it.
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Freyanne
 Posts: 216 |
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I seriously didn't even know people still make AMVs, especially non-comedy ones. I thought that died/faded out years ago.
Oh gosh, I remember a time when it seemed like nearly every AMV was using a Linkin Park song (especially "Breaking the Habit"), "those two Evanescence songs", or Cascada's "Everytime We Touch". Plus the honorable "Kryptonite" mention...and when people would use Dane Cook(?) skits for their comedy AMVs. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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The thing is...have the AMV fans ever been big enough for the Japanese content providers to care? From their perspective, these are people taking THEIR stuff and making something different about them. With the way both the anime and music businesses were about total control over their output, that wouldn't fly.
Though it depends on a case-by-case basis, the really large conventions still have AMVs as a major event with hundreds of people watching. Whether it's the BIGGEST one, I don't know, but they now have to compete for attention (and, at some conventions, attendees' budgets) with Masquerade, concerts, world premiere screenings, and high-profile guests. All in all, the purpose of an AMV is to be watched, and it'd make sense that AMV makers would prioritize the biggest conventions as they'd have the biggest potential audience.
I thought that too, until I saw the AMV contest at Anime Expo last year. It was completely different than what I used to see, which were mostly fight scenes (and in turn mostly from Naruto) set to emo music. I didn't see any visual effects or composite images or anything of that sort. They just took a fight scene, then put some song about pain and misery to it without any synchronization or additional editing. But I shouldn't have been so blind as to assume something is dead just because I don't hear about it, considering one of my hobbies has been dead to the mainstream for close to two decades now but still has a thriving fandom with new content still being produced. I'm sure many other people have at least one hobby like that too. |
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Gwydion
 Posts: 156 |
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Considering how some people feel about their old work, I'm not sure how you'll feel about this, but I still have an old Digimon AMV of yours saved on my computer ("I'm With You") - that and a Kouichi AMV set to an Evanescence song are my two oldest Digimon AMVs, and they fill me with much giddy nostalgia. XD (EDIT: And a quick check tells me you did "Looking For the Answers" as well.) I still love AMVs, but I do find it a lot harder to find good ones these days. I used to check for new stuff fairly often, but now I'll search AMV.org maybe once or twice a year. Always a blast when I find something good, and I was never picky on genre or style - as long as it's well edited, even if I haven't seen the show, I can still usually get a decent amount of enjoyment seeing the work someone else put into it. But with the rise of them going up on YouTube, it's become even harder to find good ones. I've tried searching on there a couple times, but I got frustrated pretty quickly every time. A shame, really, as I'm sure there are some great ones only up there that I'm missing out on. Still, it's always fun seeing folks at cons watching AMVs I've seen millions of times over - couple years back saw a group gathered around a laptop cheering and laughing as most of them saw "Right Now" for the first time. It made me smile. I hope that, even if it's not as big as it used to be, AMVs keep being a thing. |
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Kazemon15
 Posts: 400 |
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Nooooo delete them, they're horrible! Subtitles galore, no real sync! Im With You was my very first AMV uploaded ever.... lol. Nah, you can keep them. =3 They serve as a good reminder of where I came from, back in the old Windows Movie Maker days....Man I grew alot from that. Over 16 years editing now for me. (Speaking of Digi, I have some Digimon Tri AMVs in the works too...I still haven't forgotten Digimon lol) Well I did remake one f the Evanescence song ones, if you haven't seen it. Better than the Windows Movie Maker one, that's for sure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6fTyhCmpBI Well for me to seperate the good and the bad, I usually check to see if any of the youtube people have an account on animemusicvideos.org. Most of the time if people are connected to the org, they are decent, but it's not always the case. It can be a hit or miss. |
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Fenrin
 Posts: 696 Location: SoCal |
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I really enjoyed Qyll's 'year in review' Animegraphy series (especially the 2014 one, I still get chills at the end) and I'm really sad he decided to stop after 2015. I've seen others try to pick up his work last year but it just doesn't have the same quality and impact. It does seem like a tough job with no real returns to sift through 200 anime every year for the key piece from each that will flow flawlessly with the rest.
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Perhaps it's not novel because it's become so expected. Pop stars make music videos for at least two singles an album. But they still hold cultural cache. Beyonce's Formation still blows up the net, and her visual album, Lemonade received full artistic treatment (with a literal premium release on HBO) and critical acclaim to match. Viral music videos can launch artists' careers or remake them--both, in Justin Bieber's case. 
Why are you guys having such a hard time finding good AMVs in this age of abundance? The best way to find AMVs worth watching is to search for the contest winners after the major cons. The best ones win multiple cons and are pretty easy to find. The only times I watch the really bad ones anymore are when I feel a song matches a show in some way so strongly that I'll seek out any video of them together--unfortunately, I never learned the skills or got the equipment needed to make vids of my own. But if you used to like AMVs and only stopped watching them because of the glut on Youtube, search and you shall find! |
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escahime65
 Posts: 87 Location: Iowa |
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I have been pretty obsessed with AMVs for years now but have dropped off lately. That's mostly because of the trend of putting the song lyrics in big letters throughout the amv which annoys me. Also, the glut of crappy amvs on youtube makes it hard to find the good ones and it seems like amvs.org has fewer videos being uploaded to it.
That said, I have found several good Yuri on Ice amvs such as: https://youtu.be/4WfqF7bhTY4 https://youtu.be/jb5yvkKzGng https://youtu.be/rt0iKDJ4jHs https://youtu.be/k0nYNL5m9HQ AMV contests have also been one of the main reasons I go to conventions. I never miss the awards ceremony! |
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Brakus
Posts: 130 Location: Virginia |
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As program director for The Video Art Track at AWA now, (as well as from the quality of videos being sent to big contests like Sakura-Con, AX, and Otakon) I would say that AMVs are indeed still just as popular now as they once were back in the aughts. It's not a centralized community, but rather much more global. Europe (and especially Russia) has been putting out professional-quality AMVs for years. And newer editors like Shin-AMV, Rider4Z, Drabaz, Celia Phantomhive, PixelBlended Studios and others have been making videos that continue in the traditions of the people they went before them (Brad Demoss, AbsoluteDestiny, Kusoyaro Prods., VicBond007, MeriToT/VegettoEX, Tim Park, et al.)
p.s. The viewing public might like AMV Hell-style blipvert videos, but most editors and contest coordinators LOATHE them. p.p.s. I've made AMVs for at least the past 14 years. I haven't really had much time to make more lately, but that's more due to the fact that I have other obligations and hobbies that take higher priority these days. But who knows, I might churn out a new one in time for Otakon's contest in the summer. |
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Brakus
Posts: 130 Location: Virginia |
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Also, might I say that a lot of AMVs lately have gotten me to buy the music used in the video more than to buy the anime used. Especially since I don't listen to commercial radio much. I bought stuff like "Bang Bang", "Wake Me Up", "The Walker", "Shut Up and Dance", and "Uma Thurman" and discovered bands like Skye Sweetnam and I Fight Dragons because of AMVs and not because of their playing on the radio or the offical MVs from the band. AMVs are as much a vehicle to get people to listen to/purchase the music used in a video as it is to get people to watch/purchase the anime used.
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Crisha
Moderator
 Posts: 4290 |
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Speak of Yuri!!! on Ice and you shall summon the monster (Re: Me). Those are some pretty nice AMVs. The first one, Yuuri's Got Stamina, has too many white flashes for me (they detract from the video), and not all of them are on the clap, which annoys me. And partway through they suddenly change to black flashes, which I actually would have preferred the entire video to have. The timing is pretty good at least, and the song is appropriate for Yuuri, but the editing is too inconsistent to consider the video all that good. However, the second one, Rise Up? Oh yeah, that's pretty f***ing good. Like the whole sequence between 1:41 and 1:48 (especially that moment at 1:48, when the flicking of Yuuri's arm is timed to the beat of the song) is timing shit that I really love, when the motions of the character emphasize the beats of the song. That is WAAAAAY more effective than white flashes trying to cause epileptic seizures. An AMV doesn't need effects to make it great, just good timing and scene selection (like with ileia's The Pretty Cure for the Common Magical Girl). Dez Zyre did a really great job with Rise Up, keeping the scenes dramatic with the song, and choosing a song that fits Yuuri well (maybe not the same tone as the series, but I'm a sucker for dramatic videos so I don't really care about that). I do have a complaint though. In the upper left and lower right corners you can occasionally see stamp marks of where they actually got the clips of the anime, which is annoying to see. This AMV really needs to be redone with clean video. The third video, In the Name of Love, is the same as the second - really great selection of scenes and timing the motions of the characters to the music. Really great editing done, and the effects are kept simple yet remain effective. I really love the scenes where the motions of the characters are the same across different episodes of the anime and RLOrbiter decided to flip between them to the beat of the song - it looks really awesome each time. This is one of my favorite Victuuri AMVs now. I'd kill for them to redo any pairs dancing scenes with clean video (none of the ending credits) once it becomes available. The only thing I don't care much for is the song itself (the high-pitched "AAH-AAH" moments annoy me), but that's minor in comparison to how well-done the video is. And once I saw that the 4th video, Hypnotizing, was by MoonlitxShadows, I figured I would like it (see my own recommendation below). And I was right. Great editing, great clip selection, great effects, fun song choice that fits the show. It left me with a big smile on my face and jig in my step. Another amazing Victuuri AMV. So I've added the last 3 vids to my favorites, and later I'm going to look on AMV.org to see if they're uploaded on there for me to download copies. Thanks for the recommendations! As for my own recommendations: One of my favorite YoI AMVs is the one that MoonlitxShadows did to the opening song "History Maker." I love how they included the opening title from the OP of the show, but had it overlay Victor performing his Stammi Vicino routine. The perfect thing about this video is it is one I can share with my Facebook friends (a majority who are not into anime) to show why this show is so awesome, since about 75% of my posts nowadays has to do with YoI. It displays some of the best ice skating sequences on the show and dedicates time to each character who skated on the show - very representative of the show. EDIT: Now that I know MoonlitxShadows has done other YoI AMVs, I've started checking out their other videos, and I haven't been disappointed! (They're also quite prolific). TGIF is a short funny one that ties some of the funniest moments in the show to the song "Last Friday Night" by Katy Perry. One and the Same is a fun Victuuri video that does a good job at using video effects and scene selection to compare Yuuri and Victor (i.e. I like the split screen effect at 1:37). Also, I like the zoom effect that they use throughout their videos, because it's done effectively. They've got other YoI videos as well, which are well worth checking out, but those two above stuck out the most to me. I also like this video, Death of a Bachelor by vityanikiforova, despite the ugly tumblr identification at the bottom left of the entire video, blech (a sadly more common trend for videos now to prevent others from stealing and claiming the video for their own). This is largely because "Death of the Bachelor" has become the quintessential Victor song for me. Posts on tumblr started passing around Stéphane Lambiel's performance of "Don't Stop the Music," except changing the music out with Panic! at the Disco's "Death of a Bachelor" - and the results works really well! People were commenting how they could totally see Victor do that performance, and then a bunch of art and videos started to get made tying that song to this show. Last edited by Crisha on Thu Feb 23, 2017 11:02 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Sahmbahdeh
Posts: 712 |
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My favorite recent AMV is this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdUPwR6mzXo Only once before have I ever seen an Evangelion AMV that so perfectly captures the show, and the other one is unfortunately not available online to my knowledge. This FLCL AMV is sort of a paradox, because it somehow manages to both completely misrepresent what actually watching FLCL is like, while also capturing what the show is really about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUCMiquvT1U&t And finally, just because you said not to, here's one with Linkin Park (but it's the 20 Styles cover, so it's all good) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHLOtlXlnUk |
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prime_pm
 Posts: 2337 Location: Your Mother's Bedroom |
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If by the off chance I do come out of retirement I'd love to make a Keijo!!!!!!!! AMV, just to take one last crack at it.
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Neohybrid_kai
 Posts: 144 Location: Indonesia |
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Ah, AMV, that brings back memories. Back then I was an avid AMV watcher (anyone remember a website called totoro-no-ki?). Spent my time browsing amvs.org, filtering by favorite anime/genre/artist/song or keeping up with contests' entries and watch each winner. But even back then in my circle of anime fan friends, only me and one other guy that's into watching AMV. I've met with more anime fans from various generation now but still only a handful of them interested in AMV, let alone create it. Maybe AMV itself is a pretty niche hobby to begin with. Now that I have less free time, I can relate with the question, I wonder whether its me that's no longer into watching AMV or the number of AMV and its creators begin to decrease. I don't think virality is an issue, a Facebook video can have more than 10k views in short time as long as its interesting/hilarious (I've proved it myself) so maybe its about copyright, I guess I'll wait for "your name." releases to see if my guess is correct (I remember when "5cm/s" released, there were floods of AMV. If copyright isn't a problem, perhaps we'll see the same phenomenon). Or maybe we have more distraction today (everyone I know is either into mobage or steam when not watching anime). Anyway I'm thankful to AMV for introducing me to some good musician that become my favorites to this day (Vienna Teng, Reign of Kindo, Loreena Mc Kennitt, Belanova, to name a few) and I'm still looking for Elfen Lied AMV that uses Lazy Town's Cooking By The Book (anyone have it?).
Yep, I'm still visiting amvs.org and AKROSS to take a peek at their yearly contest and winners. |
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xstylus
 Posts: 263 |
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THIS. As a coordinator [Hi, I'm Troy], it was so apoplectic frustrating to see a contest filled with conceptually sublime and flawlessly edited videos get felled in the judging by a video that was nothing but a reel of random 5sec to 10sec gags. I took immense glee in writing the rule that banned them from AX. Last edited by xstylus on Thu Feb 23, 2017 2:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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(EDIT: And a quick check tells me you did "Looking For the Answers" as well.)
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