UPNetwork  

Go Back   UPNetwork > General Forums > Anime

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 10-01-2016, 07:57 PM   #1
Doppleganger
我が名は勇者王!
 
Doppleganger's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Emina Isle
Posts: 14,198
Send a message via AIM to Doppleganger
Whatever happened to AMVs?

I haven't seen an AMV proper in what feels like 10 years. What happened to the community built around making them? I've seen plenty on the Japanese side - MADs and MMDs are still quite popular - but the AMVs I have like Hold Me and Nemo (Emiya) are very old.

I've heard they're still shown at cons. But they're born on the internet, and the cribs look empty to me.
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望
今 信じあえる
あきらめない 心かさね
永遠を抱きしめて
Doppleganger is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-02-2016, 12:21 AM   #2
Talon87
時の彼方へ
 
Talon87's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Lafayette, Indiana
Posts: 20,578
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
I haven't seen an AMV proper in what feels like 10 years. What happened to the community built around making them? I've seen plenty on the Japanese side - MADs and MMDs are still quite popular - but the AMVs I have like Hold Me and Nemo (Emiya) are very old.

I've heard they're still shown at cons. But they're born on the internet, and the cribs look empty to me.
I. I think that AMVs are most popular with teens. That's why it feels to you like people stopped making AMVs but that they made them all the time ten years ago -- because ten years ago was precisely when you were an older teen. When you're that age, you happen to know a lot of people who make AMVs. When you're older, most of those people have retired from the hobby, and the few that haven't have slowed down. It's the younger AMV creators who have the optimism, the energy, and the free time that drive AMV creation. (And when I say optimism, I specifically mean the optimism that your efforts will not go unrecognized, that instead they might be met with acclaim.)

II. It is possible that AMVs are not made as much now, in the 2010s, as they were then, in the late 1990s and early 2000s. That time period, the turn of the century, was a time where young people made Flash videos and other similar things all the time. The Internet hasn't quit supporting the creation of zany Flash videos, and yet -- at least how I perceive it -- YouTube's top content these days doesn't seem to be crazy OC videos clocking in at 5 minutes or less. It's usually either video recordings (in the vein of America's Funniest Home Videos), tutorials and other "infotainment" pieces, Let's Plays, or (ever the classic YouTube choice) video clips from our favorite TV shows and movies. Like ... CGPGrey wouldn't have existed in 1999 in the old Flash era. Neither would have Pewdiepie. Neither would have the various children and young adults who go to the dentist and subsequently act weird under the influence of sedatives. The late '90s / early '00s was a time period for entertainment like All Your Base (and its derivatives), Shii's Song, and Hatten är din! (Hatt Baby). The commonality to all three of these pieces of turn-of-the-century Internet culture is, they are all derivative works (in the sense that they draw from pre-existing source material; they are not 100% OC) that then take that material and make something new from it (i.e. are OC). With Zero Wing's infamous "All Your Base" scene, we had a guy reading his own recording of the words with their humorously bad grammar. It spread like wildfire, spawned literally thousands of All Your Base-related videos and pictures, and even made its way into Time Magazine if I recall correctly. With Shii's Song, we've got a mishmash of two things, neither of which belonged to the creator of the Flash video -- 2channel's ASCII cats for the visuals, and the English dub of the PSOne game Lunar: Silver Star Story's memorable song "Luna's Boat Song", a.k.a. "Wind Nocturne". All they did was take the song, chipmunk-ify it, and put it to Japanese ASCII cats. Bam: instant Internet sensation. And Hatten är din? Well I think you already know -- take a Lebanese song and some stock 16-bit photos of people in traditional dress and place it against a childish "This is what it sounds like in my language! ;p" set of lyrics. Kerblammers: Hatt Baby is born.

I'm not at all surprised that AMVs grew so well in this cauldron. The bath had just the right properties to cultivate their growth. For what are AMVs but non-OC video and audio content that is then re-purposed by the content creator to make something that is OC? That's the basic gist of AMVs, anyway: take a song that's not yours, take video footage that's not yours, the song didn't originally go with the video footage, and edit the video footage in such a way as to make the song a natural fit.

III. This brings us to my third consideration. Perhaps you're right that AMVs have tapered off. And perhaps it's not so much "because we're not in the golden days anymore," but rather, it's because of where we are. And where we are is, Hell Valley DMCA Valley. AMVs traditionally are all about taking big name songs and putting them against anime footage. When I think of the most memorable AMVs I've seen, I think of songs like "Collide" by Howie Day, "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne, or "Iris" by The Goo Goo Dolls. All of these songs would've been DMCA safe back in 2004, whether because they were more "indie" (e.g. "Collide") or because their singer was a budding star (e.g. "Girlfriend"). And hell: in 2004, even the least DMCA-safe songs were DMCA safe. No one was taking down "Imagine" from YouTube. No one was taking down "Thriller". "Iron Man", "Hells Bells", "My Heart Will Go on" -- pick any genre, any famous song -- all of them could be found in people's crappy homemade videos that were up on YouTube for all to see. That's simply not the case anymore in 2016. You won't find most songs on YouTube these days outside of their record label-approved uploads. And the few you can find in user-created content, they're usually much, much smaller time than even the most indie of AMV songs.

As YouTube holds a de facto monopoly on the "people come to this site to watch short, amusing videos" market, and as YouTube also DMCA's left and right videos which use copyrighted songs without permission, I have to imagine that many AMV creators from the past (as well as many would-be AMV creators from the present) are probably discouraged from making AMVs anymore. You don't want to make a video using songs that you like less or that you feel match your video content less well than some other song. But you also don't want to use that better song if it means no one can then see your video. It puts you between a rock and a hard place (best song w/ no views, worst song w/ barely any views) and it demotivates you. So you don't make any AMVs. You just ... keep it to yourself, think it in your own head ... "Man, this scene would go great with this song I know ..."
Talon87 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-03-2016, 08:17 PM   #3
lilboocorsola
Dragon's Tears
 
lilboocorsola's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Searching for light
Posts: 6,453
Lil' Bluey

I dropped off the AMV scene for a number of demotivating reasons, most of which Talon outlined in his first point. Lack of time/declining interest in Animé as a whole have been major contributing factors, among other things.

Another personal observation is that I felt rather out of place amongst the "con crowd", as it were. Joining a "Private Editor's Chat" after AB mostly put me off for how dedicated they were to the technical aspects of production. Ever since I found out "Hold Me Now" was created by someone who had never seen the show, it sorta colored my perception of "professional" AMV editors. To me, AMV-making has always been a pastime of passion/to pay tribute to a series that I love, and I cannot for the life of me fathom how someone can put so much time and effort into something for which they have no feeling for (unless it's like a fun party mix or something). The fact that MCA was a flop (both animation and story-wise) was a harsh blow to that degree, since I had been so looking forward to making something I could show off to advertise the series publically. *shakes head at SHAFT* (Here's hoping Reload at least provides more/better material to work with.)

I do want/intend to return to unfinished projects someday. Been considering doing something for Haruhi's 10-year anniversary actually. (Plus since I'm nearly done with the final chapter Batfic I have planned I may finally be able to move on/back to other hobbies. *shot* I swear the Dark Knight - or Robin rather - has officially consumed my life. OTL *sinks deeper into the abyss* Heck, my last two "AMVs" were Batvids. XP)

On Talon's third point: I find copyright to not be as much of an issue nowadays, since YT usually lets you get away with using songs so long as you agree to advertisements. Still iffy about reuploading some of the vids I got strikes against though. >.> Like my Pokémon one (which I'm still pretty darn proud of, especially in light of my skills at the time).
lilboocorsola is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-03-2016, 11:42 PM   #4
Loki
The Path of Now & Forever
 
Loki's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 5,304
AMVs are pretty much only seen around Anime Conventions. I don't think I've ever seen any showcased outside of one. Sure you can go find them, but if you look for anything, you'll probably find it.
Loki is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-04-2016, 01:24 AM   #5
deoxys
Fog Badge
 
deoxys's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 6,513
AMVs still very much exist, they're just much more niche now for several reasons - quality dropped, because the scene started slowing down, because the people who made them moved on to do better things (and were mostly teenagers with a lot of free time), and also because people slowly started losing interest.

AMVs are still around though. Here's a good quality Re: Zero AMV, my only real gripe being the pace feels off for the song's style (which happens to be an overplayed song at that). Decent JoJo one. Not a terrible One Piece AMV (from 2014). Here's a Boku no Hero one I actually think is pretty decent (edit: just kidding, this one is actually really damn good in my opinion, damn shame it has so little views)

Anyway it's basically not so much that they've disappeared so much as the internet is less saturated with them. Well, that's not exactly true. You could pull a quick search of "Naruto vs Sasuke final fight amv" on YT and you'd pull quite a lot of results, and that episode only just aired days ago - none of them have any quality, most are just music overlayed to the fight with almost no editing, a mixture of people desperate for easy views and people who've probably had a song in their head for the final fight for 10+ years and didn't even try to make it match up.

So rather, we don't notice them anymore, because the ones that are trash go unnoticed and the good ones are harder to come by for all of the reasons basically everyone here's listed.

Last edited by deoxys; 10-04-2016 at 09:39 AM.
deoxys is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-04-2016, 08:56 AM   #6
lilboocorsola
Dragon's Tears
 
lilboocorsola's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Searching for light
Posts: 6,453
Lil' Bluey Recommendations ahoy~

Quote:
Originally Posted by deoxys View Post
AMVs are still around though. Here's a good quality Re: Zero AMV, my only real gripe being the pace feels off for the song's style (which happens to be an overplayed song at that). Decent JoJo one. Not a terrible One Piece AMV (from 2014). Here's a Boku no Hero one I actually think is pretty decent.
Is dat sum BokuMachi and Madoka I see in the first one? ;O

If you're looking for a good One Piece AMV, I recommend this one from the same con I entered (AB 2014). Here's a great Utena one as well (my vote for Drama). Some of the best AMVs IMO tell a good story/are enjoyable even if you haven't seen the show (which was one of my worries when entering my AnoHana vid).

There was a Suisei no Gargantia one that won Best Romance as well. (Although it feels like a bit of a rip-off of the FMP! one. That was another concern I had with the Sinners vid, since it came hot off the heels of the last year's Drama winner, so I wondered if it was trying to cash in on the singer's popularity. For Dopple, here's a Penguindrum entry from the same year, which might've had a fighting chance if not up against the previous powerhouse.)

Here are a few for F/Z fans as well (the last one wasn't an AB con entry but the editing/mixing is rad). And just for fun: The 2014 Winner of Best in Show. (My only complaint aside from the rough masking is that the "Identify the Characters" portion didn't have much of an obvious punchline, which I brought up to the creator.) Here's another one of my favorites from the same editor. (...I relate to it really hard now in a way. OTL)

There was a really cute Little Witch Academia entry in the Fun/Upbeat category as well, but unfortunately it looks like it got taken down. ;(

If anyone wants more general recs I've got a few gathered over the years. ^~
lilboocorsola is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-04-2016, 11:54 AM   #7
Doppleganger
我が名は勇者王!
 
Doppleganger's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Emina Isle
Posts: 14,198
Send a message via AIM to Doppleganger
I think Talon's #1 point (which LBC concurred with) is probably the major factor. Years ago, when I was on forums like Arlong Park, or 4chan, where I got AMVs was people would link them to me. Like the legendary con winner Sail On, Hold Me and Nemo (Emiya) were all linked from a forum.

All three AMVs were high quality, especially the former two. The former two also share a quality that make an AMV one for the ages - at the climax of the song, the creator presents a visual surprise that undermines the viewer's understanding of reality:

-in Hold Me, it's Drosselmeyer controlling the world through his crystal ball
-in Sail On, it's Robin thumbing through the One Piece manga

Stuff like this spreads through word of mouth, and I frankly haven't met a lot of young people who have connected me to such lately, like in this thread. Versus MMDs, which I search on my own and are the products of a community that is almost the whole opposite of AMV creators.
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望
今 信じあえる
あきらめない 心かさね
永遠を抱きしめて
Doppleganger is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Lower Navigation
Go Back   UPNetwork > General Forums > Anime


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 12:43 PM.


Design By: Miner Skinz.com
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.