#amvanalysis

We have categorized AMVs into 3 of their main kinds before, so people who are unfamiliar with them may have a better understanding of what kind of AMVs they can find. But the community further divides AMVs into genres. Just like cinema and other forms of art, an AMV can be called action, horror, comedy, psychedelic, psychological, dance, romance, drama, sci-fi, trailer and etc. Of course many times there are mixes between genres. In many contests, the judging is divided into each respective category and in the end an overall ranking is published. In AMVs there is a special category called “MEP” that is a short for Multiple Editor Project, in which the song is divided into parts and every person edit a certain amount of the song with a unified concept.

In this example every editor’s part last 25 seconds and everyone is showcasing the theme of “victim” in their parts. In MEPs its very important for the parts to be consistent. Since there are many different animes in it, edited by different people, it’s is very easy for a part to stand out due to the anime’s artstyle, destroying the balance of the video. As a solution, editors color correct their parts to look similar and adjust their pacing of the song to be the same in every part.  Usually, in MEPs, editors use different animes to avoid using the same scenes and to have a variety of footage, after all A MEP is a project in which people showcase the same concept in their own interpretation. On the other hand there are MEPs that attempted to have a more unified concept, by using the same anime, an example:

or using the same protagonist and creating their own universe in which their story is taking place.

AMV: Unchained by Redangel Name of channel:Redangel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQqCWrCbLmEyzSznGzITfw Date of upload:  May 16, 2015

This time we decided to present something a bit different than usual AMVs. As it is well known, most anime are an adaption to a manga (Japanese comic). It’s not unusual for manga panels to be used in AMVs with the same anime in one way or another. The most usual application of manga panels in AMVs is a still image with slight animations and coloring that last about 3 seconds, synced to the song. An example:

AMV: Ghost Audition by lolligerjoj Name of channel: lolligerjoj , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxEB-KjQwGecLgOFLgBatyg Date of upload:  April 20, 2016 

Lolligerjoj, is famous mainly for 2 things: The long duration of his AMVs and his ability to use slow motion and fast forward on anime scenes. Combining this ability of stretching the duration of scenes, with elements he borrows from psychedelic movement and intense color correcting/grading, he creates a unique atmosphere on his/her videos, establishing his own style. Why is the abillity to make slow motion any challenging to begin with? For starters, slow motion is the act of stretching the duration of the scene, making it longer. During the shoot of a film or a music video, cameramen adjust the settings of the camera to shoot at a higher shutter speed that is double the fps of the camera. But adding the slow motion on the post production phase instead of shooting with it, causes problems, such as the video appear to be “lagging”. In AMVs, it means adding slow motion on a pre-existing piece of film, which even has a lower frame rate than real life footage (they are usually rendered in 24fps but actually 12 or 13 frames are redrawn while the rest are a copy of the previous frame). As a result, editors have to resort to plug ins.

Because people frequently asked, lolligerjoj made a webpage explaining his technique and the program and plug-in he uses in details.

Sources:

AMV: FYC by Dn@ Name of channel: AmvDn@, https://www.youtube.com/user/AmvDnA Date of upload:  September 15, 2015

It’s not often that people choose AMVs as a medium to directly support an opinion, they are usually centered around their story or concept. But that’s not the case for “F.Y.C. Since the rise of Youtube, stereotypes in the AMV community started to shape, such as: Action AMVs’ value was degraded, not only in theory but even in contests they received low ranks due to the genre of the video. Around then, crossovers with heavy compositing were introduced and started owing the top ranks of contests. AMV creators would soon discriminate between themselves and simple action editors would be shunned, not taken as seriously as the rest. Dn@ chose to oppose those newly formed stereotypes by making an AMV about making an AMV. In the intro of his video:

Amv: Rapture by Buggy, Name of channel: Buggy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM9oaVxEc3U& Date of upload: Sep 8, 2019.

Compositing in AMVs has been evolving from the very start. It begun as a simple collage of clips from an anime, then the clips synched to the song and eventually people starting mixing more hobbies with AMVs. Soon, original 3d blended with the anime, drawings, sound effects and compositions emerged. Simple compositions started being used along with the rise of the internet. Heavy compositing was introduced to AMVs in 2011 when “Pencilhead” was published. One of the most modern examples is “Rapture” by “Buggy”. Not following Mushishi’s storyline (original anime source), Buggy created a narrative around the meaning of Christians’ Rapture :

“The rapture is an eschatological concept of a minority of Christians, particularly within branches of American evangelicalism, consisting of an end-time event when all Christian believers who are alive, along with resurrected believers, will rise "in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.”(Wikipedia,”Rapture”,2020)

There is a twist to Buggy’s “Rapture” as he chose an anime set in between Japan’s Edo and Meiji era, where people believed in Buddhism or Neo-Confucianism or Shinto instead of Christianism. Elements such as compositing and visual effects were used brilliantly to :

Besides the amazing crossovers and the aesthetically pleasing AMVs, there’re also simple AMVs that undeniably have a lot of effort. People tend to degrade them for the lack of plot/story, but it’s unlikely for an AMV to not have a concept at all, for example, “ [AKROSS Con 2018 3rd place] OUR FATE (Fate series AMV) “

In this example, the video doesn’t tell story, the creator chose a very desaturated color pallet, but he didn’t stick to a certain concrete style. However, he invested heavily in the effects. The creator , Radical Dreamer , even made a “make of” video.

As we can see from the make of, he even did his own 3d models (the cubes sun etc). As a matter of fact we can say, that AMVs tend to be a hybrid art, many people have tried to blend in real life footage, drawings, 3d CGI, typography etc.

Another notable example is “Louder than Words”,

 unlike the previous ones, this doesn’t have tons of efforts. But the creator,Kensh1n , challenged himself to not edit the scenes at all, so the AMV consists of pure cuts, the way they were on the original source. Three fades to blacks were the only edit he added. Many people don’t consider this style to be worthy because it doesn’t contain as many hours of work as other videos. Another opinion is that even though it doesn’t have that sheer effort, the end result is that the anime song combination and scene selection was on point and as a result it’s enjoyable.