AMVs

One of the things I regret about only finding out about anime.au.05 a few days ago is that I've missed on the anime music video competion.

An anime music video (AMV) is a fan-produced music video created from clips from one or more shows. I've never made one before but AMVs, and their media fandom equivalent, vids, are fascinating and I've always wanted to try my hand, given that I seem to have a fairly good "eye".

Here are some of the ideas that I've been playing with in my head for AMVs.

Go West, Village People: GetBackers. Go West is a fabulous gay anthem, and I'd love to see its perky and overly enthusiastic gay illustrated by Ban and Ginji. The main visual themes would be the rescuing, hugging and running towards each other. Sunsets and sunrises would be used for romantic effect: Ginji <3 Ban. It could also use footage of Kazuki and Jubei if required, but mainly Ginji and Ban because they are teh cute.

Learning to Fly, Pink Floyd or Foo Fighters: Yukikaze. Yukikaze is a deeply beautiful anime with stunning computer-generated atmospheres and planes in flight, contrasted with lavishly animated characters. Jack is bearded, blond and obviously American. Rei is Japanese, zombie pale, and probably the least attractive main character I've ever seen in an anime. Nevertheless... 8) "Tongue tied and twisted / just an earth bound misfit, I" This song is so perfect him. I'd take the footage from the dvd of the first two of five planned OVAs, so I could get super high definition video footage, and then play with it. Depending on how much time was left over after "woo, planes" footage got boring, I might try to focus on the triangle between Jack, Rei and Yukikaze, because that never gets boring. I haven't decided which version of the song to use, but I'm tending towards the original, because it has the creepier guitar bits, and the tower chat in the middle.

Unbelievable, EMF: Various. "The things, you say / Your purple prose just gives you away / The things, you say / You're unbelievable." Very very silly idea for grabbing together some of the worst subtitles from anime: like the early episode of Fullmetal Alchemist where Gluttony was subtitled as "Blatny"; and the million and one ways to subtitle the traditional Japanese habit of saying "itadakimasu" before meals. (Everything from "I'm eating!" to "Looks good." to "Thanks for the meal!")This is not a particularly well thought through idea, but it could be fairly funny. The important thing will be the complete lack of context for the clips which should help to make them funny. I don't intend this to be mean (after all, where would I be without fansubbers?) but more of a play on the whole "Japanese expert" conceit. And I'll probably put some Evil Doctor Muraki (he's so evil!) from Yami no Matsuei in, because he loves a bit of purple prose.

The clues I've picked up from the best AMVs I've seen:

1. Use the music. Not just the lyrics which people can miss, but the base line and other musical changes to trigger changes in the visuals.

2. Don't, for the love of god, mess with the aspect ratio. This makes me burn with the heat of a thousand suns when otherwise perfectly serviceable AMVs are fucked up by squishing everyone from letterbox into 4:3.

3. Don't put the subtitles on unless you want people to read them. People can't help but read them. Letterbox (without messing with the ratio) to get rid of them if you have to.

4. Funny is good.