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That one's quite a classic... 'cause it's so farkin' weird. XD

If done right, AMVs can get really creative. If you take the time to actually plan it out and put it together, it can become extremely amazing. There's a reason different AMVs get different ratings. Some are just bad and some are really amazing and well put together.

So they took clips from an anime. Oh well. Doesn't make it bad and not creative. It's actually alot harder than you would think to take clips together, add effects, etc..and make it look good. Let's not forget that some go above and beyond and take it into programs such as After Effects and add a wide variety of effects that are absolutley gorgous.

AMVs are okay. Not the biggest fan, but I don't hate them. Some of them are really well made.

Oh yea. Let's address that part:

There's a difference between praising and giving compliments -- vs -- false praise to avoid hurting someone's feelings.

In fact, you can see this pattern in the fanfiction and fanart circles. I don't even write fanfiction or draw my own fanart, yet I'm aware of this kind of behavior. These are the kind of people who likely do their own set of "work" just to get praised. At the same time, they do not want to be criticized (you suck) or critiqued (you can do this and this better). Anyone who can't handle that has no business making anything.

If anything, withholding critique or criticism to anyone is a disservice. It prevents them from actually getting better or from having the motivation to become better. I'm not saying that it is good to "discourage". Give credit where credit is due, after all. If you critique or criticize with the intent of helping someone, that's fine.

By the way, I got criticized for my posting style around here. Well, to that...

XD

This one is pretty good (and old).




Most of the so called AMV out there use the "favorite song + favorite animu" formula and are a huge waste of bandwidth.

As somewhat hinted before, there is absolutely nothing wrong with AMVs in general, and no real reason to hate all of them based on a single segment, no matter how prevalent that segment is. While it's still subjective, gross generalizations do not make an effective argument for anything. That's just being discriminatory.
In the end, AMVs are like any other media. More than likely, you will dislike far more of what's out there than you will like, so it simply becomes an issue of sifting through.

That being said, there is indeed an issue of improved technology making it easier to create and "market" AMVs, thus allowing legions of fans who would otherwise never get to square one to churn out something and distribute it. That's life, and it's not unusual. It happened with fandubs too, and I've seen the same phenomenon with low-budget films - now video store shelves are flooded with abysmal DVR releases that wouldn't rate MST3K treatment, when it used to be relatively easy to find something at least passably entertaining. That's all just one more price of progress.

In the old days, it required a great deal of knowledge, and even specialized equipment, to create an AMV - the concept and practice have existed since the VHS era. People would often spend weeks working on a single project, making sure to get things just right. The product thus became a display of skill and talent, and, of course, became competitive. And for those who dislike the "junk" on sites like youtube, you need only look in the places where these old-school creators have historically prevailed, and the degree of competitiveness found among such technical achievers remains. Conventions are a good example of this. You can also go to sites like animemusicvideos.org, which are more specialized and have several features to make finding a jem that much easier. While a minority even here, you will still almost certainly find a very large number of AMVs worth watching.

As for the flood of AMVs in youtube crowding out what you want to look for, there are several search tricks to filter them out with a significant level of success. I've never had significant problems, even when I was looking for a specific AMV. After all, I don't search for DBZ/Naruto to Linkin Park.

Just off the top of my head (and solely using youtube), I can bring out a decent-sized list of AMVs I like, though in every case, I admit I found it elsewhere and DLed a much higher quality version. Some of these directed me to artists and songs I'd never know otherwise, and a few, like the Angelic Layer and Noir ones, introduced me to a series.

Watch this and tell me you hate it!
Watch this and tell me you hate it!
Watch this and tell me you hate it!



Watch this and tell me you hate it!
Watch this and tell me you hate it!
Watch this and tell me you hate it!

I love AMV's, the good ones anyway. If you go to youtube and look at my favorites all you will find is amv's of the highest quality, and the none amv videos I favorite.

OP, I see where you're coming from. Terrible mediocre AMVs are a dime a dozen. There's nothing I hate more than a friend telling me "WHAT THIS IT'S SO CUTE, YOU'RE GONNA LIKE IT~" when it's a badly strung together sequence of scenes that doesn't even sync with the music. >.> Plus subtitles. Plus non-coherent.

There are however some good AMVs out there. :3 I don't wanna link them all so I'll just link my favourite.

A good example of this is Whisper Of The Beast by Scorpions ULTD. It's a AMV winner from long ago.



Which took the effects part to the next level and beyond IMO. Thought there's plenty of other examples here... I just especially love this one.

Some AMV are good, but some are just cheap since they don't really do anything except mash a bunch of scenes together and play a song.

Yeah, suppose i can agree with the general consensus, not all AMVs are god awful. Condemning the entire practice would probably be wrong. And that good AMVs are vastly vastly outnumbered by bad ones, which can give the wrong impression. Because of that however i probably won't go out of my way to look for the few good ones.

Rather spend my time watching real anime honestly! But stupid short little videos like that are always good for when your bored. Was a few decent ones in this thread, the ones i bothered to look at.. at least.

On a different note, surprised that majority of people who responded saw generally where i was coming from, and didn't flame and pick apart my post like that cute little fellow on page 1. As my initial post did contain alot of hatred and biased-ness. (not that i'm taking back anything i said) Must mean a good community here. (for the most part:) )

I'm going to make one now!

Right now..and show you how bad they can be !

edit: here we go

Heh, was that in response to me? Won't accomplish anything, as i already know how depressingly atrocious they can be. Though you should make one and post it on youtube, you'll probably get positive posts no matter how bad it is :D

Nah not to you, just the fans out there :D

I don't like it, Empty Motion indeed. It's just a bunch of random crap edited together, very well edited mind you, but still. The song is OK I guess, nothing I'd listen to though.

rebekah, that could've been a lot crappier, it was actually kind of funny, try harder, or less, next time.

Anywho, to the OP, yeah most AMVs/MADs suck, but that's because most people suck. However there are a few people on the hunk of rock that don't suck and some of them make AMVs, so there are a few good ones. I think a an AMV being good is almost entirely dependent on the song not sucking in general and fitting, to some degree with the images.

For what it's worth here's something I think doesn't suck:


If you want really good shit though, MADs made completely from scratch are where it's at, where even the song is original:

I am kind of impartial to AMVs. If it wasn't for Princess Maker - Petite Princess Yucie I would have never of discovered fansubs and if it wasn't for Carol of the Cute Ones - Various I never would have watched Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne.

Actually before I discovered better methods of discovering good series, one of the main ways I found shows to watch was to watch (usually mediocre) mix series AMVs and see if any of the shows interested me. If I end up watching a bad AMV I can usually at least amuse myself by seeing what scenes I recognise and remember.
Although there are the extreme bottom of the barrel AMVs which I can't even do that with like the ones which just show a bunch of magical girl stock footage.

Everyone keeps posting amv's so I'm gonna post to :)




Fan service

I hope you were using these as examples of how crappy AMVs can be, because they're perfect ones.

First one was cheesy, but better than...

...the second one which was very truly terrible.

BUT DON'T WORRY GUYS I WILL FIX THIS





Also



AMAZING