←[101] The majority of AMV’s suck. Few are good. But the ones that are good have the potential to be trailers. Yes, there’s not much difference between a PR trailer produced by a company and a fan-made AMV. However, the difference that is evident is subtle yet has much larger implications.
So let me list out some things:
1. AMV’s are a means and ends in itself by (a) being fun to make and (b) encouraging people to buy the original work.
2. However, if the art of AMV-making becomes so advanced that fans are able to produce with relative ease an AMV that views the anime through very rose-colored lenses, people that rely on AMV’s as previews will become skeptical (after they waste their precious money) and possibly turn back to fansubs etc.
3. #2 is wholly feasible, under certain circumstances. There is really little incentive to making AMV’s. Of course there are contests at conventions, and this is where the majority of stellar AMV’s I’ve seen originate from. This means that companies need to branch out and, perhaps, give AMV material (the series itself) to fans. This is a win-win situation really: the company gets free PR, possible sales increase, and development in both ‘spheres. I think this is already happening though, and on a small scale thank goodness.
4. AMV’s need to remain short. They should remain proxies. They shouldn’t develop to the point of doujin, where the proxy transforms itself into a substitute, therefore decreasing sales.
5. Of course it’s totally possible that AMV’s increase piracy.
6. And that’s why there needs to be more collaboration between the companies and the fans. I think this really necessitates the existence (if it’s already out there) of an AMV sphere. AMV blogs and AMV forums, discussion about proper software to use, film techniques, film theory, discussion on effective music, etc. Really, this hypothetical AMV sphere isn’t much different than out own aniblogging sphere – it’s just the content of our discussion. And insofar as this AMV ‘sphere exists, companies, using whatever social networking media, can contact the big guns of the AMV sphere and give them free material as incentive to produce bitching PR. Everyone’s happy.
7. In fact, a company could start a feedback mechanism. They can distribute a set amount of free content (a few episodes perhaps, or specialized, segmented content) available for download – and it would be doubly effective if they distributed the first episode (as “teaser” in itself) – for fans to make AMV’s out of. The winner(s) of the contest receive free material on a future unreleased series, out of public eye. Those fans with the SACRED MATERIAL then produce AMV’s, public trailers with which to tease fans into buying them when they come out.
8. On second thought this is very hard to perceive, because to make a bitchin’ AMV, the maker may need to know the series inside and out to really capture its essence. Thankfully, because these would be “secret”, the AMV-maker doesn’t need to know its inside jokes and tropes to make comic AMV’s that funny. In fact, if angled the right way, a comedy series AMV can use memes to broadcast itself to an even larger audience.
9. #7 I think is very effective because the material comes from the fans themselves, making it so much more accessible/believable and “down to earth”. This itself perpetuates social incentive (‘sphere development) for AMV production – “hey, this looks fun, I can do this too!”
10. This is where the whole speculative AMV sphere is realized – it only works insofar as people buy the real thing and not download fansubs. So companies (Gonzo, etc.) need to step up more with the digital distribution of “professionally” subbed material to disintegrate the fansubbing industry.
11. A last remark – when using AMV’s as proxy material, we must inevitably question its authenticity and deviance from the source. AMV’s may be a personal art, but in the context I have lined out, its purpose is also political. The obscuration factor of AMV’s can be cleared on the company’s side by authorizing only AMV’s they see depict the series in a good way, which would probably be the most rose-colored, but let’s not hope for that. On the fan side, mavericks will pop up (in youtube comments or elsewhere) proclaiming that the “objectivity” (oh jeez) of an AMV is questionable. This would be for older series because other people will have seen the show at hand, and possibly for new series if company employees actually go out and comment on these fan-based productions. I think that has greater implications for how the public perceives companies (corporations, etc.) as faceless things or with actual human employees that are accessible.
12. I would make a remark about the globalization of anime and how outsourcing is and can be involved…but I don’t know anything about economics.
Forgive my ignorance if all this is in progress already, i..i…it…it’s not like I care about AMV’s or anything! Here’s a Samurai Champloo I enjoyed a lot.
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oh, and if a company is worried about fans p2ping “secret content” they give for AMV production, they can lace the anime with benign 3rd party trojans or something. Of course that’s kinda fishy, but the AMV producer shouldn’t care because there’s nothing to worry about…
You said a lot of things without actually saying anything…you planning to be a politician? Also , what you are proposing abd p2p is anethical to say the least,reminds me of the days where if a thief was caught,they would cut off his hand.
I was told to read this post… I don’t know why?
First of all, check out the Xam’d/Boom Boom Satellite contest. It’s exactly what you’re talking about.
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/contests/xamd_bbs.php
Hmm, where to start. I guess the main thing I thought that was good is the recognition that AMVs are good for fans and good for companies to promote their wares. But neither is why most people watch AMVs or, most importantly, why they are created.
Sometimes, AMVs can bring viewers to get interested about a new show that they haven’t seen, but most people enjoy AMVs with footage from a show they’ve seen. So I think it is sort of weak as a promotional tool. It still is a good promotional tool for something else, I’ll get to it at the end.
There have been occasions where companies run contests (with money prizes!) to see who makes the best AMV. They’ll have official footages and music that you have to use, both for sake of legal-ness and fairness. But these don’t work out very well for various reasons. (Getting user-created video content for commercial purposes is a whole separate thread by itself.) One reason I’ll also address at the end.
Honestly, I think most anime companies (studios or distros or licensees or whatever) are plenty glad about AMVs because they do not make substitutes of the original work. Regardless people pirate it or buy it after they got interested, that’s their choice. And even if someone is happy enough to see an AMV with all of Samurai Champloo’s action scenes threaded together to some cool music instead of watching the show, that person isn’t really watching the show anyways.
But here’s the problem with AMVs–the music. People don’t realize this, but a picture or a song or a movie all have the same level of legal protection. In a audiovisual work, the video and the music are both subject to copyright. While we can say that so-and-so AMV uses clips from 50 different anime, very few AMV use more than 1 song per video. And the music isn’t even always edited in an AMV.
So you might have guess by now, the biggest problems about AMV as discussed in ths post is also the music. AMVs are greatest at promoting music, they are also direct substitutes in a way since usually the entire song is used in an AMV. It is also difficult for anime companies to sponsor user-created AMVs because they have to dictate the music you use, which is one big problem for serious AMV makers. It really gimps their mojo. Why do they have to dictate the music? Because they can only use videos with parts they have permission to use. It would be nice if people can go ahead and make videos and the company just go out and license the parts used in the final product, but that’s not how it works.
Lastly, a few AMV people ended up going pro and make trailers for anime companies. For example, Nightowl is this American AMV dude who’s been at it for a loooong time, and he ended up making trailers for ADV.
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_myprofile.php?user_id=4146
@zentari: glad you read the title…
@omo: thanks, that was insightful. I didnt think of the music part. And yeah, the video I posted is funny because it kind of distills all the action, haha.
Yummy video. I think it is time to re-watch Champloo yet again.
The NFL’s website recently added a feature allowing fans to cut their own highlight reels. They also seem to be able to add background music (I believe these songs are from NFL soundtracks so Omo’s music copyright problem wouldn’t apply). Of course, there are some key differences between these highlight reels and AMV’s, but I guess this all shows the industry and fans might be able to work together…
AMV’s to me have always been an after-the-experience indulge, in which they glimpse a theme or essence of the title work. Macross F needs no AMV…
@lelangir: I did, my point still stands (both of them actually).
@Ryan 5cm/s doesn’t need an AMV either
But yeah, you can really get into AMVs and what makes one fun to watch or technically impressive or wow an anime convention audience or a joy to put together. There are a lot of considerations, as usual.
Too bad the anime industry in America is just a super tinny tiny fraction of the NFL, and frankly what they’re going for is drastically different than the majority of AMV out there today. Plus, there’s still a music thing that the NFL thing doesn’t quite leverage that the Xam’d contest, for example, does…
Henry Jenkins (a media studies professor at MIT) has blogged about AMVs before, saying similar things. I mean, specifically that the editing and re-interpretation of the visuals can be considered the same as re-mixing, and thus not quite the same as straight-out piracy; the music use still works that way, though. It makes me wonder that the AMV community ought to look at editing the music in a similar way. Sadly, I don’t have suggestions, really. Music mixing and re-mixing is one of the tabernacle mysteries for all I know about it. I made a few AMVs six or seven years ago and never put them up anywhere, just showed my friends. Mostly they were for “the lulz” (setting Cowboy Bebop to Oysterhead, can it be anything else?).
cuchlann: that’s interesting. Seems like mixed music (mash-ups) are intrinsically within their own genre (oh shi-?) – hiphop, or what have you. So, how to make mixed up rock music? I dont think you can, it would sound terrible. Sampling seems reserved for that kinda music.
Of course there’s covers and doujin but music, but that seems so rare.
AMVs today seems to be the new ‘hobby’ of noobs everywhere. They do it for fun just to show off even though the video they made sucked like hell.
I used to watch AMVs. But I dont now since I never saw a good one lately.
Most amv stinks. I have only seen 2 or 3 that are good
I shall put my pithy 2 cents’ worth of comments into here.
The primary purpose of an AMV is simple: remix content and share it. Consider its economic potential: zilch. Can companies do something about it? Maybe, but it depends on the treatment of it.
If we’re talking about quantitative to qualitative ratios, I’d wager that distribution companies are better off hiring good AMV’ers to produce trailer content for them. The idea of promotions is to entice viewers to buy the series. AMVs, by nature, put out several spoilers and inside jokes that can only make sense to those who have watched the series beforehand.
It can be something akin to a machinima, whereby the content is taken from single/multiple sources.
In short, companies can use them “as final promotional add-in” like this machinima from F.E.A.R. after publishing, but cannot use AMV as a replacement for trailers.
@TP: IMHO you’re mixing up functionality with intent. I make an AMV – I want to masturbate it to by myself. Where’s the sharing in that? By semantics, however, an AMV would necessitate remixing content. What people do with their final product and why is completely up to them, however.
I don’t see a functional difference between an “AMV” and a “trailer”. The difference is discursive, established by pre-existing norms, not by what the thing actually is.
It is true that making a [let's call it a] promotional media tool for a comedy show is hard because, as you said, inside jokes make no sense to new viewers. But a promotional media tool needn’t rely strictly on inside jokes: it can advertise its studio (Sunrise/Kyoani flak etc.), its seiyuu, directors, slapstick comedy, or jokes that a wider populace will understand, like Genshiken-esque otaku-directed jokes. Those are classifiable as “insider” insofar as you broadcast it to the mainstream, while of course insiders will understand insider jokes. You can narrowcast media to a subculture.
I’d agree that, in the end, using an AMV produced by the methods we have discussed hitherto would be very effective. An AMV that is elected by the majority as the winner of a competition will have a very degenerated effect on that same populace – they’ve already seen it once, it loses its first-time-value as a “trailer”. So the difference between trailer and AMV is more temporal than anything, I think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4hTmAZPWIk
this will blow you away… please watch in HD
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