eksostrephicphilosopher

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

Fin.

  The subject that our team (team31) analyzed throughout the course of the previous semester was AMVs (anime music videos). We knew that it was a controversial theme that many don’t know a lot about. That’s why we tried to keep a balance between the technical information, the historical references and the analysis we did on videos and events. It is easy when someone is not familiar with the work behind an AMV or even with its raw material, anime , to overlook or minimize the value of a video. That’s why we wanted to explain the process and the effort behind them.   Even though, AMVs nowadays are starting to gain more popularity and more people are searching and write books about them, it was still hard to do a deeper research on some particular events due to limited information on the internet. We often had to translate Russian text and other languages and sometimes we had to personally contact a person to ask and confirm events that occurred to them. We wanted to integrate AMVs to digital art culture and showcase them as a hybrid art. While we were analyzing, commenting and broke down videos, we had the chance to learn about and examine many forms of art, such as montage, compositing, etc. We also saw many kinds of movements and as a result we researched for each art specifically and paralleled it with AMVs, pointing out the similarities, differences and how they are applied to AMVs.    In our attempt to analyze our subject from many different viewpoints, we discussed and we philosophized about ethics, the meaning and what makes something art and other important issues. We hope that we kept it easy for someone to read and keep up and that you will have fun going though our blog and perhaps learn something new as we did.

Name: Διονύσης Λιβέρης-Αβράς ΑΜ: ΤΧ2017031 email: t17live@ionio.gr Name: Κυργιαφίνη Σοφία ΑΜ: ΤΧ2017072 email: t17kyrg@ionio.gr

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

Loss of identity

We have mentioned reuploading channels before and their purpose. The most popular re-uploading channels are: Bestamvsofalltimes and Vermillion. There is also another fairly popular channel: JustSyker. Unlike other re-uploading channels he uploads his own videos in the same channel. As a result many people confuse his own works with works he re-uploads, even though he gives proper credits to the creators.  Even personally I have been asked: “why is this video on JustSyker channel?”    Sadly, as easy as it is to lose your identity as a creator in the internet, there are people that steal AMVs. Unlike re-uploading channels, they don’t give proper credits to the creators and even claim they made it. Usually such people get copyright strikes by the creators, but that only applies when the creator himself notices and sometimes the strike isn’t enough for the video to be taken down. Someone might have uploaded a video, claiming it’s his own and the original creator might not see it. With just a quick research we found this: 

In our blog we have mentioned “Our Tapes” by umiika many times as it is one of the first successful crossovers with heavy compositing, blending two characters from different series into one video and thus creating her own universe in which her story (which she wrote) takes place. By only pressing two buttons we have found that the channel by the name “minisaku25” used umiika’s video, without properly mentioning the creator’s name in the description. Of course it’s easy to notice it doesn’t belong to minisaku25, the song is changed, as a result a completely different atmosphere is given to the video, the scenes were not even re-edited, so there is no sync with the song and the coloring, vfx, transitions and scene selection is the exact same as in umiika’s original video: 

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

It is indeed very easy not to be recognized as the creator of an art piece when the medium is the internet. In AMVs, this applies even more so, because there are re-uploading channels. They are channels that intend to help the creators gain popularity and organize a list of AMVs from all around the net. For example some people upload their AMVs only on forums like AMVnews or AMV.org and don’t have a YouTube channel. Re-uploading channels, will gather those AMVs and other ones, the owners consider good and upload them. The thing is that those re-uploading channels have way more views and subscribers than the creators. As a result people think the owners of those channels made the videos. Of course they have the name of the original creator in the description, while sometimes the creators made a small outro in their videos, including their names, names of animes they used and songs. But amazing enough, many people out of AMV community don’t notice. It is very often that I saw people reacting to AMVs made by “bestamvsofalltime”, as if the name itself didn’t suggest it’s not one person using the account, failing to see the outro or description or even the “about” segment of the channel.

Χάνεται η ταυτότητα του καλλιτέχνη

“Είναι πολύ εύκολο να κάνεις τους ανθρώπους να σε κοιτάξουν, αλλά μόλις βάλεις κάτι στο διαδίκτυο, δεν είναι πια δικό σου.” λέει η Molly Soda, καλλιτέχνης της ψηφιακής τέχνης (Gif, Video art, performance art, photography, new media art).*

Αναζητώντας Gif για τα ποστ μας, πολλές φορές αντιμετωπίσαμε τη δυσκολία να βρούμε ποιος είναι ο δημιουργός αυτών των έργων. Τα Gif είναι καλλιτεχνικό μέσο που διαδίδεται αποκλειστικά μέσω του διαδικτύου. Οι χρήστες “μεταφέρουν” το έργο ο ένας στον άλλον, αλλά δεν δίνουν την ίδια βαρύτητα στην ταυτότητα του καλλιτέχνη, όπως λογικά θα έκαναν για ένα έργο των πλαστικών τεχνών. Για τον λόγο αυτό, συχνά τα Gif  χάνουν την ταυτότητα του δημιουργού τους. 

-Βασιλεία-

*https://www.theverge.com/2013/10/17/4844814/would-you-pay-2000-for-a-gif

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

Amv Genres and MEPs

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.

In this example every editor used the same protagonist in their parts whie the secondary animes are changed every time. In essence, every part is a mini crossover. 

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

AMVs and Psychedelia.[part 2]

It’s not hard to visualize how a psychedelic AMV would look like, crazy colors, many spirals and distorted music right? Yes but no at the same time. Although those aspects are classic and we diffidently can see them in a lot of videos, the community often combines it with the psychological/thriller subcategory, giving the video a “darker side” of psychedelia.

Let’s see same examples:

AMV: Psychedelic Limbo - AMV by  KazKon Name of channel: KazKon https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPrn1Q40vvAdudaaLJoGWsQ Date of upload: April 16 , 2018.

“Psychedelic Limbo” is the final part of the trilogy ”MonogatariPsychedelicTrilogy”,created by KazKon.In this example we can see a clear approach in which the psychedelic aspects are the main character of the video.The colors are brightfull and distorted ,we can see clear patterns that are repeating and visual effects that have a kalidoscope feeling.We can also detect spirals, concentric circles, diffraction patterns, and other entoptic motifs .Even the music have many elements that create an uneasy feeling.

AMV: Mercury Retrograde by  lokkiclu Name of channel: lokkiclu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY9NtuGarrI&feature=emb_title Date of upload: March 3 ,2020.   

In this AMV there is a more balanced relationship between psychedelic and psychological. Even though the song has a dark and creepy vibe to it ,the visuals create a very unusual, unreal, hallucinogenic world.So the creator takes advantage of these elements of psychedelia ,such as highly contrasting colors, fractal and paisley patterns,etc ,to visualize this eccentric dream... or nightmare world.

AMV: Distorsion//Shiro by Redrum Name of channel: RedrumAMV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7vtn78gn8M&feature=emb_title Date of upload: March 2 ,2015.

Last but not least we have “Distorsion//Shiro” by Redrum. In this one the “protagonist” is the  psychological/thriller part with the uncanny feeling.Nonetheless the psychedelic elements are quite clear. First of all we have the song, a distorted piece with many sound effects, reverberation and metallic twists.Now, when it comes to graphics, there are many elements of extreme depth of detail or stylization of detail.But more especially we can see the morphing of objects and the use of collage to make metaphysical and surrealistic subjects. So it may lack the bright colors and the spirals but psychedelic art is more than those elements.

 Many creators have become known through this style of videos, such as redrum, lokkiclu, noble, which is not easy. It requires a lot of technical experience and knowledge in order to make a psychedelic video that follows the requirements of the art movement and at the same time doesn’t look like random filters with no purpose whatsoever. 

sources:

Wikipedia. “ Psychedelic art”. Last modified June 12, 2020.

Wikipedia. “ Psychedelia”. Last modified May 13, 2020.

Arthistory.net. “ Psychedelic Art “.

DrLearyUSA . “ BBCRadio2-History Of Psychedelia-1″. YouTube Video,9:33. July 18 2010.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNApT4dgGcI&t=182s

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

Process of making an AMV

Amvs are often paralleled to the post production phase of film-making, because in both procedures, people are given a source to work on. For AMVs it’s the animes and in post production is the raw camera footage. While some types of AMVs require writing and even a storyboard, most of the work is done in the editing and compositing. Here are the steps very briefly to grasp the process: The first step is to cut every episode from the series and keep the scenes that the editor is most likely going to need, which is determined after writing the scenario. The second step is to put the clips into place and synchronize them with the song. Then the clips are often passed to the compositing program to add visual effects and compositions. Next step is making the transitions between the scenes. The last step is rendering the whole clip. Some AMVs require extra steps or less depending on their structure, for example AMVs with 3D elements in it. Some editors have made a “making of” for better understanding of how they worked, some in the form of a video and some in the form of a picture. Here are some examples:

“Withnin” by Buggy:  

“Metamorphose” by Umiika, in this example we can even see some original animations she did, in their first step. Unlike most editors who attempted to animate scenes for their AMVs, she drew frame by frame.

“Sunlight” by Sunlight

“Bitter Almonds” by Dr.Penguin

“Tulpa” by Astania

“I love you” by Kenji

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

AMVs and Psychedelia. [part 1]

Occasioned by "Ghost audition", a previous video we commented on and observed psychedelic elements, we would like to talk about the relationship between AMVs and psychedelia. Psychedelic videos are a subcategory of styles that an AMV can have, as in most art forms. To have a better “picture” however, we need to know and understand what psychedelia is and where it came from.

“The term "psychedelic" is derived from the Ancient Greek words psychē (ψυχή, "soul") and dēloun (δηλοῦν, "to make visible, to reveal"), translating to "mind-manifesting"”. (wikipedia, Psychedelia ,2020) and it originate from the 1960s and the use of hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD,mescaline,“magic” mushrooms ,etc. Although the discovery of LSD took place in the late 1930s by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, it was not until the 1960s that its use and properties became more widespread. It all started when the drug came to the attention of Professor Timothy Leary from Harvard University, who began experiments with LSD on his students. One of those students happened to be Joe Boyd, who perhaps not coincidentally later went on to produce the Pink Floyd, Soft Machine and The Incredible String Band. It didn’t take long until this new drug affected not only the mind but also the culture and the arts, especially the music. So the subculture of “Psychedelic Art” was born.  

“The Psychedelic Art movement is usually featuring highly distorted or surreal visuals, bright colors and full spectrums and animation (including cartoons) to evoke, convey, or enhance psychedelic experiences”.(wikipedia, Psychedelic art ,2020) and in general art that is a visual depiction of kaleidoscopic-like patterns.It’s a movement that influence art and creations until today and it doesn’t, just adapt to every technological change, but uses new technology to create with new media. From fractals to visual effects to 3D graphics, and of course, to AMVs.

sources:

Wikipedia. “ Psychedelic art”. Last modified June 12, 2020.

Wikipedia. “ Psychedelia”. Last modified May 13, 2020.

Arthistory.net. “ Psychedelic Art “.

DrLearyUSA . “ BBCRadio2-History Of Psychedelia-1″. YouTube Video,9:33. July 18 2010.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNApT4dgGcI&t=182s

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

“Unchained” by Redangel and MMVs

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:

But just as there are AMVs representing an anime series, there are also MMVs (Manga Music Videos) that represent a manga or more. MMVs gained popularity with the rise of Youtube, but never really surpassing AMVs in terms of fandom. Many times they are put under the same category of videos and judged together, even though they are fundamentally different. Most MMVs that are available, focus on moving the camera on manga panels with slight animations such as closing and opening eyes, hair movement etc and occasionally moving background objects. Usually MMVs last some seconds and not the whole duration of the song.

The first really distinctive MMV is “Beast withing” made by “B3ast”.

Unlike the rest of MMVs, he used the manga panels as 3D environment for additional camera movement, it used VFX such as lightning and blood splatters. But the real revolution to manga music videos is “Unchained” by “Redangel”. She animated the still manga panels and characters of “Pandora Hearts” and used VFX such as particles and shattered elements etc. She is also one of the first people monetized for her fanart videos. Impressed by the results of her sheer amount of work, a manga creator asked “RedAngel” to make a trailer for his/her manga :

Multiple occasions like this one would occur ever since she published “Unchained”

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

“Ghost Audition” by lolligerjoj

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:

lolligerjoj, “AE workflow with motion interpolation on anime using Twixtor,” Octomber 22 2016, https://lolligerjoj.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/twixtor-on-anime-footage-and-ae-workflow-using-twixtor/

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

“F.Y.C” by  Dn@

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:

1) he recreated compositions from popular AMVs such as: Umiika’s original composition

Dn@’s version

Both of those scenes dont stay true to their original source material: K-On! In these series, an accident like this never happened, its the result of compositing and VFX by “Umiika” for “Our Tapes”. Then Dn@, decided to use this scene due to its popularity in the AMV community.

2) He would add elements (such as raining in a sunny day) that didn’t fit in his scene, like editors used to do in crossovers at the time, directly criticisinng the need to add visual effects without a reason.

After the short intro, the video adapted to comedy/parody style and the concept was introduced. Throughout the track, a girl was edited to jump out of the screen and yell at the creator that making action would bring in dislikes, bad ranking and she would remind him that his video has no style or concept. As the creator was failing to make the desired romance crossovers, he tried to run from the house and the girl’s demands . Towards the end he decided to discard the constant reminders of what is right and wrong, and made an action video.  A very distinctive interpretation of the video is that the girl symbolizes Dn@’s consciousness, his desire to do well in contests and the demands of the AMV community at the current time.  Leaving his personal opinions aside, he started a new trend of blending anime with real life footage that would be done again and again even now.

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

The importance of collage

   As we saw in a previous post, collage and montage goes together especially when it comes to AMVs.We could say that they are most important “ingredients”, when it comes to AMVs’ creation.

“Collage is not the only parallel technique to montage, however. The use of collage and montage can be seen in poetry, such as in the writing of T.S. Eliot, where sets of seemingly arbitrary words are strung together to create new meanings. Furthermore, the collage/montage device can even be seen in the music of today, where producers create “mash-ups” of songs to create a new unique hybrid song. Thus, while collage and montage are usually associated with visual art, they actually apply to a wide array of mediums.”  (Jared Leibowich,montage,2007.)

   It's easy to ignore and not notice the power of collage in every frame of an Anime music video. The fact that the AMV creator has to write a scenario, or at least a quick overview of the video in order to make it, is often ignored. But the truth is that behind every image, every second we see, there is usually a lot of work and processing, in order to attribute the creator’s vision. Lots of masking ,rotoscoping, camera tracking,VFX and other creative procedures, are required in order to visualize the creator’s vision.    The reason why one may not realize this complexity, I think, has to do mainly with the lack of knowledge, either on the technical aspect or on the raw material, which the creator has to work with. That is understandable and expected for someone who has not been involved in this type of activity. It is hard to understand what is supposed to be edited and what is not, what is part of the show and what has been added or is original creation. The same goes for the part of music, whose work is often not appreciated or overlooked.

So whether you are talking about compositing or remixing or any other form of collage, it is important to recognize the effort and attention to detail, the creators put on their videos. That is why it is necessary to understand the importance of collage in this area. From a simple crossover ,to intricate creations of new environments and entities.

sources:

Leibowich Jared ,“montage” , The Chicago School of Media Theory,2007.

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

“Rapture” by Buggy

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 :

  1)  Visualize the baptism, by masking and blending the main character into a space of cosmos. 

He then proceeds to grab a tree of cosmos from a hand that we can only imagine as holy. This scene suggests that the nature itself is holy like in Shinto religion.

2)  Dozens of people were masked, tracked into the camera movement of the original scene, color corrected and blended to the scene to illustrate the rising of the people in the sky.

 3)  Vfx were used to illustrate  God “grabbing” it’s subjects and original animation was added to the person with the method of rigging (moving the character limb by limb and not redrawing every frame)

Since I first watched the video I usually interpret it as a mix of religions. There is a definite connection with Christian God, as an omnipotent being choosing the people to rise on the sky. But while rising in the sky, people turn into a luminescent spherical light, which could symbolize the spirits of Shinto. During the baptism scene, after accepting the cosmos onto himself.Next is a close up on him with a burning tree inside him.

Throughout the video there are scenes of natural destruction, trees cut down, hurricanes and etc. I like to think of those scenes as a conflict between the two religions.

For frame by frame understanding of the video, the creator made a “make of”, revealing the process of making the AMV (including only the post production and not the writting of the scenario):

 Sources:

Wikipedia. “Rapture”, Last modified on  15 June 2020.

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

AMVs as a subcategory of Unofficial Music Videos(UMVs) [part 2]

       So what is the genre of Music Videos that we are talking about? We are talking about Unofficial Music Videos or UMVs. Unofficial music videos are created by fans. They collate footage from televised series, movies and traditional music videos with music they have sampled and possibly mixed at home. Although distributing their videos is considered copyright infringement, the unauthorized video is generally created under the premise that the music and video industries are drowning in a sea of greed and corporate politics that rarely promotes true talent or gives artists their monetary due for the intellectual property they create.  

        Some groups, like Eclectic Method, argue that ignoring copyright is the essence of UMVs, not merely as a sign of rebellion, but with the aim of changing existing laws. Others use them to promote political propaganda: one well-known example is Franklin Lopez’s “George Bush Don’t Like Black People” (2005), which combine news footage from the Katrina Disaster with a remix of Kanye West’s song “Gold Digger”,subversively broadcasting a side-comment made by West that “George Bush don’t’ like black people.”

      One universally shared ideology amongst creators of unofficial videos is that the sum of spliced parts remains greater than the originals from which those parts hailed. This process mirrors the traditional music-video technique of commutation, in which an object’s “cultural parameters” are jarred .Danger Mouse’s “Grey Video” (directed by Ramon and Pedro,2004) combined rapper Jay-Z’s “Black Album” with Beatles’ “White Album”, to emphasize the kindred relation between music and video of different genre and eras.

   In 2004, a Placebo fan from South Africamade a Claymation video for the band's song "English Summer Rain" and sent it to the band. They liked the result so much that it was included on their greatest hits DVD.

   As MTV’s emphasis shifted in the early 2000s away from continuously airing music videos towards “reality” shows, fan-made music videos—or “songvids”—seemed to gain momentum, abetted by affordable or free access to easy-to-use digital video and audio software and networked spaces like YouTube for sharing fan works. Today, countless thousands of fan-made music videos span every conceivable music genre, running alongside commercial professional music video production. Bands recognize the importance of fan-made videos in terms of pleasure and promotion alike, often hosting music video contests and incorporating fan footage into commercial DVDs.

    One unique faction of UMVs is the Anime Music Video (AMV) collective. At this genre, as we know, the creators must limit their footage to anime-related media.Vlad G.Pohnert’s “Orange Road” (September 1993) marked the first notable appearance of an AMV:

   Pohnert bridged Samantha Fox’s remake hit “I Only Wanna’Be with You” (1993) with clips from Matsumoto Izumi’s Orange Road (1988) to create an AMV that represented a plot, both works shared.

   So as we can see the logic behind AMVs existed before and in many forms. The only difference is that the due to the bigger anime fan-base, a stronger community of AMVs creators and audience has been created. Even if it is harder, because of the limitation of the sources materials, they managed to build a society of their own. It’s a both a challenge and a creative outlet for people who want to share their vision.

sources:

Saxton ,Jamie. Music, Sound and Multimedia (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007)

Wikipedia. “ Music video .” Last modified June 9, 2020.

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

AMVs as a subcategory of Unofficial Music Videos(UMVs) [part 1]

    AMVs can be considered as subcategory of a specific genre of Music Videos. So in order to understand better that connection we should have a look at the evolution of Music Videos and how did they come to have such an important role in today’s society.           In 1894, sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern hired electrician George Thomas and various performers to promote sales of their song "The Little Lost Child". Using a magic lantern, Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performances. This would become a popular form of entertainment known as the illustrated song, the first step toward music video. (wikepedia,2009)

    During the 1920s and 1930s, music and moving images began to be combined by professional movie makers and music producers to create what are typically referred to as “musical short films” and “Vitaphone films”. By the 1940s, jukeboxes were playing “soundies”—a song combined with moving images printed on celluloid film. Produced primarily to promote musical artists, soundies largely presented artists performing their songs in studio settings. Musician Luis Jordan,in the mid-forties,started making short films for his songs.Some of them was used into a feature film called, “Lookout Sister”. These films were, according to music historian Donald Clarke, the "ancestors" of music video.

  Musical films were another important precursor to music video, and several well-known music videos have imitated the style of classic Hollywood musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s.Madonna's "Material Girl" (1985) ,directed by Mary Lambert,which was based on Jack Cole's "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, is one of the best known examples.Also several of Michael Jackson's videos show the influence of the dance sequences in classic Hollywood musicals.Videos such as "Thriller" and the Martin Scorsese-directed "Bad", which was influenced by the stylized dance "fights" in the film version of West Side Story.

   In the 1960s, major artists, including The Animals, The Kinks, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan, were experimenting with “song films.” Performers lip-synched their songs, in the studio or real-world settings. Audio and film were then edited together to produce the song film. Producers began experimenting with camera shot types and angles, with editing sequences within the song film, and with color.

   Of course, music videos came into their own, on August 1, 1981, the day MTV launched. With that, music videos had a dedicated outlet that elevated their standing. Everyone was going to be watching music videos, and some artists took advantage of that to craft entire short films that were inseparable from the music that inspired it. The period of ’80s and ’90s videos is also when directors became “known” for their work in this particular field. Some of the most important music video directors of this period were Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. Both have made names for themselves in the larger film industry, but their work in music videos has been hailed as some of the most creative works out there. In 1994, Spike Jonze directed what would become two of his best known videos: “Sabotage” for the Beastie Boys 

and “Buddy Holly for Weezer”. 

  Both videos were highly acclaimed and lauded for being just as, if not more, interesting than the songs they were created for.   More recently, music videos were once again modernized and made relevant through the advent of YouTube and social media. There was a lot made when OK Go premiered their video for “Here it Goes Again” in 2006. It was a bit different because it premiered on YouTube. The fact that it existed on the Internet and came from Internet sensibilities would have a huge impact on its success, and the success of future music videos. Lately, the videos that are getting widespread attention have been the politically charged ones that resonate with social media movements and memes.

sources:

Knobel ,Michele & Lankshear, DIY Media: Creating, Sharing and Learning with New Technologies,New York : Lang Publishing, 2010.

Saxton ,Jamie. Music, Sound and Multimedia (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007)

Wikipedia. “ Music video .” Last modified June 9, 2020.

Miller,Ricky. “ THE UNSUNG ART OF MUSIC VIDEOS ”,Control Forever, May 18,2018.

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

Does popularity equal quality?

In any form of art, people tend to prefer works that they can relate to or that can captivate their emotions. The same can be said for AMVs. Some people may prefer fast paced action videos where they can enjoy a high quality video without thinking 

while others enjoy slow paced and heavy story wise AMVs.

Neither can be called right or wrong, because what is art is highly subjective. There have been cases where AMVs went viral (anime got talent), have a hundred million views or even more.

Here is a playlist of the most popular AMVs on YouTube  with multimillion views: list=PLrQgzPdA3rGAkQDKn4eAlhW23tg7JHevk . After you take a quick look at those videos, can you say that they are similar to AMVs from previous posts? “You can be king again”, the video with the most views, is a simple AMV in which the creator synced scenes from the original story of the anime to the song he/she chose, not with extraordinary editing, compositions or VFX, just a respectable anime song combination. But can the same be said for the rest? Most of the other videos are named “Person X vs Person Y” without any actual synchronization-connection to the song. This kind of videos can hardly be called AMVs even though they do have the required criteria to be one (anime + song). Those AMVs aren’t a case of “fairuse”. They aren’t highly transformative, nothing genuinely new is being createdand they consist of a whole scene from the anime and not just short clips. While some may find the song annoying when trying to watch the video, it can be considered an alternate for the original show, since a whole unedited scene is there.  As a result the original market can be hurt.But the biggest case against fair use is that some of these videos have ADs, which means they have a profit and it’s not purely fan made.  This type of videos, remain the biggest thorn on the AMV community. Everyone can upload their own interpretation and idea of an anime or song (which is the essence of an AMV), but they can also upload a fight scene as an overlay to a song. If for any reason, someone is interested to search for AMVs for the first time, the first thing that will pop up, are the most popular and viewed AMVs. Unless the person is introduced to AMVs by someone else, the first thing they will see is a fight scene with a song as background noise, which often leads to misinterpretation of AMVs. There are many AMVs that deserve their popularity because of the newly generated meaning, given by the creator (F.Y.C, Anime got talent, Pencilhead etc), but there are also “AMVs” that are popular because of the anime or the song, which theyare consisted of. It’s not difficult to distinguish which is which, but it is essential. Because degrading and categorizing a whole type of videos and a community just from the first thing that comes on YouTube, is wrong and makes genuine works and project suffer.

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

Important Dates for AMVs

 In order for AMVs to exist and be what they are today, a certain amount of changes and events had to be made in Technology, the Japanese Animation Industry and the overall Media. Let’s have a closer look:

( You can see a timeline with the most important date of the text below, for a better chronical understanding, here:  ttps://infograph.venngage.com/ps/tHDQMqJpsqo/amvs )

TECHNOLOGY

The beginning of Editing

The use of film editing to establish continuity is attributed to British film pioneer Robert W. Paul's “Come Along, Do!”, made in 1898 and one of the first films to feature more than one shot Paul's 'Cinematograph Camera No. 1' of 1896 was the first camera to feature reverse-cranking, which allowed the same film footage to be exposed several times and thereby to create super-positions and multiple exposures. One of the first films to use this technique, Georges Méliès's The Four Troublesome Heads from 1898, was produced with Paul's camera.

 First Non Linear Editing Software

CMX 600 was introduced in 1971. It was the first non-linear computerized machine that is used for offline editing. The machine received the Emmy award for its contribution to the industry. In 1980, VCR technology accessible to the public and gave the opportunity to the fans to record their favorite shows and then edit them. In 1985,”Harry” was created by Quantel:  Harry was the first all-rounder video editing and digital composting system. However, due to technological limitations, Harry was only capable of applying effects to a maximum of 80 seconds of uncompressed 8-bit video.In  1989: Avid Technology publicly introduced the Avid/1 Media Composer at NAB to great fanfare.  The codec used for editing on Avid was the Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) codec, which became the primary video editing codec of the early 90’s.  It was not very high quality, but it worked fine for offline editing.In 1991 Adobe came with its first video editing software Premiere. Premiere Pro, today, has become industry-leading software for video editing. The software is widely used across the globe by both beginners and professionals.

ANIME

What is thought to be the first anime was a 3 second clip that is 50 frames long, called “Katsudo Shashin”. In it, a boy writes 活動写真, which means "moving pictures" on a board. Its creator and date of creation are unknown, but it is thought to be from circa 1907.

In 1917, the first professional and publicly displayed works began to appear. Animators such as Ōten Shimokawa and Seitarou Kitayama produced numerous works, with the oldest surviving film being “Kouchi's Namakura Gatana”, a two-minute clip of a samurai trying to test a new sword on his target only to suffer defeat, June 1917. The Kyoto International Manga Museum cites “Imokawa Mukuzo Genkanban no Maki” from April 1917 as the first Japanese produced animation. The first color anime feature film, which is sometimes considered to be the first anime by modern standards, is “Hakujaden”, which was created in 1958.  “Three Tales”, aired in 1960, was the first anime shown on television and “Otogi Manga Calendar”, was the first anime series to be produced and the first to be televised. It ran from 1961-1964.

In 1961 “The Tale of the White Serpent” was the first anime film aired in America. In the 1960s, Astro Boy, Speed Racer and Kimba the White Lion were introduced to the US and were received positively. However audiences didn't see them as Japanese, possibly because they resembled most American cartoons of the time and there was translated in English. More specifically “Astro Boy” was the first anime-series that was televised in America, in 1963 and it was the first anime ever that had an opening music intro. In the 1970s openings, used to be 60 seconds. Then they were increased to 90 seconds.

In the 1980s, anime became more accepted,mainstream, and experienced a boom in production. Following a few successful adaptations of anime in overseas markets in the 1980s, anime gained increased acceptance in those markets in the 1990s and even more at the turn of the 21st century.

 MEDIA

 The Start of Music Videos

Anime music videos are a subset of music videos, which came into their own in the 1980s. During the 1920s and 1930s, music and moving images began to be combined by professional movie makers and music producers to create what are typically referred to as “musical short films” and were played mostly in cinemas. By the 1940s, jukeboxes were playing “soundies”—a song combined with moving images printed on celluloid film.

In 1981, MTV was launched in the U.S., offering 24/7 music on television. The music video genre had become mainstream and music videos soon became expected components of any mainstream music album launch.

YouTube

One of the most important things for AMVs, like so many other video based content, was the creation of YouTube in 2005. More specifically the year 2007, in which people are allowed to upload their own creations.

AMVs Community

It wasn’t long until this community found a space in the internet. In 2000, “AnimeMusicVideos.Org” was created by AMV creator Kris McCormic (Phade) for AMV creators to list (and later host) their works and discusses the hobby with other creators. It has since become the primary hub for the Anime Music Video community. “AMV News” followed in 2006. AMV News was created with the aim of popularizing this type of art in Russia and other East Slavic-speaking countries.  Until 2010, AMV creators were creating their works solo or in a tag team by other people they met on YouTube. The first studio was “DS studio” .The “AKROSS” was founded on December 20, 2002, with the aim of uniting disparate AMV-studios into a common network organization, and thereby improve the quality and competitiveness of Russian works in the AMV genre. AKROSS project is the organization of the annual international competition AKROSS Con, which has been held since 2003.

 AMVs

The technology used for tape distribution was the same technology fans used to make their own music videos, and in 1982 Jim Kaposztas created what we believe to be the first fan-made anime music video in the West: an ironically violent Space Battleship Yamato video set to "All You Need is Love" by the Beatles.

As anime grew in the United States, the emergence of fan conventions, 1990s, also led to AMVs becoming part of con programming. Later that decade different competitions and contests start taking place.

   AMVs that went viral

 Not including “AMVs” that are a scene from an anime and an overlaying song, here is a list of AMVs that went viral:

“This is Halloween”: Edited by Hagaren Viper 2010 “Animegraphy”: Edit by qyll, 2013 “Into the Labyrinth”: Edited by lolligerjoj, 2013 “Anime 404”: Edited by BakaOppai, 2014 “Anime Got Talent”: Edited by Luna 2015

 AMVs that changed their course of history

 Crossovers are a very popular theme, not only in AMVs. There are surely hidden gems in the AMV history but, the genre really gained popularity in 2011 when “Pencilhead” by QwaQwa was introduced, followed by his work: “PaperHeart” in 2012. “Pencilhead” was also AMVs’ introduction to heavy compositing and editing, which is equal or surpasses even professional work. In 2012, Umiika published the crossover “Our tapes” and in the AMV community new stereotypes had arisen.  Amvs that didn’t have an original storyline or weren’t crossovers, were now shunned and degraded by critics . In 2015 DN@ published “F.Y.C”, in which he is making a parody of those stereotypes. Even to these days it’s believed to be one of the best, if not the best AMV in terms of technique.

sources:

AnimeMusicVideos.org forum,“what are the absolute oldest AMVs?“[Online Forum Posts],posted on AnimeMusicVideos,June ,2018.

Knobel ,Michele & Lankshear, DIY Media: Creating, Sharing and Learning with New Technologies,New York : Lang Publishing, 2010.

Kuwaly.“ What is the first ever produced anime and manga? ”[ Online Forum Post/answer], posted on Anime and Manga, April 13,2013.

Phoenix, “AnimeMusicVideos.org” , Fanlore, June ,2019.

RightStuf, “ History Of Anime In The US ”,Accessed June 16,2020.

Roberts ,Ian. “Multimedia :Genesis of the digital anime music video scene, 1990–2001″, Transformative Works and Cultures, special issues: Fan/Remix Video, No. 9 (2012).

Saxton ,Jamie. Music, Sound and Multimedia (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007)

Sengar ,Radha. “ Surprising Facts on The History of Video Editing”,Video Editing InstituteAn ADMEC Multimedia Group Website, December 7, 2019.

Spering ,Peter. “ What was the first anime ever made?25 Answers ” [Online Forum Post/answer],posted on Quora, April 19, 2018.

Wikipedia. “Anime.” Last modified June 14, 2020.

Takeuchi ,Takahiro. “ A short history of anime musicWe look back at the history of anime songs through five timeless hits“, Time Out Tokyo, June 30 ,2017.

Wikipedia. “ List of anime distributed in the United States .” Last modified June 5, 2020.

Wikipedia. “ Film editing.” Last modified June 13, 2020.

Wikipedia. “ History of anime .” Last modified June 09, 2020.

Yee, Alexander. “When and why did the trend of 1:30-long openings and endings begin? ”[ Online Forum Post/answer], posted on Anime and Manga, February 22,2013.

Yokoelf. “ The Evolution of Anime through Openings (1963 - 2016)”. YouTube Video, 18:00. June 11 ,2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRL_jSLZ6YQ.

[eksostrephicphilosopher]

Are AMVs considered copyright Infringement? [part 3]

A strong case of fair use can be made for the video track in AMVs. But responsible for the copyright strikes and warnings that AMVs get, is mostly the audio track. There have been many case of take down notices in the past, audio muting and unavailability of certain AMVs in certain countries due to the song. There have even been scandals where music companies demanded for AMVs that use their songs to be taken down from AnimeMusicVideos.Org.  But it can still be debated if the audio track in AMVs is copyright infringement and not under fair use.

1. The Purpose and Character of the Use

a. Non-commercial — Once again, AMVs are completely non-commercial works which makes them much more likely to be fair use. While they are often posted on commercial sites such as YouTube, that has no bearing on whether AMVS themselves are fair use or not. “Under the DMCA safe harbor provision, the responsibility to ensure content is non-infringing is entirely that of the user that uploaded the videos, not YouTube.”  (Patrick McKay ,“Are Anime Music Videos Fair Use?“, 2009.)

b. Transformative — It is much less clear that AMVs are transformative in relation to the music source than the video source. Since they usually use a whole song without editing or altering it, they clearly don’t transform the song in the sense that they make it into something different as with the video track. However, there is still a case to be made that AMVs are transformative in relation to the song used in “altering the original with new expression, meaning, or message. The video and music are combined to create an entirely new message which is much greater than the sum of its parts.”

As AMVs themselves evolve, the audio track is becoming more and more transformative. It started as simple song cut to keep the part of the song that suits more the idea of the AMV:

People nowadays are sometimes adding sound effects: 

1. To give their AMVs a cinematic look

2. To make AMVs more emotionally engaging to the viewers:

2. Nature of the Copyrighted Work

As with the video, the source songs in AMVs are published artistic works. The fact that they’re published (assuming you don’t use a pre-release leak or something) is slightly in favor of fair use, while the fact that they’re artistic rather than factual works is slightly against fair use.

3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole

This prong is slightly problematic, since an entire copyrighted song is used. This would tend to weigh against fair use. However, some cases where an entire work was copied have nevertheless been held to be fair use, “if the secondary user only copies as much as is necessary for his or her intended use.”  (Patrick McKay ,“Are Anime Music Videos Fair Use?“, 2009.) In this case we could say that the whole song is necessary, since the point of an AMV is for the song to shape the video and for the video to depict the song.

4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work

“a. Effect on the market for the original song: Copyright holders could argue that AMVs could serve as a substitute for buying the original song if people merely listen to the song on YouTube or rip the audio track instead of buying the song. Those who are content to merely listen to the song on YouTube would not have been likely to buy the song anyway, while relatively few people possess the technical knowledge to rip the audio from a video and use that in place of buying the song. Those that do would most likely consider the audio rip of inferior quality to purchasing the song (or merely illegally downloading it a different way), and would thus not likely consider it worth the trouble. Both of these factors also most likely would be outweighed by the positive effect the video would have on the market for the original song by giving the artist additional exposure and free promotion, motivating people who otherwise might not have heard the song to buy the artist’s work.

b. Effect on a possible licensing market: In large-scale commercial scenarios, there is an established market for audio visual synchronization rights, where musical artists sell the rights to filmmakers to “synchronize” their music with video footage such as in films or television commercials. However, there is at present no market for licensing tracks to individual hobbyists wanting to create amateur non-commercial music videos for fun. Because a legitimate market for licensing songs for uses such as AMVs does not currently exist, there is therefore no potential for this use to have a negative effect on such a market. You cannot negatively impact that which does not exist.” (Patrick McKay ,“Are Anime Music Videos Fair Use?“, 2009.)

Just like the case of the video track, I believe that AMVs can’t be considered a substitute to the original song since they are aiming for an original meaning which differs from the song. Creators themselves are searching for music that suits their idea, leading to discoveries in music artists, who are getting more exposure because of AMVs. But whether they are a case of Fair use can’t be answered.

Sources: 

McKay,Patrick. “Are Anime Music Videos Fair Use?“. Promoting Fair Use in Online Video.June 19, 2009.

Office of the Law Revision Counsel .United States Code: Containing the General and Permanent .Volume 8.United States : Government Printing Office ,1995.