#*looks at qyll*

[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.