If you’ve read my last blog post, in 2006, I have already been deep in fan made music videos on YouTube. I had published my first one in May 2006 and in late 2006, I was going to be introduced into another form of entertainment that will take over the next 15 years of my life.
Sometime around fall of 2006, one of my good friends introduced me to anime. Now to be honest, I’ve already been sort of aware of it. When we were in middle school, I always saw her reading manga, which is Japanese comic books that most anime series are adapted from. I used to make fun of her when she would read Naruto during home room. And while I made fun of her, I secretly watched anime on Adult Swim, specifically, the 2003 version of Full Metal Alchemist. But anyways, she introduced me to the first episode of Code Geass. It had just been released in Japan and she was able to get a fan translation of the episode. We were stuck in traffic on a bus ride home from a field trip so why not. We watched it and from that moment on, I’ve been watching anime since.
So as I dove deeper into my love of anime, I also started watching fan made anime music videos, aka AMVs, on YouTube through 2007. It was then that I started making my own using Windows Movie Maker. I remember making quite a few videos that year but unfortunately, my first AMV channel no longer exists, probably due to copyright issues. I made a lot of random friends on YouTube, commenting and five starring each others videos and giving feedback. On friend introduced me to a website called animemusicvideos.org and in January of 2008, I made my account on the site.
It was a really great site to meet other editors and get feedback from them. From here, I was able to learn how use better editing software, primarily Sony Vegas. This program gave me more freedom with my timeline and even effects. I made my first video on Sony Vegas using a movie called , “5 Centimeters per Second” and the A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton. I don’t think the video is available on YouTube anymore, but you can download it my animemusicvideos.org page.
I ended up sending this to the AMV Contest at Anime Expo 2008 and I actually made it into the finals in the drama category! My video was played on the big screen of Microsoft Theatre, which was known as Nokia Theatre then. It was probably one of the coolest moments of my AMV editing run. Unfortunately, I didn’t win any awards but that will forever live on in my memory.
After this, I continued making AMVs to upload to YouTube and the AMV site and for contests. Most of the time, I didn’t make the finals but I most enjoyed people’s feedback and reactions to my videos. I did enter an AMV to Anime Los Angeles 2010 and won first place in Creator’s Choice in the drama category! I used multiple anime series and the song, “Signal Fire” by Snow Patrol. You can actually watch the video here:
As I mentioned, I met a lot of people in the AMV community. One of those people was a guy who went by InsaneWaya on the AMV site. We became very close and even started dating. He didn’t live close by but still continued “seeing” each other from 2009- 2018. He would visit me once a year, especially during conventions. After 2018, I actually ended up moving in with him and now we are married! Just a fun little personal story that came out of editing fan made music videos.
In 2014, I made 3 videos that would end up being my last AMVs as of today. All three of these videos were submitted to Anime Expo 2014 but unfortunately none of them made it to the screening. I was able to present them at an AMV panel so at least it was played in front of a crowd somewhere!
The first video is a romance AMV using the anime Blue Spring Ride and the song “Quite Like You” by The Script. I remember at the time I had been obsessing over The Script so I’ve been using their music for videos. Blue Spring Ride had also recently finished and was probably one of my favorite romance series that year. The video is still available on YouTube.
The next video wasn’t really a music video but instead, I took audio from one of the trailers for Ender’s Game and edited Aldnoah Zero clips on top of it. I guess it was more so a trailer parody. This video is also available on YouTube.
The last video was a collaboration between my now husband and me. Again, I was a super big fan of The Script at the time so we used the song “Hall of Fame” and used a bunch of different anime series. We even used scenes from the actual music video as well. I really wish this one made finals because we worked so hard on it but it is what it is. The video is also available on YouTube.
To be honest, I do miss editing AMVs. It was fun listening to a song, imagining the video play in my head, then editing it out and seeing it come to life. I loved meeting friends through editing and some of those people, I still talk to today. With all the editing I’ve done through AMVs, I was able to bring it to future video projects which I’ll make blog posts about later.
But I don’t have the time to make AMVs anymore. Looking back, I realize how many hours I put into those videos, not including prepping clips for editing. I remember 5 seconds of a video could take over an hour to edit them the way I want it to look. I would spend hours, sometimes days, finding the perfect scene from 50 episode series just to fit in a second of the video. When I finished the AMV, it was definitely satisfying, but with the little time I have now, I just can’t see myself getting back into it.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading a portion of my creative journey. Have you seen any AMVs and if so, what are your favorites? Thank you for taking the time to read and I’ll see you in the next post!
Content By Sheena 