Anime music video

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An anime music video (abbreviated AMV) is a music video consisting of clips from one or more anime television series or movies set to songs. Most are not official music videos released by the musicians, but rather amateur fan compositions which synchronize clips with a musical track. As such, they are most commonly informally released, often over the Internet. Anime conventions frequently run AMV contests or AMV exhibitions. While AMVs traditionally use footage taken from anime, video game footage is also a popular option<ref>Such video game clips feature in over 10% of current AMVs according to Animemusicvideos.org statistics as of September 2005</ref>.

It is also worth noting that these videos are not limited to animated series. They are frequently made using footage from movies, television series, or other sources. For information about non-animated fan-made videos, see Songvids.

AMVs should not be confused with professional and original animated films produced as music videos for such groups as Daft Punk, or with such short music video films as Japanese musical duo Chage and Aska's song "On Your Mark" by Studio Ghibli.

1 AMV Creation
2 AMV webcomics
3 AMV competitions, evaluations, and rankings
4 AMV and copyright infringement
5 References
6 External links

[edit] AMV Creation

The creation of an AMV centers on using various video editing techniques to create a feeling of synchronization and unity. Several techniques are available to achieve this:

Editing - Using different clips from the video source and changing between them at specific times is the most important tool the AMV creator has. Often both the events in the video and the transitions between the clips are synchronized with events in the music.
Digital effects - Using video editing software (commonly a non-linear editing system) the video source can be modified in various ways. Some effects are designed to be imperceptible (such as modifying a scene to stop a character's mouth from moving) whereas others are intended to increase synchronism with the audio, or possibly create a unique visual style for the video.
Lip-sync - the synchronization of the lip movements of a character in the original video source to the lyrics of the audio, to make it appear as if the character were singing the song. Lip-syncing is also commonly used in parody AMVs. These are created to poke fun at the characters in the anime that is being used. One very popular song in such AMVs is If You Were Gay by Avenue Q
Some editors use original and manipulated animation, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional, in AMV works. Such additions are often used for visual effect or to convey a story that is otherwise incommunicable using only the original video source.
Rubber-bands, Keyframe manipulation or Dissolves - This is another technique, in which the editor makes points in a video source on the timeline, of the non-linear editing program, that they can drag to different positions which makes the video either fade in or fade out. This can be to another video clip, or to a different color, most commonly solid black or solid white.

[edit] AMV webcomics

Some webcomics have begun featuring AMVs as source material for satire. For example, Hookie Dookie Panic! is one of the most outspoken comics to be involved with the AMV community. The comic is produced by Brian Wilson and Shawn Lieske, and, along with AMVs, uses many facets of anime conventions - such as cosplay, anime, and games - as comedic material.

[edit] AMV competitions, evaluations, and rankings

Iron Chef competitions - This is a competition in which two or more AMV editors go head to head with their editing skills, in which they edit on the fly against each other. Most commonly these bouts go for the length of one or two hours and they are held either in person, at an Anime Convention, or through the Internet. In both cases there are designated judges who compare the videos, either by the theme, the timing or overall production quality of the videos made during the competition. Judges will declare a winner and most commonly this winner goes on to compete against other editors who have won previous parts of the competition. The other alternative is individual Iron Chef Competitions, in which there is only one part to the competition and most commonly only two editors and one these editors wins the competition.
AMV Viewer choice competitions - This is another form of an AMV competition. In this competition the editors submit videos to competitions that are held either at Anime Conventions or on Internet Websites. In both cases the winners are decided by the viewers and sometimes the editors themselves are allowed to vote. In conventions AMVs are usually judged by the category they are competing in, for example an action video would compete with other action videos. Viewers watch the videos and they submit votes at the end of the viewing portion of the competition. The other way that this competition is held, is through an Internet website. Some websites have a similar way of judging the AMVs, by the category they are in. While on other websites they videos are put against other videos of the same or different categories and are judged on which is a better AMV overall, not solely on the theme of the video.
The AMV website Animemusicvideos.org is used to compare AMVs, as the site implements a review and rating system whereby viewers and other creators can comment on and rate the AMVs using a 1-10 scale for each of the aspects of AMV creation (see above), and for creativity. AMVs that are on the website are ranked in many categories, including a top 10% list (based on viewer evaluation), a top rating list (scores on a 1-5 scale), a top favorites list (based on the number of users who consider a music video among their favorites), top commented list (based on most comments or reviews received, regardless of rating), and more. Due to the number of AMVs found at the website, as well as the site's user base, it is a popular means of obtaining information about various AMV projects, and a somewhat popular means of evaluating the abilities of independent and/or amateur video editors.

[edit] AMV and copyright infringement

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The making of AMVs is legal, since such a use falls under fair use doctrines. Distribution of AMVs, due to their contents, is an area of legal dispute.

AMVs inherently consist entirely of copyrighted and unlicensed material, including entire songs and substantial portions of television series or motion pictures. Thus, legal concerns vary depending on several factors. As a general rule of thumb AMVs can be seen as illegal in the de jure sense, however, legalities concerning copyrights are subject to variation based on the copyright holders' consent. Many AMVs have so far been viewed as acceptable under Fair Use provisions or have otherwise gone legally unmolested, implying (albeit potentially falsely) a de facto legal validity.

The Japanese culture is generally permissive with regard to the appropriation of ideas. Works such as doujinshi, unauthorized comics continuing the story of an official comic series, are actually encouraged by many anime makers<ref name="lessig1">"This is the phenomenon of doujinshi. Doujinshi are also comics, but they are a kind of copycat comic. The creation of doujinshi is governed by a creators' ethic stating that a work is not doujinshi if it is just a copy; the artist must make a contribution to the art he copies by transforming it either subtly or significantly... These copycat comics exhibit significant market penetration as well. More than 33,000 "circles" of creators from across Japan produce these bits of Walt Disney creativity. More than 450,000 Japanese come together twice a year, in the largest public gathering in the country, to exchange and sell them. This market exists in parallel to the mainstream commercial manga market. In some ways, it obviously competes with that market, but there is no sustained effort by those who control the commercial manga market to shut the doujinshi market down. It flourishes, despite the competition and despite the law." From Chapter One of Free Culture[1] by Lawrence Lessig</ref>. These doujinshi take an original copyrighted work and expand upon the story, allowing the characters to continue on after, before, or during the original story. Most anime makers encourage this practice, as it expands their series. Some see it as a tribute, others see it from a business viewpoint, that it draws in more support for the anime than it would have had otherwise.

Comiket, a convention that occurs twice a year in Tokyo, manages to pull in a crowd of 350,000 fans and artists, most of whom buy, sell, and trade doujinshi. Lessig has stated, "This market exists in parallel to the mainstream commercial manga market." Furthermore, cosplay (costume-play) conventions persist across Japan. These are conventions in which people will dress up in homemade costumes made to match specific characters; this practice is not discouraged or prosecuted in any way under Japanese copyright or trademark law. Many notable anime and manga authors will attend both of these types of conventions themselves, and convention participants have historically taken this as a sign of the authors' approval. In a similar sense, several original anime cartoonists have flown to various places in the U.S. to attend AMV conventions, especially the larger ones such as AtlantaCon. Many of these animators have also expressed approval of the making of AMVs.

The question has been raised of how such works can continue to exist, or such organizations to flourish, when they do so in legally muddy waters. The answer is that many of the Japanese authors encourage it - several of these authors began their careers with the same kinds of projects they witness anime fans working on today (ex. CLAMP).

By contrast, many U.S. vendors who have acquired anime series or motion pictures have expressed disapproval of AMV works made with those series or motion pictures and have insisted said videos be withdrawn from distribution. In recent years, some of these companies have begun to demand that AMVs made with their content be removed from sites like YouTube, Google Video, or the Animemusicvideos.org AMV aggregation site.

Certain musical performers, as well as their representative record labels, have been requesting the removal of some music videos from websites where they are made available for download. Public opinion and rumors give varying accounts of exactly how widespread these actions have become. Several months ago, the administrator of Animemusicvideos.org was contacted by Wind-Up Records, requesting the removal of content featuring the work of the bands Evanescence, Creed, and Seether.<ref name="amvorg-takedown">"Evanescence, Seether and Creed videos no longer available" -(Discussion on the Animemusicvideos.org forum, accessed 8 October 2006)</ref> This action generated tremendous ill will toward the record company among many fans of the band and AMVs alike, and since then rumors have claimed the label threatened to shut the site down. The site administrator has stored archival copies of the exchange between the label and the site's staff and published them on the site for public review.

With regard to legality, as has been stated before, AMVs exist in a grey area that encompasses a wide range of current copyright-related matters. Where video content is concerned, most anime makers approve of the fanmade works and many have officially stated their approval of the practice. Where music is concerned, the videos themselves aren't a problem, but their distribution is.