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itsclydebitches · 4 years

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Thank you for the detailed breakdown! It helps a lot, the disclaimers too. "Show don't tell" is especially interesting to me: you hear it for all writing ever, but I've never thought about it quite like the examples you pulled from the book. I guess I'm usually worried about something being too subtle if it isn't stated outright, so I'd show it *and* tell it. Similar to the 'kick with "a lot of power behind it"' example.

No problem! And man, I completely get those worries. I have them as well. What I usually end up doing is providing more description than strictly necessary to ensure that, yes, I’m getting my point across and (hopefully) immersing the reader to boot. Whether that’s “good” or not is obviously subjective. But we could expand on that moment to really hammer home the ‘Brown is stronger’ takeaway without resorting to saying that outright:

Brown had some kind of martial arts training similar to Sun’s. That defensive stance was familiar and Sun challenged it head on, intending to block any blows while getting a grip with his tail. He got in close--close enough to see Brown’s eyes widen--and Sun grinned in response. Yup, he thought. It’s good to be home.

The kick came out of nowhere.

A slight breeze against his cheek and a boot near his nose. That was all the warning Sun got. He leaned back in time, but only just, and the gunchuck he hooked around Brown’s ankle was more to keep himself balanced than anything else. Still, it gave Sun the opening he needed and he surged forward, hitting Brown with the closed gunchuck in his left hand. The force of the blow sent Brown’s bandanna rippling. It should have brought him to his knees.

Instead, Brown grabbed Sun by the shoulders and push him face-down on the concrete. A rainbow exploded behind Sun’s eyes and his Clones instantly fizzled out. He coughed, trying and failing to take another breath. He may as well have gone toe-to-toe with a Goliath. At least then the pain radiating through his body would have made sense.

Who is this guy?

Then you hire a professional writer and not Clyde to make this better

To reiterate: telling things straight out isn’t automatically a bad thing. You just want to be aware of when you’re doing it and then use it with purpose. I think a great, recent example of this is Jo’s speech in Little Women (2019). She spends much of the conversation dancing around the questions her mother asks her, so when she finally starts listing things - “I feel...” - it’s incredibly powerful. The act of stating, bluntly and clearly, what her feelings are is a moment of revelation, for her and the viewer. All of this culminates in the line “but I’m so lonely.” Here, the viewer doesn’t need to see Jo’s loneliness. The film has already done that work throughout. Rather, Jo needs to be able to say that she’s lonely. Despite her fears and despite her belief that women are fit for so much more than just love, she has to be able to admit her loneliness aloud. So that’s an example where the act of literal telling is a moment of power for her, not an easy out for the author because they don’t know how to show loneliness instead.

#rwby #little women #mymetas #Anonymous

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thuskindlyshescatters · 5 years

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HI! I was wondering, when you make AMVs, are there some general things that you keep in mind or try to do? For example, synchronizing the changes in the clips or whatnot with the music. I'm kinda asking for advice, so I'd be really grateful to hear anything you have to say.

Ohhh, boy...

OH BOY,,,,,,,

This is probably gonna get really, really long, because I happen to be an aspiring filmmaker, so seeing someone ask ME for advice on AMV craftsmanship just makes my heart soar. So, thank you for that

Here’s a couple of my tips and tricks! Note that these are just my preferences, as many other styles and techniques are available to people who use different software.

You’re correct in the assumption that changing clips to the beat of the music (beat-syncing, as I unofficially call it in my head) plays a HUGE role in making AMVs. To make that smoother, I think that being able to see the waveform of the music you’re editing to is a great tool, because I know exactly where the downbeat I want to sync to is. As well as syncing cuts to beat, I think syncing the action within a shot to the beat, like someone blinking or their footsteps, adds an extra layer of immersion. This can be hard to do sometimes given the length of the shot, but the effect is worth it.

Sometimes beat-syncing isn’t precisely the way to go, however. Often, slow, soft fades are much more effectively when matching tempo adagio or slower, or quiet music. And never underestimate the power of a black screen; when the audience has just been hit with a pensive moment, give them time to think. I point to my “Bohemian Rhapsody” video for advice on both of these -- if it’s a slow song, slo-mo, fading, and sometimes straight-up darkness is the way to go.

Just for general creation advice, my “routine” for making videos follows thusly:

Choose the song you want to use. If you scroll through my channel, a lot of the songs I choose are 4+ minutes, mostly because songs that are longer tend to be about something. It’s hard to show meaning and create a visual story to a song with no relevance to the themes of the show.

Write down all the lyrics to the song and break lines according to when you want to change visuals, or make a note indicating when the shot will change (i.e. “One shot per downbeat”, which is usually hell to make and so fun to watch).

Think to yourself, how do I want to organize these visuals? For example, will each verse go chronologically through the show? Will I follow the character arc of one specific character? Just trailers? Just Volumes 1-3? Just 4-6? If it’s a song with multiple “acts”, like “The Killing Kind” on my channel, the answer may be all of the above. Or none -- maybe just all the fights in the show! Just know that the viewer tends to associate chronology the best with the logical progression of a cluster of shots -- if I show the fight on top of the train, Cinder vs Neo, and the fight of the Grimm Reaper, your brain goes “oh, she’ll probably show the mech fight, or the fight with Adam, or the Silver Eyes sequence next” because your brain has figured out that all of these intense scenes are from Volume Six. This is why I find it annoying to do meaningless, upbeat pop songs -- action is exciting, but often when the entire song is action, you have to jump around a lot, and the audience quickly becomes lost.

Now it’s time to “block,” as I call it. For each line or phrase of the song, find the most appropriate shot in the context that you’ve just established (a character’s arc, a Volume, an episode, even), and write a brief description so that you, when you read those words, know what shot that means. I also tag the volume and episode it’s from. For example, some of the common shots I use are “Arm severing (3:11)”, “Pyrrha disintegrating (3:12)”, and even silly ones like “Cinder gets rekt (5:13)” that still get the point across, because I know what I mean. This step is where having an obsessive, encyclopedic knowledge of the show is pretty useful, especially if you want to avoid reusing shots but have the same lyrics as before to work with.

After that, you FINALLY start editing. I cut out ALL of the shots I’m using first by ctrl+F-ing the document I blocked in and going in release order, starting with the Red Trailer, all the way through 6:13. I find the shot and cut it at the very first frame and the very last. It doesn’t matter if it will only be used for 0.4 seconds (literally) -- having all 10 seconds of material may come in handy. Sometimes in this step I see an unused shot that might be better than what I originally intended, so a lot of swaps can be made. After that’s done, I put the shots in order and add the song.

Then you CUT THAT SHIT DOWN, SON. You might have 45 minutes of content before you start editing. In this stage, don’t add any sorts of transitions or anything -- just beat-sync the shots as well as you can, then go back and rewatch to see if there are things you want to fix. Consistency is key; sometimes, lyrics and the beat are syncopated, and you have to choose whether to sync to the downbeat or the words, and then remember that decision for the next verse. This step is my favorite part of the entire process, but it usually takes the least amount of time.

Once you’re SURE it’s properly synced, now it’s time for transitions and colors and whatnot. Transitions should always follow the tone of that part of the song -- is it fast? Is it full of movement? I’ve found that cymbal crashes and other high-pitched percussive noises are best accompanied by a flash or white-fade transition. I generally prefer more simplistic transitions; the meaning and tone of the song is more important to me than looks and showing off. Same goes for color editing; the eye expects to see an approximate parallel to what it’s used to, which means you better have a damn good reason if it’s suddenly going to be in X-ray mode. Obviously, black and white or washed-out colors are more somber or grimdark, and fully saturated colors are more jubilant. Mess around with it -- you have been a consumer of art your entire life, so at this point, your eye knows what looks nice!

That’s probably nowhere NEAR all of my thoughts, but that’s mostly how I do it! My best advice is to find what you love to do most about it -- for me, it’s beat syncing -- and study in AMVs you like to watch how they do it. Don’t plagiarize, but do imitate if it helps you learn, because I know for a fact that I learn something new from every video I watch and create.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask them! I’m thrilled to receive them. And, if you're planning on making a video, shoot me a link -- I’d love to see your art!

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