If you often access YouTube or Instagram, sometimes you might find videos that use some scenes cut from some anime, combined and rearranged with the addition of special effects and accompanied by music or song that matches the theme of the video.
Those videos are known as anime music video (AMV), and it turns out that in Indonesia, there is a community that focuses in making AMVs. The Facebook-based community is called AMV Indonesia. KAORI has the chance to interview a representative from this community, who shared with us what the community is like:
Could you introduce to us AMV Indonesia?
AMV Indonesia is a community made to facilitate video creators (editors) to express their creativity in making music videos using cut of anime scenes. This community is a place to share knowledge and practice with the freedom to share works, tutorials, comments and criticisms.
As you are making AMV, could you explain what is AMV? Are AMVs always identical with anime?
AMV is short for anime music video, which means music video with cuts of anime scenes as its focus. However there is also the term MMV or manga music video, which is similar to AMV, but uses manga as the content.
As an online community, how do you manage this community? Like, how do you recruit members, hold routine meetings and other events?
Our community is quite free and open. Anyone can join as long as they fulfill the existing requirements. Meetings and participation in an event are arranged if some members want to facilitate and gather other members to participate.
The AMV that you made might get warning from official party, for example YouTube. How is your opinion regarding this?
AMV is surely identical with copyright. Because the anime and songs used in AMV have their own copyright. However, by complying with the copyright law, that is, uploading AMV not for the purpose of gaining profit (monetization), we still can upload the video to YouTube, and indirectly, we as AMV creators are taking part in promoting those songs.
Are there other AMV communities aside from AMV Indonesia? If any, how do the communities interact?
Yes, there are. The biggest AMV community is called “Editing Community” that is based in YouTube (while AMV Indonesia can be said as a Facebook-based community). In that community, there are smaller communities known as “studio” or “group.” These communities are connected through individual interactions of editors and collaboration between groups.
Do you often hold AMV training course for members or public?
We never organize a special training course, but we provide tutorials for beginners and experienced creators. Other than that, we also hold some competitive events to support members to create a masterpiece. Even in the group, they show their editing skills to each other, which indirectly triggers other members to create better works in order to compete and show their editing skills.
What kind of AMV that are favoured/popular by viewers?
It is dificult to answer that question, because just like films, viewers have their own tastes. Basically AMV has various themes and styles, such as: sad, happy, action, romance, funny, abstract, and many more. It comes back to the preference or interest of the viewers.
We have seen AMV Indonesia participated in some Japanese pop culture events such as Comic Frontier or Mangafest. What is your reason to come to that kind of events?
We want to introduce AMV Indonesia to more people, to introduce that making AMV is a hobby worth trying. Other than that, this is a chance for members to meet and interact with each other (gathering).
How are people’s reactions (especially netizen) when seeing your works?
We hope that viewers are touched and inspired to create an AMV after watching our works.
What kind of difficulties commonly faced while making AMV? Are there certain applications that commonly used?
Creating an AMV needs time and patience, aside from the ability to use an editing program. And not counting the “Program no responding” problem that always come in unexpected times. There are also times when we can’t think of any idea (creator’s block) to create a more interesting AMV concept. The most popular editing applications in our community are Adobe After Effect, Magix Vegas Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro.
What is the challenge of managing this community?
AMV Indonesia is a big community with more than 10.000 members. Considering the number, there are times when we (group admins) are overwhelmed to check posts in the group. However, we are very helpful with some members who give fast response when there are posts that are not in line with the group’s topic.
Could you give us a closing statement, especially for those who are interested to create an AMV?
For you all who are interested to create your own AMV, don’t feel depressed or shy when your AMV is bad and such. Because everything is hard at the beginning, those who have been pro in video editing are also newbies at first, but they never stop to improve their skill. It is better to create something than just watching anime. For example, if you’re happy with an anime that you watch, then why don’t you put that happiness in an AMV so that other people can also enjoy it? You will also feel satisfied with what you have done. You can get new experience not only as a viewer, but as a creator!
So, be happy to be creative and have fun while doing so!
Curious to know more about AMV Indonesia? You can check their official page here:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AMVINDONESIA/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/amvindonesia
The Indonesian Anime Times
