October, 2011

Posted by Paul Devlin:

“Time Walks Away” is the third music video I worked on with the popular New Jersey indie rock band, The Blasés (the other two are “All Night Long” from Rockin’ Brunswick  and “You Don’t Know Me.”) This video was featured on MTV’s 120 Minutes.

I had recently moved to New York City after ski bumming in Colorado and the band’s record company (Permanent Rave Records) had already chosen a director, George Mitas.  The band wanted me involved so I agreed to edit the video.

I knew that singer Rob Wagner and keyboardist Billy Donohue had been childhood friends, so we collected home movies of them together and matched this with the performance footage. Ideal for the theme of the song.  So is the “perfect little nugget” (as Jim Wood calls it) of Rob with his Volkswagen bug during childhood and then adulthood.

The band was spectacularly popular in bars and clubs in New Jersey in the ‘80s and ‘90s but this song is from their only album. The themes of these tracks, including “Time Walks Away,” were influenced by the death in 1985 of bassist Paul “Rock” Verdon in a train accident.

Posted by Rina Svet:

According to Wikipedia, an AMV is "a music video consisting of clips from one or more animations set to an audio track (often songs or movie/show trailer audio); the term usually refers to fan-made unofficial videos."  But an AMV is so much more than that simple definition.

I made my first AMV a long time ago. It was a sad little thing with terrible quality and editing  - made in Widows Movie Maker when I had just turned 16. If you were to show me this video today and ask me to claim it, I would deny its ownership totally and completely, but that badly edited little video was the beginning of everything for me.   Jumping forward seven years, I took my camera to New York Comic Con last weekend where I shot a little exposé about their AMV contest.  The room was jam-packed with only standing room left and I could barely navigate through it with my gear. The AMV contest is popular to say the least.

The AMV community, known collectively as “the .Org” is large and rich and fascinating. It's full of gifted editors of all ages, races, religions and nationalities who are striving to make a name for themselves; to achieve something; to always improve; to tell a story.  In short, editors who love to edit.  The lifetimes of their videos are filled with contests and big screens. With large audiences and fans. And their shelves are lined with trophies - proofs of their winnings.

The process of making an AMV is long and painstaking and the results are as different as the editors who create them. There are AMVs specializing in effects or 3D animation. There are videos centered on storytelling.  Videos that are dramas or comedies or action adventure pieces. There are videos that are terrible and videos that are so amazing it's hard to believe they weren't made by a pro. And the outlets for these videos are endless.  The screenings at conventions are only the tip of the iceberg.

As AMVs took me along the path to editing and filmmaking seven years ago, they are still bringing hundreds of young editors into this movement today.

Check out some of these great AMVs below!