lizardjay

AMV count: 11! Or, a grand total of 22 minutes and 12 seconds. This is only counting the best of the vexercises videos (I had the rest set to private on Youtube). It's a good amount, especially considering that starting mid-August I moved jobs and apartments and from that point on did almost nothing. I always work cyclically anyway, this was just..... a longer break than normal :D

Favorite video: Let's Get Lost. It's very silly but also it's probably the most heartfelt video I've ever made. I'm not sure how much that actually comes through to other people, but it's special to me anyway. Honorable mention to Homewrecker because I think it's the perfect mix of funny and serious, which is the best way for an AMV to be.

In terms of techniques and stuff, I don't think I did anything new this year, I was just building on things I've done before. Building a lot.... One day my ghosts will look perfect 😤 I also got really into thinking about transitions this year (thanks, vexercises!) so I hope to carry that forward. On the other hand, I learned that lipsyncing is only viable when the talking animation is very good, so I'll probably never do it again in large segments.

I feel like I've had a lot of insights but none of them are anything I can put into words. I'm not sure if that's a factor of me not being articulate, or if they're very hard to communicate in words because they're more about music and movement. There's probably a way to talk about these things if I studied film theory or something... but I don't care to do that.

I branched into shorter videos also because of vexercises. They're so addictive; I recently edited a song down to about 2 minutes for a project and it felt too long. It's not! I've just gotten spoiled!!! A short video means you can exclusively use the best shots, and you have plenty of material to work with so you can really fuss with the timing, and you can express a simple idea without overdoing it. But I'm working on a couple regular-length AMVs too so hopefully I'll get used to it again.

Goals for 2023:

Make backups for all my videos! My poor Tobirama AMV, being copyright struck, is currently available nowhere on the internet, and the rest of the videos aren't necessarily safe either. Even aside from copyright problems, there's sometimes region blocks based on the song. I already have an account on animemusicvideos so I just need to migrate everything. This is, unfortunately, a tedious process.
Finish at least one video that I've abandoned. There are a lot to pick from.
Do Festivids again? I didn't do this year's because I had no energy in the later part of the year, but it's a great exchange. There aren't many other exchanges or events that I know of that include AMVs/vids (unless I submit to a con? .... yeah right) so if I want to do anything with the community at large then that's my option. I'm not really flashy enough for MEPS 🤔

My sibling wants to learn how to edit this year, and I'm trying not to be too overbearing about it. I'm just so excited!! Join me... 😈😈😈