[ Articles ]

This document will discuss what makes a good music video in general with a slant towards anime music videos. This paper could be split into technical and content, and since technical covers a broad array of software packages from iMovie to Avid Video Production systems. I'll exclude that aspect and focus on what makes for good content.

When focusing on content we need to break it into three aspects. They are timing, story and image quality. Since the last category falls more under technical aspect of how to rip from VHS, DVD, etc to achieve the highest quality output. I'll leave that for another article.

As a result, we are left with timing and story. Each of these has a critical affect on the work. Failure to execute either one correctly will result in an unhappy viewer. Granted, these are two very broad categories. Each can be broken up into smaller pieces, and failure to execute a smaller piece is less detrimental, but can still cause irritation.

Before starting any project it's sometimes nice to glance back at the past. In the case of music videos, their roots can be traced back to the 1911s with the "Prometheus -- Poem of Fire" symphony by Alexander Scriabin. He used a lighting system hooked to a piano-like device to entertain the audiences, and the first animated music video is credited to Oskar Fischinger.

Since then we've seen Walt Disney, Looney Tunes, Warner Brothers and other studios have followed suit with original works. Anime Music Videos have only been on the scene for around twenty years. The first few where done via straight VCR-to-VCR recording.

Technology and access to media has since caused an explosion in the music video industry and the animated music videos in general.

I'll start with timing since it has the greatest impact on story telling success, and, in fact, I consider it to be the hardest part of any project. Let's define "Timing" as the ability to match a tempo, rhythm, and duration of events to the media in which you are working in. You'll note I'm using musical terms to describe timing. Since music is one of the defining factors in a music video it's best to understand this medium, since this isn't an article on music I suggest starting with wikipedia's music section and expand out as need. Just remember, such concepts aren't limited to moving imagery and songs. They can be applied equally to writing, stills or any piece of art in which a directional flow is required.

We need to now break timing down into smaller pieces. Those pieces are Action, Gag Me, and Lip Services as defined by Phade's Guide on Page 4. This is a good start, but Action itself covers two categories. Those are emotional and physical action. The reason we need to break them apart is they service two different reasons for existence.

Thus we have Emotional, physical, jokes/gags and lip-syncing. Where most videos will at least contain at least the first two sub-categories, and smaller set will contain the latter two.

Emotional timing can be found in music and in video footage, and in fact in most productions it's the corner stone to a good product. As humans, we are very emotional creatures. Both men and women have a deep need to connect at some deeper level, and music is one of those connectors.

When I look for a song I listen to the emotional ties not only within what the singer is babbling about, but about the undertones within the music itself. There are songs where the two are almost at odds with each other. If you listen to "15 Beers Ago" by dEAF PEdESTRIANS you have a feeling what is spoken isn't the complete truth. The singer is using the words as a distraction for his true feelings.

Now, lets pull a video example from Return of the Jedi. The scene where Leia is confronted with Luke being her brother is a strong emotional segment, because in a span of just a few minutes she loses a potential lover, gains a brother and may lose him before she really gets to know him. It's a massive plot twist for both her and the audience.

As a result, the timing has to be perfect in order to give the range of emotions times to register with the watcher. If too short, Leia leaves the impression of being a brat that always gets her way. If too long, the viewer becomes restless.

Where emotional timing is used to cue the audience in how to respond and when to respond, physical timing is used to place those emotional roller coaster tracks down so there is enough space between twists, loops and turns to allow the watcher to catch their breath, but not long enough for them to fall out of the imaginary world you have created.

This, in a lot of respects, is the action Phade is discussing. It's critical at this stage to ensure the footage you are using flows not only with the song you decided on, but seamlessly from scene to scene.

Sadly, the largest part of physical timing is lost in music videos. Not because the authors of such things don't understand; just fitting any amount of breathing space and twists into a two to five minute video is very hard. It requires biting the bullet some days and removing things you love because they just don't work due to the limited track you can lay. This narrowing causes people the most frustration. How can you retell a twenty-six-episode show or a two-hour movie in such a short span of time?

The short answer is you don't. However, we'll be discussing story telling later on in this article. So I'll finish by stating physical timing needs to be as strong as your emotional timing or else you'll derail your audience, and they will be left bewildered about what they just saw.

This is one place where Phade and I disagree. The advice that he gives is as follows: "For gag sync to work, the viewer must usually hear the words and then see the gag."

Timing of jokes comes in three flavors. They are "video joke, audio punch line", "audio joke, video punch line" and "audio/video together." Of the three the first two are the easiest to do. They normally work best when the two media forms are opposite or exaggerated.

Now the problem he is alluding to with doing them together is the fact your watcher may not catch the joke. Robot Chicken by Seth Green does this quite a bit, and as a result a single skit (when done well) has the potential of multiple viewing value since you'll see a new joke every time. However, I agree with him such jokes shouldn't be used as a critical aspect of the video. Consider them as easter eggs for your viewers if you do them.

Thus, some people will catch those eggs as they fly by, and they will show others. Those who didn't catch them will start to watch for other such jokes in your works. It can make for a nice interactivity between audience and author. Again, if used with restraint.

Examples: Alfred Hitchcock appeared in most of his films as a walk on. Clive Cussler is known for writing himself into his books as a passing character. Peter Jackson and most of the production crew appeared in the Lord of the Rings movies as 'extras' for fun.

I'll be up front about this. I hate trying to lip sync animation to audio. The reason being is that it requires modifying footage or a keen eye for splicing frames. And ultimately most people fail at it for two reasons. Either the lack patients or they don't have the skill. I've yet to see any garage dwelling video editor that has done this well enough without investing in the right tools. There are some notable good examples like Phade's "Material Girl", but even these I cringle at a number of scenes that are out of sync.

Why is this the case? Because lip-syncing requires knowledge about how letters are grouped together for pronunciation. Most animation studios these days have software packages such as Toon Boom to assist in this type of work. And these letter groups change with each language. What is perfect for Japanese is bad for Spanish. What is good for Spanish fails to fit right for English.

One can't just loop a mouth in an open and close position and not expect people to feel something is wrong. This is why a lot of American dubs (even if the voice actors are good) feel crappy. The dubbing studio doesn't take the time to redo the lip-syncing, but instead forces the voice actor to match the original work. And with even my limited knowledge of Japanese I can feel the pain for the voice actors.

Am I discouraging people from this type of timing? Heavens no. Just please read up on this type of work before trail blazing. I'll suggest starting with an article from the Perceptual User Interface workshop that was held in 1998. This article maybe a bit overkill for animation, but it gives a nice overview of what animators spend years in school learning. I also suggest looking into a package to help you with voices like Toon Boom or Lost Marble's Papagayo. Both are great tools for reasonable prices.

That is quite a bit to think about while doing a music video. Sadly, we could continue down the path of other timing details, but I feel if you can keep the above four sub-categories firmly rooted in your mind you'll have a lot happier viewership.

Besides, I find I don't active think about these aspects while creating. Not because I ignore my own rules, just I created two simple visual tests I use. If you can apply them successful they will help out in the end, but like with all things you may have to watch others videos using these methods to understand why they are good.

1. Listen to the music and watch the pixels. Ignore all the imagery and the words. Focused just on how the blobs of colors change to the music. This is a good way to notice when you have musical timing issues.

2. Listen to the words (ignoring the music) and look for feelings and character's action. Look for breaks that would cause the watcher to become confused and lose track of what is going on.

One of the things that bugs me about most band music videos are the song rarely relates to what is being shown. It's as if the band poured so much of their life into the song that they have nothing left for the video.

In any media story telling is a critical aspect. If you leave it out you'll end up with pretty but meaningless pictures. Raw emotions and action can and do affect people, but when mixed with a story it's remembered for years. Why? Because humans need something to associate raw emotions with, and if there isn't a solid post to affix them to they are quickly lost.

A good story does one of the three things. It explores, examines and/or retells (Refer to Kalim's wonderful anime video examples of story concepts).

Exploring is taking a piece of video and poking, prodding and dissecting it to see if there is something hidden within it. This may include bring a sub-theme or sub-plot into direct light. The characters are not the focus in this work, but instead we look for other aspects of production that wasn't explored in-depth by the original animation studio.

I could see using Wolf's Rain search for Paradise being a good exploration point. There are a few times where fake paradises have appeared or different character's view of what paradise is. These pieces of footage along with a song like "Gothic" by Lost Paradise (Sorry, dead band as far as I'm aware) could make for a wonderful exploration piece.

Examining or "Character Profiling" is taking a single character (could also be an object, but people don't always relate well to objects) and looking at their very existences. Their relationships with other characters in the show, their private thoughts, dreams or loves, and even how they relate to themselves (their self image).

Take Mizuki Arisu in Serial Experiment: Lain. The whole world's memory was erased and yet she was allowed to remember. What pain and stress would that put on her relationship to Lain when she learned she was the one who did it, and what peace must have felt like when Lain finally took those memories from her.

Mahou Negi Sensei has a good example of this. Unknown to everyone in 2-A class there is a ghost, and for one show you follow her around. The whole show is a character profile of this poor spirit that died saving her brother's flower garden.

Telling a new story from the pieces of the old (As what I did with "Distance My Heart"), condensing the original video production into a 20,000-foot view or focusing on retelling a small set of scenes are the three major aspects of story telling.

In any form, retelling must be true to the original story line. If you stray from the original story it isn't a retelling, and as a result you may have people that are unhappy if they are expecting a retelling.

A perfect example, excuse the pun, of retelling is Perfect Blue anime done to Nine Inch Nails "Perfect Drug" by Maboroshi Studio. I saw the music video long before ever owning the DVD, and it does a great job of retelling aspects of the animation without giving away the plot.

An example of telling a new story would be to look at using Full Metal Alchemist footage and telling Winry Rockbell's story. What does she do when she isn't chasing after the Elric Brothers? Or another story would be what happen to the mining town after Edwards helped them gain their freedom.

The story telling aspect isn't as complex as timing, but things can become murky if you don't have a firm plan within your mind. A retelling could easily turn into an exploration, but by no means are theses three sub-categories unmixable. I've seen retelling that focused on a single character and included character-profiling elements.

Just when people look at a piece of work they tend to divide things into neat categories that are simple to relate what a video is about. When is the last time you went to a movie and could say for a fact "This was 100% horror." More movies are blending different genres together. The same is true with writers, but when you mix story-telling methods you need to be careful to pick which of the three is your focus and to stick with it.

When working on a video you are always provide a choice to keep with simple cuts and fades, or to move to a more advanced special effects. This really is more of a technical issue, but I feel an aspect of it needs to be covered here. There is one golden rule for special effects that work well no matter if you are doing a music video or a full production movie.

"Special effects should help drive the plot forward, and should be avoided if they are only for candy eye effect."

How many movies have you walked out going, "The special effects were great, but was there a plot?" Not pointing any figures at any one director or studio, because I don't have enough fingers, but if you go hog wild on effects for their own sake you'll lose focus of the video.

I don't tend to use many effect myself, but in current video I'm working on called "No One Understands," based on Mahoraba - Heartful Days, will contain a great deal, but when finished the goal is not to realize any effects were done. In fact, it would be a great complement to be told all the footage looks like it came from Akira Kojima studios.

If you take anything away from this article it's the fact that many things need to go right to end up with a music video that speaks to people. Any issues with timing, story telling, effects or video production work will causes the watcher to lose focus, and your presentation will be lost in the inky blackness.

Remember, you don't have fifteen minutes of fame here; you have at best five minutes. And how you spend that time will have an impact on what people think of your production. As well as the fact the next video you do may haunt you for years to come, because once something is released can't be pulled back. Someone may still have a copy of it in his or her collection. Let's just hope it's there out of enjoyment and not as an example of how not do so something.

I'd like to thank Kalium for his input on the first draft. It gave me a nudge to refocus some aspects of this article.