They're all the rage on YouTube, there are enormous sites dedicated to them, and they are popping up more and more as people get into this Internet craze. What is it? Anime music videos, or AMVs - songs set to clips from anime. Here's how to make yours!
NOTE: This tutorial is for Windows XP, since it uses Windows Movie Maker. If you do not have Windows or Windows Movie Maker, see the Tips section.
Steps
- Acquire the anime clips you want. If you already have clips in AVI format on your computer, skip this step and go to step 2. There are a number of ways to get anime clips. The steps below will detail three of them.
- If you have DVDs of the anime you want clips of, then there are a few ways to get clips. One is to use Fraps at Fraps.com.
- Open Fraps99 and configure it. Make sure "Enable Video Capture" is checked and that the hotkey does not interfere with your DVD playback program.
- Open up your DVD program, and minimize Fraps99. To start recording a clip, press your hotkey. To stop press the hotkey again. You can do this as many times as you like to make numerous clips. But Fraps videos are completely decompressed, so you'll need a lot of space, and you'll also need to convert them into a compressed format. Since this tutorial uses Windows Movie Maker to put together our videos, let's use Windows Media Encoder.
- Open Windows Media Encoder and Choose "Convert a File." Then follow the necessary steps to convert your videos (takes a while). Make sure you delete the original Fraps videos afterward! Otherwise they will take up gigabytes of space on your hard drive.
- Download videos from BitTorrent or other P2P networks such as Kazaa, eDonkey,Frostwire ,or (my personal choice) Shareaza. Find and download videos, and, if they are not in Windows Media format, convert them as before using Windows Media Encoder. Since these files are probably continuous, you'll want to "trim" them in Windows Movie Maker.
- Download clips from YouTube or other video sites. Using the online internet application VideoDownloader (or its Firefox extension), you can download anime videos from a wide variety of sources, listed below. Find anime or anime clips (or even getting clips from existing AMVs) from YouTube or AnimeEpisodes.net. Once you have found the video you want to download, follow the steps on the VideoDownloader web page and save the video as a .flv file. Then download and open Riva FLV Encoder. Select the flv file you downloaded, then under "Destination Video File" change the file extension from "flv" to "wmv". This will convert the video to Windows Media Video format for you (no need to use Windows Media Encoder).
- If you have DVDs of the anime you want clips of, then there are a few ways to get clips. One is to use Fraps at Fraps.com.
- Get your music together. Find the music you want on your computer and convert it to mp3 or wma format, if it isn't already in one of those formats.
- Open up Windows Movie Maker. To get your clips, click Import Video, and open your file. For your music, click Import Music, find your file, and open it. Drag and drop your sound file into the "timeline," and then drag and drop your clips into the clips window. Split and organize them as necessary, then drag them into the storyboard to put together your movie. If needed, you can add special effects by going to View Video Effects, or View Video Transitions under the Edit Movie heading. Once you have completed your video, click File -> Save Movie File, and set the properties for your video.
- Upload your video to YouTube, AMVspace, AnimeMusicVideos.org, or other websites - or just show it to your friends!
Tips
- If you don't have Windows Movie Maker, try a program such as AviTricks Classic, Zwei-Stein 4, or one of the free or commercial programs listed on this page.
- For best quality, choose a resolution of 640x480 or higher. But note that this will take up more space than otherwise.
- This tutorial will also work with other types of videos.
- If possible, try to get clips without subtitles or make sure the subtitles are off while capturing your clips! Subtitles make your video look like you didn't put very much effort into it.
- Try [1] Cinelerra]
- If you do not have a Windows computer, Macintosh has a slew of good alternatives. If Final Cut Pro or iMovie are not already pre-installed onto your system, Avid Free DV is a pretty good alternative [2] Avid Free DV].
Warnings
- Do not illegally download licensed anime!
- Make sure you have enough hard drive space if you are going to be using such space-consuming programs as Fraps99.
- Encoding takes a long time, so expect your project to take at least a few hours, if not a day or so if you'll need to do a lot of encoding.
- If you redistribute copyrighted anime, you're exposing yourself to lawsuits. Plus YouTube will just delete it anyhow, at the request of the copyright holder.
- Many P2P services, including the ones listed here, are known sources of viruses and spyware. Be certain you have current protection against viruses and spyware before attempting to utilize these services.
Things You'll Need
- Windows 2000 or higher for some steps (such as using Windows Media Encoder - Windows XP is required for Windows Movie Maker).
- A good idea of what you want to be in your video! Otherwise it will be sloppy and uninteresting.
1 comment:
Thanks, this helped a lot!
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