Gajeel X Levy - Say Something (with Lyrics)

Series: Fairy Tail Animation Company: Funimation Song: Say Something Artist: Great Big World Cover Artist: Victoria Justice (ft. Max Schnieder)

The video alone when edited, from beginning to the end, took total of 4 to 5 days. And that was without the putting in the lyrics an official music video style alone, and having to put the lyrics in took another extra hour to two hours. But before going into full depth (or even just basic overview) on the process of making one of these videos, let’s talk basics. First off, what are these types of videos called? Just like there’s the term “Music Video”, there is also the term “Anime Music Video”, which is shortened down to being called AMV.

But with the term AMV follows the next question – What is “anime”? Anime is animation. To be more specific, it’s animation that comes from Japan. Just as America has what’s well known as comics from companies such as Marvel and DC, Korea have their own comics that are classified as “Manwah” (pronounced “mahn-wah”), and Japan has their own set of comics well known as manga (pronounced “mahn-gah”). And just like anime comics usually getting their own animated series that America calls cartoons, Japan creates their own animations for the mangas that are well known as anime.

Fairy Tail series, the animated series that this AMV is featured in, is no different. First a manga, which is still an ongoing series, and now an ongoing anime series. And there are extremely few characters that are well known, but very rarely does show up throughout the series. In this AMV, two of those rarely shown characters by the name of Gajeel Redfox (black headed male) and Levy McGarden (blue headed female) are used for they are one of the highest shipped couples, or rather couples-that-needs-to-happen that the fans want to see, is the main focus.

When making an AMV, of course there are few necessary requirements.

How well do you know the series?

What type of AMV do you want to make? (EG – Lip synced, shipping/pairing, movie trailer, etc., etc)

Which music do you want to use? And how well do you know the words and/or have access to the lyrics?

Which editing program(s) do you have to help you edit the video?

Now, it may seem ridiculous to have to ask those questions, but it all makes the difference. If you know the series well like back of your hand, then it just makes it that much easier to know, or at least get ideas of, which scenes you will want to use in the making of your AMV. And to know the type of AMV you want to make also gives you a way to figure out which music by which artist you want to use. And if you know the lyrics well, or even have the lyrics before you while knowing pretty much how the music goes, then it should be easier to go with the editing.

For two years, I’ve been out of practice of editing any and all AMVs due to having been flooded with works both school and church due to having to work with kids on the weekends, but about a month or two ago (August or September), I had a chance to make an AMV for two of my friends due to them having gone missing from online and no way to contact either of them. And after listening to one music called “Say Something” by the Great Big World band featuring Christina Alliguera, I came to thinking that perhaps with them having been gone for as long as they have, the music was perfect for them when it came to our group of friends. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out which series to use! That is until it hit me – Go with Fairy Tail! It’s the fandom I met them in when I first began to roleplay with them on Facebook, so why not use the series we all first had met in?

Now the question that followed once figuring out the music and the song I wanted to go with, the question was how I was going to go about with the video. I could have easily thought of a few pairings, but only one really struck out to me – Gajeel and Levy pairing. I’ll admit that they barely show up throughout the entire series, but those two getting together is something that I wanted to see the most. And with loving the series so much, I was determined to make the AMV for the pairing.

As you watch the video, you’ll realize that it’s not the original version of the music, but rather the remake. Victoria Justice and Max Schneider sings the cover remake of the song, and when it comes to pairing AMV’s such as this, it works out perfectly since it’s sung in more of the sense that the two are talking to one another inwardly, calling out to say in their mind what they truly want to say verbally that they’re too afraid to say. And even though I did partial lip syncing for the video, it was mostly compilation of clips to make it seem as if the two characters were having flashbacks to specific moments if not for them just seeming to stay away from each other or running further away from one another.

From there, scenes were carefully selected among approximately 60 of over 200 episodes that either one of the two characters if not both together showed up in. Of course, because this wasn’t majorly lip synced, it was carefully selected and placed throughout the music so that it would appear as if the video clips were all in sync and would at least make sense to how the music went to the characters’ emotions. At certain points of the video, I also made it so that it would appear one took over the control far more so than the other while at the end, it was the two inwardly calling out to one another inwardly. Two specific video clips, one in the beginning and one in the end, had audio of their own. However, it’s only the first of the two clips with audio that was the originally the audio that actually came with the scene itself. At the end, when hearing Levy scream Gajeel’s name, although the audio clip IS from the same episode as the scene where the iron on the ground was shown, it’s not the audio from the same scene. Where Gajeel was falling and hits the ground as Levy watches, a little injured, that’s where Gajeel’s name being screamed came from, and even that alone was an extra set of work to get the audio to match up to the fading out into the black to give it slightly more dramatic effect.

Of course, I’m not saying that including audios from the series will work always, but depending on the situations and what type of AMV it is, it does give it that extra boost depending on what the audio clip is as well. And given the type of music that Say Something is along with the somewhat of that sad, longing feeling the music comes with, the two audio clips, I personally felt, went along that I decided to put the two clips in there.

Now, as for the words put into the video, that is also more or less having to do with timing and which program you use. For the video editing itself, I prefer to use either AVS4YOU’s program – AVS Video Editor – or the CyberLink’s PowerDirector proram. For the video editing, I used the PowerDirector, but when it comes to fonts and the words you want to put in, unless if you’re planning on actually having to have it subtitle fashion I strongly suggest using AVS4YOU program. Otherwise, having to use Movie Maker for AVS4YOU will leave watermark unless if knowing how to edit that out properly without having to purchase the product, which would only mean more workload in the long run.

But know that when having to put in the texts, it’s always having to know which fonts to use and what size. First, the font that’s used for music videos are either Helvetica or Arial, and the font is usually set to 14 for the title and 12 for the rest. But it’s always best to test out other font sizes to see what works best for the video. And if going for music video style the way I did for the video shown here, then make sure to keep it all to the bottom left corner since that’s how all the music videos that are made goes with it. It’s also all matter of timing with the scenes in the video on when to end the words, or even just a few moments if not beginning of the scene when starting up with where the lyrics pick up. And if it’s going to take more than 4 lines at a time for lyrics, make sure to divide it up equally and not to allow the words to take up too much space at the bottom left corner – both top to bottom and side to side. Otherwise, it just may end up looking too messy.

In general, all these are the basics to making a basic AMV for this sort of video. Hopefully, it wasn’t all too complicated, and easy to follow along. More videos to come from Crazy4Friends YouTube channel. Keep your eyes out!

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