These videos range greatly in quality, with some being barely passable and others winning awards at conventions and being acclaimed by the creators of the franchise.
I will likely do a later post on how to make your own AMV, but for this post I will be discussing some that have already been made, and the qualities that make an AMV good.
1. The song choice
The song that the video uses is a big part of an AMV. A good AMV will use a song that fits with the movie/show, either in style or lyrics, sometimes both. If you can picture the franchise while just listening to the song on its own, then it is a good song choice. There are a couple of songs that are used in AMVs a lot, no matter the franchise. These songs, which include "This is War" from Thirty Seconds to Mars, "Centuries" from Fall Out Boy, "Dance With the Devil" from Breaking Benjamin, and "Angel With a Shotgun" from Nightcore, among others, are amazing when done correctly. If not, they are even more susceptible to being mediocre, since the song is overrate. But, there is a reason everybody uses songs like these- they fit almost anything. In general, the best animated music videos have a unique song that fits the franchise.
2. Pacing
Pace is very important in AMVs, and depends on the song and the source material. For example, you wouldn't want a bunch of in-your-face short action clips for an emotional video designed to be sad, and you wouldn't want long clips for an action video. In general, good AMVs will pace with an element of the song, such as the bass or vocals.
3. Song/video harmony
Going hand in hand with pacing, there should be a clean mesh between the video and the song. with the clips matching the instrumentation or lyrics in meaning/content. The best of the best try to match up specific scenes with specific parts/words of the song. I have even seen a few where they try to make the characters appear like they are singing the song, see "Be Prepared" with Invader Zim to see what I am talking about.
4. Timing
The last element crucial to every AMV is timing. This is similar to 2 and 3, but extends further to include specific character movements or moments from the show and editing the video so they occur at the exact time of something in the song. For example, a gunshot happening at the exact same time as a huge downbeat. There are some really cool AMVs that take advantage of this, using a motif or an idea of something that occurs in the movie/show frequently and timing it to a vamping section of the music (see "Transmutayshun " and "Counting Stars").
AMVs will sometimes include quotes and special effects. These also depend on the content, and in general, are best used in moderation.
Another similar kind of video are tribute videos, which clip together many franchises to one studio or company, or just make a video to commemorate something. These are based more on the video, with the music being chosen to fit the video, rather then the video to fit the music. Like AMVs, these are either amazing or awful. Likewise, one of the videos on the list below is a tribute video.
Some videos that show these aforementioned qualities (aka in my opinion the best AMVs I have seen):
They come from all sorts of franchises
"Transmutayshun"- Fullmetal Alchemist
"The Hero Tale of Hiccup"- How to Train Your Dragon
"Be Prepared"- Invader Zim
"Counting Stars"- Gravity Falls
"25 Years of Pixar Animation"- Pixar
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