NHMK AMV: Notes

Video Notes

.. some random thoughts pertaining to the creation of given videos ..

....learn about the madness of my editing...

(the nicknames are primarily jokes)

Beautiful Earth

The Archetype for Anger | Images | Zaibach Anthem

The Archetype for Anger

Nickname: Korn-Dilandau #3

When I first saw Heat Guy J I had rented the first disc. After seeing Claire I immediately started to think that the creator must have really liked Dilandau... at this point I ordered all of the DVDs that were currently out. (1-5) I was going to only use the Escaflowne series Heat Guy J... but the Dilandau from the movie actually looks more like Claire... so I opted to use them all... giving me a ton of footage and connections to create.

The video wasn't all that hard to make. I just went for familiar scenes/emotions from each anime and matched them together. I had a clip of Claire holding a needle... and then it hit me... I had skipped the episodes of Escaflowne where Dilandau is bound to a table. (I tried to minimize the vob files and skipped the non-Dilandau action episodes)

I love Dilandau based characters(including Dilandau :P). Psychotic and semi-intelligent = greatness.

Images

Nickname: Photodrop

This video began with the idea of creating a photo that would fall onto the background... there's nothing more to it. :P I remembered seeing the photographs in some of the scenes of Last Exile... I ripped the first DVD and began experimenting with the idea. The effect was not easy to get right. A few bits with layers and masking caused some problems. The photo effect along with the shadows behind each of them were created in Premiere exclusively. While I am sure this was more difficult than necessary... I wanted to push Premiere and my own creativity in producing what I wanted to see.

I had planned from the beginning that the end of the video would have a more visual set of clips to offset the first half, which was mostly calm stills. I was going to work from the first DVD only... but then came to realize that the second would really help to fill in some of the slower sections (and offer additional footage).

The final sequence was created in AE. It's actually just a still image moving towards the screen (zoom). Premiere was making it look really ugly... so I used AE to create a better looking zoom. A lot of people complained that the table looks like crap... I was actually going more for a corkboard or something like the anime has...

Zaibach Anthem

Nickname: Korn-Dilandau #2

I can't even begin to imagine what I must have been thinking when I decided to do this video. I remember that I wanted to do another Korn video... and figured it would be some action drama kind of video... but nooooo... for some reason I opted to use Y'all Want a Single. Obviously I was under the influence of Z-Mind when I decided to make this 100% lip sync video. Like the Z-Mind video I actually cut to song to make it more viewable and sane for me to edit. I think it would have really lost it's humor/affect if it had gone for any longer than I had made it.

I honestly didn't know what I was getting into. I didn't realize I would use the dragon riders as backup... and Folken... until the video was almost complete. I added them in for humor and to fit the title Zaibach Anthem. Although most people are probably distracted by the excess lip sync... I definitely wasn't making a mindless video. There are a number of lyrics that are jokes... but do actually fit the attitude of the Zaibach and Dilandau towards Allen, Van and others. While it's just another Korn-Dilandau video.... it certainly is unique.

Luck be a Psychotic

Nickname: Obligatory FLCL(flickle :P) Video

At AWA9 I decided to finally purchase FLCL... all 3 dvds. I am quite sure I was ripped off... of course any time you buy an anime and only get 2 episodes or fewer (*cough* blue sub *cough*) it's a ripoff. Without even seeing the show I wanted to make a video. The footage is simply too much fun to pass up. I wanted to do something wild and crazy with it... while avoiding ending up looking like every other FLCL video... which well ... the final result compared to a number of others... could be argued as not all that different.

The video was started a few weeks after my medical procedure and slowly progressed... and I mean slowly... I ended up stepping away from it a number of times to return with a different view or idea. A lot of new ideas came up when I did my second round of clip selection grabbing a few scenes that I missed from before.

I tried to divide the video into a remotely logical progression... the sync/pace speeding up when necessary. The introduction to the actual Ween song is intended to be the intro duction of Haruko and the Vespa. I tried to avoid any scenes of Naota and her interacting until later. One scene I found that was great and almost has Naota is during the intro when she's doing a wheelie. Just a couple frames of Naota actually off the screen in the air above... Of course one of the scenes of her on the Vespa has Naota... but you only see his back really.

The flashing comic outro, while not entirely new to FLCL videos, definitely seemed appropriate. I was definitely reminded/influenced by Kusoyaro's Radiohead video. Also there is probably some scene choice influence from AbsoluteDestiny's Deep Purple video. I wanted to use all kinds of scenes that I haven't necessarily seen in other FLCL videos. This isn't to say I didn't use some of the more common ones, but I tried to pick and choose things that I haven't seen in others and wanted to see in my own.

Definitely a lot of fun to make... crazy, but fun.

Selfless

Nickname: Come on... doesn't anyone like Soundgarden??

This video was created for the AWA9 masters competition. I wanted again to make something simple yet powerful. Soultaker definitely presents a ton of great footage... but 6 minutes worth?

Well the answer is yes. There were times when I felt I might run into a lack of footage fitting the emotions I wanted to present. Fortunately it never really came to running dry. Soultaker definitely has it's positives and negatives. The big drawback is some of the blatant dbz like shout the mega move as you do it. (or was that Geikigengar? (sp?)) Though the very unique and creative footage makes up for the occasional cheese factor.

I wanted to present the main character as someone who only acted for others, thus the title. I did not actually have a title for the video until after it was complete. I felt the theme was appropriate and fit the song well lyrically and emotionally.

Editing wise, especially in more recent videos, I have been trying to go out of my way to abuse scenes at different distances/zooms. I love watching things move forward or back and sync to audio during the transition. There are a number of instances of this in Selfless. This also doesn't apply to zooms only... but also to entire scenes or sequences, jumping ahead on beats etc. This video was intended to be simply effect wise as I felt they wouldn't really be appropriate.

For me, the sequence at about 4:05 is the most emotionally charged one in the video. I was especially pleased with this section. Definitely one of my favorite creations in any of my videos.

Overall a very rewarding video to one of my favorite Soundgarden songs.

Grand Theft Bebop 2: Vice City

Nickname: Dumb Florida Morons

The sequel to Grand Theft Bebop had to be something special. I recently purchased the Bebop movie and planned to make GTB2... and I bought Vice City also... so I had all the necessary parts to entertain myself with a new video editing project.

This project was definitely a compilation project... and at one point it really shows(*). This was edited in much the same fashion as GTB and Dorothy Waynewright. I definitely find working with small parts much easier than huge blocks of time(not to say I don't obviously take that challenge often :P). This video was divided into 14 different parts (13 ppj files actually). Each one was edited completely independent of the others. I just planned out each section as pertaining to the order in which I wanted them shown. I didn't actually do any audio connecting/testing until the final exports... when I added fading etc (not that any songs fade into each other at all).

Notes (by random section reference):

1: Intro - I did what I could to duplicate the GTA:VC intro... I actually had all the masks but realized that I didn't have any credits to fill in. I guess I could have tried to find out what all the song names/artists were... but then the intro would be way too long... nothing new to me. :P I photoshopped the 'handwriting' effect... I thought it might be difficult, but turned out to be pretty easy after some experimentation.

2: "news anchor" - I thought of this one randomly... it fit all too well, minus the sudden reference to severe weather. This is why he is faded out, to avoid a continuity error. :P I added in the camera clicks because of the scenes in the movie where Faye and Ed are looking at pictures of Vincent.

3: "nobody move" - This section was pure fun. This was one of the first sections I lip sync'd... so I had it on loop laughing at Spike saying "dumb florida morons"... probably 10 times in a row.

4: "I wanna rock" - You have to have your speakers up loud to truly experience the glass shatter. :P This section has some serious sfx abuse. If you listen closely you can hear the little swish sounds when people miss their punches... wow so exciting. :P

5: "all the adventure" - This was mainly inspired by the commercials for GTA:VC. Originally this section didn't have much in the way of sounds... but the viewer (aka me) had been so spoiled with sfx that I put them in.

6: "all the attitude" - Lip sync mania... or not. 2 of the scenes have 0 lip sync. =) I cheated!!

7: "Faye's 1 line" - Okay... so Mercedes has a limited number of lines in GTA:VC... as does Candy Suxx... I admit that I didn't even want to try beyond the one line for Faye. Also I made 0 attempt to lip sync faye. :P More camera stuff... and Mercedes has a gun in my version! =)

8: "Candy's big 0 lines" - No lines for Candy... none fit the mood of the video. (*) from above... there is a small section of repeat footage. I decided it wasn't a big enough deal to change since both references are fitting and don't even seem glaringly duplicated.

9: "emotion" - I added in the idea of a section about bringing Candy and Tommy together as Spike and Electra did... it works... and it also mimics the original GTB in a way. This was a pretty easy section to put together... hello beat sync.

10: "peace sells" - Booming explosions with a bam it's over ending. I added in the final section into this project just to make it easy to see how it would transition into the final line Spike does. I really loved the song at the end... but unfortunately the radio announcer talks over the song introduction... oh well I really like how it slows the video down.

Working with sound effects was a lot of fun. The only one that gave me a ton of trouble was the glass shatter effect. The folks at rockstar programmed the glass to shatter in sections playing multiple wav files based on time/distance. To create a booming shatter I actually have one of the crash sound effects (metal being slammed) 1 frame before the glass shatter effect... followed by a few frame pause and a couple glass-shards-hitting -the-ground wavs (1 or 2). The effects really liven the video up, which is something the first GTB didn't have much of... except the few spoken lines.

Overall this was an extremely rewarding video to make. I learned a lot about editing with sound and working with transparencies(nothing entirely new... but you can always learn I figure). I've written way too much, but might add more. :P

3 Sisters and a Big Robot make for a Great Anime

Nickname: The pain of lip sync!

What can I say about this video that isn't already known... well anything! This video was far from easy and quick to do. Thanks to my desire to lip sync the entire song* I produced some serious issues for myself due to a lack of consistent scenes of characters speaking (aka singing). A lot of the scenes of the sisters in the big robot(s) were very easy to sync as they were quite emotional already (yelling etc). Oh yeah, there isn't just one big robot... they form it from their 3 smaller robots. :P Where do they get this stuff??

So the fun started. It didn't seem too difficult, take a scene that fit the mood and sync the lyrics... but wait, I am completely crazy, I need to sync the lyrics and sync lip movements at the same time! Time to pull out the multiscreen!! So I borrowed those lovely motion settings from the Nes Project test video (also can be seen in the intro of Eternal Damnation). So I decided that multi screen would be interesting enough... but no... it seemed like it was a little dull to have a single screen. So I decided I was going to cut lines up and have the multiple screens change half way through each line of the song. This remained pretty consistent, minus a few places where I opted to change things up. One in particular uses two scenes of lip sync for 1 line... this was due to the boring nature of both lip sync scenes. :P So 1/2 boring + 1/2 boring = exciting. (~2:08 in the video) To be honest, they just aren't very good scenes to lip sync with. (~2:55) The main screen has a very stressed looking sister... so it's off a bit... :P

Oh, and yes I do love and laugh at the lip sync at ~1:52. I simply thought it was gold. The best part about the video is that it is the ultimate in nothingness. There are a couple scenes of robot fightin action but nothing that actually constitutes a story. I did make sure to throw in references to being a caring and loving family... but those scenes are kind of limited in the series. The goal of the video was simply to make me smile and/or laugh.

Technically this video was a nightmare. Throwing around some lip sync shouldn't be a problem... yeah right. Good lip sync is not easy at all... enough on that subject. :P In a near final the multiscreens didn't have a nice fuzzy edge... yeah so I added that in... which was well... not quick. I was welcomed to interlace/deinterlace hell during this video. I edit in 29.97... aka the flawless frame rate with ZERO defects. If you mix motion with interlaced 29.97 footage and then attempt to deinterlace it after you render... well you are asking for trouble. Every sub screen had to be exported and deinterlaced. I did so with virtualdub and plugged them back into the vid. Another interesting issue that arose was the excessive amount of clips I had in the video. At one point I couldn't move 2 seconds on the timeline without having to wait for the poor computer to catch up. This was later remedied with rendered out lip sync clips replacing 20 some stills/clips used to make them.

Z-Mind... why do I buy these random anime shows? :P I definitely enjoyed making the video... as for the anime... well I guess it was interesting... at times.

*-entire = part I cut and kept from the original... haha

Eternal Damnation

Nickname: Hellsing in a Nutshell (or the beta title: "The Title")

Well, as many know Hellsing is quite the popular little anime. There are a large number of videos made using the footage from Hellsing. I wanted to have one of my own that would present the insanity of the world and characters of Hellsing (well minus Walter). As I began editing the video I knew the pace would be fairly high and that the sync would have to remain consistent (lol... yeah ... uh huh) throughout the video. I opted to avoid excess repetition of syncing style by altering it as I saw fit. This of course might cause other viewers to really wonder what was going through my mind... or 'hey what is he syncing to now??'

I really loved working with the footage. It's dynamic and quite eye catching, unlike my video which many might argue is 'eye-stabbing!' ;) Mixing together certain scenes was especially enjoyable to me. Such as: crossing over alucard and Seras (when she becomes enraged) oroverlaying Seras struggling with her vampirism...

Now if you've seen the video and know Hellsing you probably understand why the joke nickname above is Hellsing in a Nutshell. I 'crammed' a lot of the show into the video. This was my intention, as was the psychotic blinding pace (ok it's not that bad...). As I worked on it... it became blatantly obvious that I might be the only one to really like the video etc. It definitely panders to...... ME. That or fans of flashing action stuff.

As for the editing itself, some who know my works might have recognized a number of styles taken from other videos I've made. I often borrow from my past videos. One of the most common things in this video is taken from a rare little part in my Fate video. The pre-beat. Where the next scene is introduced before it is the primary video by syncing it over the scene before (at a lower opacity, or fading out). I just made that up. No, I don't think about naming conventions all the time haha...

I enjoyed editing this video even at the crazy pace... which did take time to get down correctly (or well... as I see correctly).

"So go vote for my video and make it #1!!3.41!! and buy my dvds at award shows because this is my hobby and i need the money!1!^!" **

** - voting me '#1!!!' may cause cancer and dvds are not for sale on planets inhabited by living creatures, and no, I don't need the money. :P

Ultra

Nickname: Spriggan is an action movie?

Spriggan had the action appeal that I sometimes like in movies. I bought it figuring that it would be quite fun to edit with. ... and it was. The movie is action filled and a little light on the story... though maxed out on eye candy. The video for this initially seemed like a no brainer. But I had a difficult time picking a song. After many songs just seemed to slip by... I went into my cd archive (cds I don't often listen to) and found my old STP cd. I remembered there was a unique song that I always liked. The decision to use Naked Sunday was made.

The strange thing was that I had an actual plan for the video. I knew the kid would be the visual for the preaching voice over at the end of the song. I knew where I wanted certain scenes and how the conclusion would work out. The video didn't take long to make... which leads me to believe that it was probably not as fun to make as many of my other videos. This was when I decided to make the NHMK countdown that I attach to most of my new videos. Although it has nothing to do with the video, I felt that it was a fun project that could add to the intro of the video... and could be reused in future videos. I think it turned out great as did the video itself. I especially enjoy the preaching kid, hahaha.

Alternate Existence

Nickname: Does anyone like Soundgarden?

This was my first escaflowne video using footage I had converted from the the dvds on my own computer. Eternal used divx footage my friend had made from my dvds (I had the first dvd before I even had a dvd drive). I decided on the song based on the fantastic world of Escaflowne... fitting the idea of Superunknown. I worked out the near final sequence of Hitomi jumping before any other part of the video. I loved the song and wanted everything to be right. The video does show its age and my own level of experience at the time. This being the third video I made using dvd footage.

Hmmm... more random thoughts. I had an odd way of finishing videos on Sunday nights. I would edit all day sunday and finish the video before going to sleep for monday classes... This video was no exception and probably ended up being the worst example. I ended up sitting and editing for let's just say... too long. Having a video completed on Sunday night set up my week for new creative thoughts for videos.

Back to the video. I spent a lot of time trying to sync the lyrics to the clips, with general success. I wouldn't say it was spot on though. Much of it was loose and open to interpretation. I was very happy with this video. Though most people don't seem to enjoy this video.... :P oh well.

Filthy Lesson

Nickname: Few like this song

Now here is a video with a lot of back story. In many respects I believe this to be one of my best works. But the story behind it almost always makes me laugh as someone reading it might be shocked and think... wow that's just pathetic! :P So here it is:

Having just begun editing a few months earlier I was enjoying the hobby and looking for new footage and music to work with. At this point I was not buying into the idea of actually reusing an anime in a second video (save for remakes and the almighty Escaflowne), this of course now doesn't really matter as long as the idea interests me. So on a semi-regular trip to suncoast I picked up the Armitage III dvd for $15 (I hope it was only that much...considering online prices). This was an impulse buy and an attempt to buy new footage for a video.

I knew nothing of what Armitage was other than it looked like it had a decent amount of action (by the images on the back). I watched it later that day to find that it was dub only... which was... uhm ... okay. So then I returned home and ripped the dvd and converted it to indeo 5.11 overnight so I could being cutting clips as soon as I could. After I had put together a good collection of clips I began trying the footage out randomly with various songs. This usually consisted of me throwing all the clips in premiere in whatever order they landed and hit play to see what matched up or fit the mood. I went through various songs and then came upon the track I recalled loving from the credits of the movie Seven. I had finally found my track. I felt the lyrics worked and when they were loose could be manipulated to fit the scenes as closely as I felt necessary to tell a story.

Little did I know that the lyric sync, well in my opinion, would work out so well. I really felt the song fit the whole idea by the time I finished. Of course finishing the video did not come quickly. I ran into some funny issues that I wished I hadn't. As I had previously done I tried to save the highest action, or eye candy, clips for the end of the video where the music really picked up. This meant that I was avoiding clips that could have worked in early parts of the video. Although now I look back and wonder if the pace would have been ruined by more eye candy clips etc.

So I was working with fairly basic clips... what to do... oh yeah it was effects crazy time! It was decided that the video would be effects heavy from the beginning.* Of course effects to me have meant various things at various times... but much of what I created effects wise in this video was new to me at the time. After all the avoidance I ended up with more than enough eye candy clips to close up the video. Probably too many... and I was still laying on the effects ... even to this day I enjoy those effects and how they accent the video. The story was coming together and the action/effects/lyrics were working with each other nicely.

*So... whats the * for? Well this is another one of those funny little stories. At this time I really had only 2 videos I really held above all others, for various reasons. These were Caldwell's Magnetic Rose video and Joe Croasdaile's Perfect Blue/Perfect Drug video. I so enjoyed Joe's video that I wanted to make something along the lines of the level of effects sync and the creativity of the effects themselves. I not only wanted to match his video, but attempt to outdo it. This video was going to be made with intention. Big intention. The drive really pushed me to produce something that I really felt strongly about. BUT, as I began to work on the video I realized that my goals were misguided. The video wouldn't be like Joe's in any way because it was outright different. I decided the video would have to stand on its own and not be an attempt to outdo etc etc.... so I ust forged ahead with my idea enjoying every moment of it. I really did take the wrong attitude with the whole outdoing bit. It wasn't worth my time and thankfully I didn't waste much time on it.

Bam! The end.

Love and War

Nickname: The I'm back video

The nickname for this video is based on the fact that I had slowed my editing hobby down considerably during the final term of classes. It was during the summer that I returned to editing with my Æon Flux dvd. I really just wanted to have some fun and put together something interesting with the great footage the dvd had to offer (which notably is not all the episodes and shorts, but a good number of them).

I almost randomly picked the song. It was one among many that could have worked. So the video came together shortly after I finished cutting clips. It wasn't a ton of work (admittedly I consider very few of my videos a lot of work, but definitely a lot of dedication and desire). The video is divided up into some very obvious sections. The rebirth section seemed a little odd as I put it together, but made for an interesting pre conclusion to the video. Especially as Trevor is tortured by her (emotionally).

Renegades (version 2)

Nickname: More Cyber City??

After reviewing my first cyber city video, which was notably made with downloaded divx, and being given the actual dvd, I decided it was time to remake the original. Of course the original wasn't all that popular and neither was this video. I actually really enjoyed Cyber City Oedo for its unique approach to a cyber cop story. It seems like a shame that it never progressed beyond the three episodes availible today. Remaking the video required a whole new approach. The original was slow and generally sloppy. The number of cuts was few and the pace was off. Though some think that the original is better... I like the remake much more.

So I cut all the clips and went all out trying to produce an entertaining and interesting video. I had fun making the video regardless of my realization that very few people would actually be interested in seeing the final product.

Legend

Nickname: A video that doesn't use O Fortuna

I had recently bought and watched the series The Hakkenden... and felt the need to take the anime and do something grand with it. I borrowed the Carmina Burana cd and ripped all the tracks looking for the right one... of course passing over O Fortuna which really didn't suit my needs as it was 90% unusable for my idea.

So then I found the track I wanted... which was Fortune plango vulnera, a good mix of high and low points all at a decent pace. I figured the video would require a lot of cuts, but the final product consisted of fading with almost every change in music. This made the video, for some, difficult to watch at times. I recommend you avoid watching it in a dark room with no light only a few inches from the screen... not a good idea! I enjoyed the show and found the video to be a nice and thorough preview. Although there are some references that kind of seem spoiler like, it avoids giving away the story.

Lost Dreams

Nickname: Never-ending Video

I had never actually seen Kite before... but I had seen some videos... and already wanted to use the Rob D track from the matrix soundtrack. I wanted to take the anime and make a video that showed more respect to the story than even the creators had given it. Of course by respect I mainly mean taking out some of the nastiness... while keeping the key aspects represented.

I took this project very seriously and only after I was half way through decided that I would submit it to the AWA masters competition. I loved the final result and find that it's a great alternative to actually watching Kite.

Welcome to the Junction

Nickname: Gwar and Anime?

Huh? Where in the world did this thing come from anyway? I wanted to make a Haunted Junction video as the anime is quite unique with various wacky creatures/ghosts and odd situations. So I started to think about what song would work well... and then there was The Morality Squad by Gwar... which as soon as I tested a few clips against, I was sure was the right way to go. The video made itself... I took some liberties with the real car and the real offroad wheelchair... seeing how neither one could be found in the anime... haha

... hmmm then it was done and all was good.

Saving the World Before Bedtime

Nickname: DBZ Video

Wham BAM, it's an action blast-o-rama. So this video was pretty mindless. Take the powerpuff girls action clips and put them to a remix of White Zombie's more human than human. It was fun to edit and definitely fun to watch. I actually wondered at many points in the creation of the video if I was simply going to run out of action... especially since I use just one ppg dvd.

In the end I prevailed. The action was just enough to fill up the video. :P So I had 4 minutes of ppg action. Then came the intro to tell the story... what a great waste of time this one was. Some people complain about my video intros being long.... this was probably champ... though maybe a close second to rollin version 2's castlevania intro. Although at least the ppg intro explained the story in a way... haha

Keyne

Nickname: Failure

So I thought... what a great idea. Van Halen + Photon. Well... no it wasn't in the end. I made this video shortly after my first dvd video, Bond. That was a good video, this one was not haha. I figured I could put another together and it would probably turn out well. I was wrong. This video was probably made in less than 12 hours. The strange part is that as I was editing it never seemed to get any better than just kind of syncing. The connection wasn't there. I think the pace of the footage itself (something out of my control) just didn't fit the song. I probably should have never made this video. haha

I did enjoy the continued experience editing, so it was worth it.

Fight for what you love

Nickname: Surprise

When I started this video I knew I was going to be happy with the final results. I loved both the song and the footage. I wanted to get the right emotional tie to the song by using clips that fit... even with a few instances of lyric sync that was a bit stretched.

I loved mixing action and drama, fitting the pace and theme of the song. The clip of the explosion was an accidental sync that occured when I was testing the footage out (placing all the clips in order on the timeline and hitting play). I wrote down the information to be sure to use it in the final. I decided to remake the video to update the quality and fix up a few minor sections... in the end it really was more of a remaster than an entirely new video. The bad part... was that the quality didn't improve much... I'll just keep my mpeg2 version... this one probably won't be remade a 3rd time...

The Duel

Nickname: Sinful delight of using Limp Bizkit and Escaflowne

I don't know where this video came from... I have to be blatantly honest... it came from out of nowhere. When I began the video I had a rough idea... and mainly wanted to work with the song... not necessarily having a solid concept down (this is not uncommon for me, in case you didn't know). So... as I started... I realized the lyrics worked well for Dilandau and Van... and all my footage thus far had really only had them. So then came the big challenge... only using them, avoiding Hitomi entirely. I actually had clips from some more recent episodes... and then grabbed my archived copy of Alternate Existence to create a larger clip archive to create the video. Some of the clips were duplicated from the last Escaflowne video... if anyone noticed.

So the video simply worked itself out. I didn't even bother to consider the fact that Limp Bizkit songs were apparently sins to use in a videos... :P I never let those kinds of things keep me from making a video. After it was all done I thought I had made a fairly unique video... which I still enjoy to this day. There are a few problems with it... such as the extended ending... but nothing that would make me want to hit stop at that point.

Boogie Knights

Nickname: Why'd you make this video? What's the point?

This video was a blast to make. It was completely ridiculous. Taking an anime I had never seen and had no clue about and making a unique and entertaining video... although some may argue that last point haha... Oh well. I definitely went a bit crazy with some of the effects... like the 12 multi screen effect in the first 5 seconds haha... wonder if anyone even sees that.

After making 3 NES project videos... I was still in the dance video mode... so this one came about. I didn't know what to expect... other that I would probably be laughing at the final. Initially it was more a joke... but I went more with a goofy approach. It's weird... that's about all I can say.

Beo's Birthday Bash

Nickname: Random unused anime dvds put to use!

Beowulf's birthday was a few days away, so I deiced to put together something fun and entertaining to watch. I figured it was the perfect time to use some footage that I have never really felt like putting into a video. Strange Dawn and Very Private Lesson were my choices. Strange Dawn, while remotely interesting... really is visually boring most of the time with really basic characters, and cheap-digital animation at times. Very Private Lesson on the other hand is a nasty-comedy (nasty as in a vicious over the top excessively mean) that really only has 1 good episode. Though the dvd has two the second is simply wrong.

So then I decided to throw in some ECW for fun and general carnage. The video was planned out and made from start to finish in about two days. I did do some pre-mjpeg encoding on the day before, along with photoshopping most of the text. The first section was surprisingly fun to make because Strange Dawn is usually so dull, but by splicing it up into action sequences looks a million times more interesting... that and my unique song choice of Negasonic Teenage Wasteland by Monster Magnet. The Very Private Lesson section was also a blast to edit because I took a mostly mindless approach making it very random and crazy. It fit A.D.I.D.A.S. by Korn really well. The end of the video with it's mindless violence fit ECW well also... muhahaha. Overall a fun videoto edit and one I enjoyed watching the final version of.

A few weeks before AWA8 I finally received my fixed copy of the Escaflowne movie DVD. I figured it could be fun to make a new video for the CD I was going to give out at AWA8 in Atlanta. So I started cutting clips etc... then I needed a song... so uhm... more Apocalyptica? SURE! So the video was born. I decided to use some unique syncing so I went with the striping effect to match various instruments. It was quite odd going from drama to action so easily in the video... the pace varies a lot also...

The section that stands out the most to me is the down section with Hitomi waking up and Van on the roof looking to the sky. This section was difficult to fill in and time appropriately, but I decided the pace was fitting for the upcoming storm of editing and audio. Overall the video is fun to watch and I definitely enjoyed editing with such great audio and those lovely Escaflowne visuals.

This video was my submission to the AWA8 masters. I had decided to put it together for the masters in particular, so this project was not just any ole thing I was throwing together. This video really came as a surprise to me. I had no clue of how it would come out in the end. I kind of pushed myself to do something new and unique (well to me at least, another jab at what originality means to the person who has never seen something before). The half-screening was at times difficult due to of course using multiple layers and keeping everything fading in and out correctly. The footage was wonderful to work with due to it's dynamic nature and visual appeal.

Enough of the technical aspect... the emotional tie of the music to the characters on the screen lead me to decide on the name Endure after the completion of the video. I wanted to avoid excesses but didn't want to cheat the audience from knowing the suffering the characters survive through. Interestingly, I decided that the video is not a spoiler video because in it's own context it is almost an independent view of the story. Watching the show will fill in the obvious blanks, but the video shouldn't actually ruin the story in any way. This is another video I especially enjoyed editing. It was difficult at times, but the final was well worth the effort.

So uhm, this one doesn't need much explanation. This is truely a work of art. The only words to the entire section of the Korn song "Reclaim my Place," that I used, are W, T, and F. This gets my point across in a most artistic way along with the effects speed-pace editing with bonus inverts. It simply doesn't get much better than this video.

Korn is usually not assocaited with anything but all out action videos. I began this video with a hope of showing the madness of Dilandau... nothing more. The song title "Let's get this party started" stands out as somewhat of an oddity by first impression. The lyrics and the music were simply perfect. My lip sync and editing on the other hand may not have been. I really do have a great amount of affection for this video, being a huge Escaflowne fan... The viciousness and lip sync with Dilandau was fun to add in, ... especially as none of it was edited, it was pure footage not manipulated in the slightest to 'correct the lip sync.'

This is a video I plan to remake this year. It will probably not differ all that much from the original, but there are few things that I wouldn't mind fixing up. The main problem is that the quality and encoding methods I employed were not so great... This video probably is the one that means the most to me.

Though the name of the song is deceiving my primary goal of the video was not action. I mainly wanted to tie the lyrics to the footage. Lyrics such as "not a slave to a god that doesn't exist" or "celebrated victim of your fame" really capture aspects of Berserk. Of course I did intend on using excess action/violence to fill in the "fight" sections of the song. Defintely one of my better early videos.

Former Glory is an interesting case of "lack of actual animation." Much like my earliest work Eternal, the video is loaded with stills. I had some fun with them flashing them all over or letting them slide across the screen as they did in the anime. The guitar sync was intended primarily for the solo later in the song, but my inital introduction was kind of... lame(?) ...so adding in the first few riffs sync'd to Oji playing seemed to work out much better. Van Halen is not exactly popular and neither is Black Heaven. So together they will be... hehe, regardless the video is fun to watch and I had a lot of fun editing it. The stills made it tough to keep the interest of the viewer, fortunately the editing doesn't let them fall asleep.

This video was created over a long period of time (well for my videos at least). Thanks to my CIS 422 class I was very busy and didn't have much time to edit. Fortunately the project we worked on progressed very well and kept my interest so I didn't mind the hiatus from editing. When I finally dove back into editing the video made itself. The lyrics were odd in a few instances, only due to their literal interpretations. Many of the special effect sequences were outright clips from the show, but I still threw in my beat-syncing style in a few key places to better connect the visual to the song. My final Escaflowne video, unless some other idea breaks into my brain.

Blood being the short anime it is presents a fun challenge in creating a video decieving the viewer from the realization that the movie is forty minutes long. Creating the effects in the video was a ton of fun as the music begged to be matched with them. Though there are plenty of effects, the video was intended to tell the story of the unending battle Saya must fight. I can easily see how the video is veiwed as pure effects/action. The subject of the song is not exactly that of the video as the original lyrics imply. My interpretation and use of the lyrics presents a different view. Though stretched at times, the lyrical sync works quite well in my opinion. This is one of my personal favorite videos.

Halloween was a week away and I had some Blood footage sitting around... so I decided to challenge myself to a 1 week video... I created the first half of the video fairly quickly and then went through the pain staking process of freeze framing and adding in text. The video could be considered nerve racking to watch with the audio cutting all the time in the second half... imagine editing it! Blood is an entirely different experience after watching this video, no joke. I love the facial expressions of David... omg... I really wonder if the artists wanted him to look like he was giving birth or something along those lines. Overall, a fun video meant to distort to the most comical base. As someone pointed out, some of the editor commentary presents Blood as a live action movie... this is purely a satirical choice, not an error. :P

Big O is not exactly known as a high class anime with excellent plot etc. So I decided to have some fun with it and create a video that bring some humor to Big O. The lyrics initially were a bit out there and I figured I would be able to sync 50% of them at best. Fortunately Big O is dynamic enough to have many different scenes and sequences, allowing for a much higher percentage of sync.

The song and anime choice seemed perfect, a rough song set to a high class Bruce Wayne wanna be. To fit with the mood of the song required me to avoid scenes or work around Dorothy. The stills in the end actually were frames away from having Dorothy appear. I decided that Dorothy could play the piano in the introduction to wake up Roger and start his "in the hood" day. When it came down to creating the introduction (post-video) I really didn't know what to expect. The piano sync in Big O, as with most anime (Black Heaven) was pitiful and didn't match a real instrument at all. I consider my sync to be decent enough to fool the viewer (myself included), while any person who has played a piano(myself also included) would know that while the sync is ok there is no way the keys she presses would associate with the audio. :P This is definitely one of my favorite introductions.GTA was a joke I planned from the start... I almost bought the Mask of the Phantasm... fortunately I just rented it and ripped it with the hopes of finding a few scenes to complete the joke.

This was the first music video I ever submitted to a con (Megacon 2001). It was also the first to be created using the Indeo 5.11 codec (space limitations etc...). I had just gotten my DVD drive and thought it would be fun to experiment with actual footage instead of stills in Premiere. The video was a blast to make with all the great scenes from the Cagliostro movie. It was meant to simply be a Bond style action video with cool sequences. The slow part of the video allowed me to throw in a little story background. I realize how simple my plan was for the video... and that simplicity worked out just fine. Some of the cuts are a bit rough, but the sync in a few key scenes was great... which I needed practice doing. This video was a great experience and introduction to creating music videos. I was very happy when it won an award "Best Technical" at Megacon (tied with another video).Then there was the introduction... This was just too perfect. Strangely, the entire introduction was made with "leftover" clips that I hadn't used in the video itself. I was shocked at how well it worked out. As with Day in the Life... this is another video in which the introduction is something I really enjoy.

I decided to make this video solely based on the humor of syncing Jubei on her bike and the lyrics "rollin, rollin, rollin." Fortunately the ideas didn't stop there. The video is loaded with humor and lip syncing (good/bad/ugly). The original was made using the MSvideo1 codec... then to DivX 3.11... what a mess. Then I decided to remake the video 2 months later using a better format, aka Indeo 5.11 (ugh!). ...at the time it was the best quality/space ratio codec I had. Even now, I think the mpeg2 version still looks fairly good. This was the version I sent to AWA 2001, and was the winner of "Best Fight" in the Expo competition, hehe. The second time around I really had a load of fun improving and changing things for the better. The original was cool, but it had it's problems... which even version 2 still does haha... oh well. In the end I think the video has the potential to make people smile, laugh and have a good time. So, I love it and loved making it.

I bought the Cowboy Bebop box set after just seeing a few episodes. I knew I would like it, so I didn't hesitate to get the set. After watching the whole show I decided to make a video based on the excellent action sequences. A pure action video may not be the most original or well recieved video... but my goal was to make something that I wanted to watch. The bounty hunter concept went well with the song I chose... which did have some competition from some dirty 80's rock/metal songs, hehe. The scene choice was very difficult as I had to choose what action to leave out... it was pure pain having to ignore a good clip... :P I avoided spoiler scenes, instead concentrating on action scenes/sequences I hadn't seen in other CB videos... The video turned out to be very high speed and fun. I didn't intend for deep meaning, just raw fun and action... which I believe is presented fairly well.

After seeing that there were no true Dorothy dedication videos I decided that the only way to see what I wanted was to make it myself. I didn't expect anyone to like this video due to the music and anime choice... some don't some do. Regardless this video was reasonably simple when it came down to the editing. The difficult part was the choice of song in creating sequences. There are a few sequences that went to the dumpster as they didn't fit with the others. The video was actually created in about 4-5 days, some days involving 6+ hours of editing. Editing obsession had bitten me again so... I had no choice.The sudden jump from The way you look Tonight into (the end of) Fly Me to the Moon was originally interupted with another title frame. I decided that due to the length of the sequence (about 26 seconds or so) it might be too much of an interuption and lose the viewer in the moment. After Fly Me to the Moon I realize that there is a bit of a lull due to the slow fade, but that works as an introduction to "Roger Brags" which plays the role of 'intermission #2' in the video (the other intermission being the mouse being rolled over).

This video began with the connection between music of this style mixing perfectly with Big O. The first sequence I created was the "Someone to love" with the unbelievably cool Madeleine Peyroux, (Getting Some) Fun Out of Life. My inspiration and first exposure to the song is actually from a live-action movie called Free Enterprise in which the editor created a music video like sequence using the same song. Every time I hear the song I think of that movie, and now I also get to think of Dorothy and her cat! :)Overall, a simple enjoyable video that I just HAD to make.

After throwing out a few ideas for songs to match to my Boogiepop episode 2 dedication, I found that 2 small chunks of longer songs would present my ideas more effectlively. I made the two different parts together, alternating back and forth fixing up little problems and improving sync. The video turned out to be in two obvious parts with (hopefully) the first being a decent introduction to the character. Boogiepop Phantom is a mostly vague show leaving the viewer to fill in many blanks... my video does a bit of this also.Some of the footage from the episode are in tunnel vision... this is the original form, I didn't add that in at all. Also the video can be very dark (not just the mood) in different points. I think I avoided overusing the dark footage and boring the viewer with pitch black scenes. The video was intended to be a creepy retelling of the episode... which it mostly is. Oh yeah... there's eyecandy... GOBS of eyecandy hehehe, something I hadn't done before... and it was alot of fun!

Okay, so just where did this idea come from? My initial idea was to have the Liberry City Survivor commercial play as Spike and others shot at each other with 'grenade launchers and flame throwers.' ... so uh where did that go? I am not sure... but when I started to work on the video I knew I had to recreate the GTA3 atmosphere, thus the introduction. The commercials dropped way out as I realized how much fun it would be to match up the music and the story to Spike and Faye, while also mixing in quite a bit of Bebop references (other than the obvious footage). So began the crazed attempt to create mini-chunks. Just what in the world is a mini-chunk? As my Dorothy video tribute went... a mini-chunk is a small part of a song sync'd to scenes. This is often much easier than attempting to sync an entire song as the footage doesn't run out so quickly.

The text was all created frame by frame due to my lack of faith or willingness to mess with Flash or LiveMotion. I also wanted the zooms to look good, so that's where the frame by frame text came in. I wasn't going to tolerate pixelated images... so I did the zooms using photoshop 'edit->scale' repeatedly, saving each frame. Fortunately photoshop isn't as stupid as other programs I attempted this on and actually kept the text centered and scaled the vector based text correctly!After all the work, it was worth it. It isn't a complex video, but I don't think that mattered... it just worked out.