The Letter [Anime Detour 2010 Entry]

[Nicho Void]

This is my first ever AMV attempt. I did it for the 2010 Anime Detour competition which will be on April 23. You .org members get an early look.

Since this is my first AMV I appreciate any words of encouragement, but more importantly I'm looking for constructive criticism. What parts didn't work for you? If you had done it, what would you have changed? How was the story, the pacing, the cuts? I'm also really interested in quality/encoding issues. Did you notice a quality issue that I could have fixed (all clips were from DVD sources) with a simple script? Let me know!

Hope you enjoy.

[Tearx]

For a first video, this is pretty good o.0. I, at first, flinched when I heard the song... but as the video went on, it grew on me. The editing was nicely paced and kept on making me want to watch more. The entire atmosphere you created fit the song and definitely matched up with Spike's attitude in the show. Somewhat wished you synced it up more when the song sped up just to have a change in editing...
4/5 will be looking out for more stuff by you, keep it up

[dreamawake]

This is actually rather fantastic. I think you could have used some better scenes for bits like "ticket for an airplane, aint got time to take a fast train" etc, but you did rather well. The effects were well done without being overdone, and added to the overall feel of the video, and the editing was nothing to complain about for sure (especially for a first video). I'd like to see a version of this with the proper aspect ratio and such though.



PS: http://dz-studios.com/arashinome/Nicho% ... ctshow.mp4 < Quick re-encode I did with a resize and some filters.

[MycathatesyouAMV]

Could easily be best first amv of 2010.

[Ozair]

that was fucking awesome!

[Taite]

I agree that this could be the best first amv of 2010.

I've never seen a first amv so great before. The overall sync was fantastic. You did really well with transitioning and timing too. I'm still shocked it's your first. If you hadn't mentioned that, I would have thought you had at least 1 year experience under your belt. I can't pinpoint anything I particularly disliked. There were maybe a couple times where there was a cross fade that looked a little iffy to me (:12 and :16), but that's it. Nothing wrong with the effects in my eyes. Even the lip sync was good.
Arashinome's re-encode is what it should look like, but for a beginner I'm impressed that you even read the A/V guide and started encoding yourself. You can probably ask him what filters he used and such.

Everything was very nearly flawless in my eyes, so I'm sorry I can't give good constructive criticism.
I don't know what you're doing, but keep it up.
5/5

[CodeZTM]

Arashie pointed me here, and considering he took the time to actually FIX something somebody did, I knew it had to pretty damn good, so I snagged his fixed version of it.

Needless to say, it was wonderful!

I wasn't overly fond of the lip sync/flap [don't know if that was intentional or not] in some areas, but the overall atmosphere of it was just astounding!

The song, the scene choices, the effects.. They all created a video from a past decade, highlighting the beautiful "jazzy world" that Cowboy Bebop had, and that even in the distant future, relationships and women created violence transcend time and space.

Really very good. I can't say best First of 2010 just yet, because there are TONS of videos yet to come, but damn... It's going in my VCA 2011 folder for me to remember to pimp when the threads go up.

4.5/5.0

[Elcalavero]

If Ozair says its awesome/amazing, then it must be true.

[Phantasmagoriat]

yeah, for a first video that's not bad at all

I liked how you focused on the lyrics, and the mood is pretty consistent with the music.

I probably would have left out the tiny bit of lipsync you did. It's hard to get it to work for amv's with a serious tone; I think most people associate lipsync with comedy, so it felt out of place for me, but wasn't too big of a bother.

For technical stuff, I have no major complaints... like there is the aspect ratio thing, but everyone messes that up in their first video. There were some blended frames in the beginning, and I probably would have cropped off the dot-crawl on the edges of the video, and maybe done some minor cleaning too... but cowboy bebop is pretty old-looking to begin with... so it was almost nostalgic to see stuff like that.

Anyways, keep it up

[Nicho Void]

Sorry for the late reply, I've been slammed at work.

Thanks for all the kind words and advice everyone! I've gotten some really good feedback and suggestions for areas that I can improve on in my next vid. I'm really glad the atmosphere/feel of the song and scenes worked for most of you, since that was the main thing I was shooting for.

Some quick points I wanted to respond to:

- Lip Sync: Looking back, I completely agree that this felt out of place. I fell into the trap of wanting to try a little bit of everything in my AMV and this made it through the final edit when it shouldn't have.
- AR: A few of you mentioned aspect ratio being wrong. I'll be researching/asking more about that when I get some more time (sup Arashinome ).