AMV Salad 5: Happy Meal (Nekocon 14, here we come!)

[Kireblue]

For those who couldn't come, Salad went well, but didn't have the same impact as 4. I still think people really enjoyed it though. It was great meeting those of you who were there.

couldn't go this year, but I'll be there for the next.

Also, I'll be showing AMV Salad at Momocon again. The MEP showcase this year was a huge hit, so I'm definitely doing it a second year.

[Squancho]

I have a couple of photos to post here as soon as I edit them.
Just got home and boy am I tired!
Good weekend, though.
I'm so happy to have finally met the lot of you...

[Gaelstrom]

For those who couldn't come, Salad went well, but didn't have the same impact as 4. I still think people really enjoyed it though. It was great meeting those of you who were there.

Yup, went well, pretty much as expected. The explosions and the fluffy combo seemed to do quite well, but I knew they wouldn't land like the Geico Money, however they definitely were recognized as the running gag duo, and did their work well. Our weak ending because of the credits music situation how the song idea just didn't quite work with footage for us and the lack of another clip or two seemed to draw energy away.

Every year so far I keep forgetting the 'nostalgia effect' near the Con when it's been a year since the last one. And it always catches me off guard which stuff sets them off Like Electric Slide (and thankfully Small World even after the AMVs ^^). So many of the clips that were nostalgia-based treated the audience very well and I was very happy about that. We also got 'screaming girl' back this year.

Reaction vid is quite clear. Unfortunately not all the laughter was captured because I tried to keep it stable on my knee, thinking that would help collect more surround sound (as opposed to having my chest right next to it like last year), but the majority of it was gotten pretty clearly. I'll be trimming it and uploading it for all of you hopefully by tomorrow. Does everyone want that fanparody mashup intro included as well, or just Salad?

It was great finally meeting you all as well. Glad it went better than the Saturday lunch where NOBODY showed up ^^ I was really hoping to meet MasakoX as well. Oh well.

For next year, it seems we'll have to make certain that several key elements are definitely considered earlier rather than later, like credit clips and such. Hopefully we won't be as busy when the time comes.

[moonbunnychan]

I couldn't find the Saturday lunch place lol.

But yes, a lot of what did and did not land surprised me. People clapping during electric slide surprised me as well. I kinda thought the "it's so fluffy" landed better then the explosions over all. My hotel mates were yelling it's so fluffy at me the rest of the weekend. (I ultimately had 12 people in the room X_x)

Totally agreed though that we should spend more time coming up with a really solid ending/credits stuff not just as an afterthought.

A suggestion for your intro to the parodies thing though...it went on a bit long, I think. It was also a little confusing in the jumping between jokes and characters announcing the names of whatever the parodies were.

[Gaelstrom]

Fluffy I figured that'd happen. I showed some friends and they did the same all night back when I showed them ^^ Explosions was mindless simplicity since nothing else feasible was coming to us at the time. If we'd all seen the Fluffy clips sooner, we probably could have figured out that it would have been the perfect running gag if played with, but as it is, the explosions and fluffy played off each other well for what they are, making Fluffy that much more powerful for not being too numerous, and then allowing that last clip to work well. I still wish that the Slappy Squirrel and the Mermaid thingy with the little kid were moved to switch with two higher-energy clips to finish stronger, but we were kind of 'doomed' on the credits because of our last-minute treatment of it (Although strangely, of all my vids, it seems the Gundam fail was one of the top two, oddly enough). And of course the fact that the geico money was the unifier at the end of 4 was the reason it achieved such a cheer. I didn't expect anything like it this year, unfortunately. That will be incredibly tough to emulate without making it seem too similar.

The fanparody intro was a very... VERY interesting experiment that I still can't believe worked into what it was. The original idea was all various creators discussing things back and forth on parody ideas and letting it just degenerate and everyone just spouting terrible ideas in the midst with the potential for cutting away to examples of some of the bad (non-hentai) initial ideas. Much of that was kept in but we never had a script to give people direction. The problem was it was an experiment in collecting about 10 fanparody creators together to make a cohesive thing without any real contact. I offered to help Scott as best I could with brainstorming, but in the end, he's the one with the connections to all the old-school fanparody creators. In the end, everyone sent in random audio clips with no real guidance that Scott did a pretty darn good job combining into something relatively cohesive at the last minute.

With that accomplished, I'm hoping something can be done for next year with more organization now that we've gotten over the hump of doing it once. PLUS I have it on the reaction video so Scott can send it and SHOW people laughing at it which hopefully can motivate and prove to the others it's worthwhile for the small amount of work. I wish I had seen the reaction to it on Saturday, I got back from the Nobuo Uematsu concert the exact second that Fanboy Soze started.

I was sad since damn near all my Haruhi/Phil Ken Sebben ones were drowned out ^^ If nothing else, I wished that after Alucard said "I'd rather watch Twilight" they could have heard him going "God I love your accent..."

But yeah. Hard part's done. We've done it once, now we can make it that much better with the hard part out of the way... hopefully.

[Warlike Swans]

Does everyone want that fanparody mashup intro included as well, or just Salad?

I want the fan parody mashup, I liked it.... was especially surprised and happy to see Captain Tylor in that mix.

It was great finally meeting you all as well. Glad it went better than the Saturday lunch where NOBODY showed up ^^ I was really hoping to meet MasakoX as well. Oh well.

I too enjoyed meeting people. Sorry i didn't show up to lunch on Saturday, I didn't make it to the con till 2 or so.

I was really happy with the audience reaction. I wish there was a better way to gauge reaction than just laughter, because obviously things don't have to be laugh-inducing to be entertaining, and some of the things the people I was with liked best weren't ones they laughed at.

I kinda thought the "it's so fluffy" landed better then the explosions over all. My hotel mates were yelling it's so fluffy at me the rest of the weekend.

Yeah... my friend's dog ended up hearing a lot of that too... but he really IS so fluffy, and it's fun to say.

How did the other parodies go? I wished they had streamed, because I wanted to see them but I was at my limit of sitting still.

[Gaelstrom]

The other parodies for the most part were quite simply the best general collection of parodies Otakon has ever had. Both Friday and Saturday night, more people remained all the way through than any previous year in the 10 years I've been here. Evangelion Redeath is reborn, with Deuce joining the fray of the neo-Gendos who aren't really Gendos getting up and going crazy in the isles ^^ I'm happy to see it resurging. Frankly Evangelion Redeath is the Otaku Rocky Horror Picture Show. I've never even been to the real one, but I know enough about it to be able to recognize that analogy, and I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Faboy Soze, Scott's new one, was exceptional. Definitely stole the show. His ending was a beautiful parody of Glados' song from Portal that managed to be both hilarious and sentimental to the point of making me tear up a bit because I felt like a fan among fans for the first time in a while He and I scrambled around on Thursday, including climbing 15 flights of stairs in the Hilton to make sure I got all the parodies he ever had so I can study them. I can even potentially find ways to get smaller copies to some of you with a bit of work.

The weak points were aspects of .WoW and TSR, but not due to anything in particular being bad about them, just some pacing issues, and they were both still quite good. Both were beta showing, basically, and are apparently unfinished. .WoW was an hour and 20 minutes, which is just too long, and it didn't need to be. TSR was good, but could be stronger.

Ideon/Off and Macross 7.5 and 1/2 were both quite good as well. Both done by the same creator and both different enough that I didn't really know until the credits. Ideon/Off, unlike the 'classics' last year, is a modern parody classic, and the audio is clear even if the footage is of older shows. Again, pacing issues as well, something I have discussed at length with Scott for whatever project I end up doing to make certain I avoid past mistakes as much as possible.

Sailor Moon Abridged was good, also in beta, and also pacing issues (definitely a fanparody pattern). Kampfer Abridged and DBZ Abridged were friggan amazing. MasakoX (Gokou in DBZ abridged in case you're unaware) does Kampfer abridged, and his timing is stellar.

Right now I don't even know how, but I'm going to need all the help I can get to make a parody ^^ Once I actually have a plot concept I believe doesn't suck, it'll become exponentially easier. May not be done by next year though, especially if I'm also doing AMVS6.

[moonbunnychan]

Ah, that explains it then. If the intro had been just a little more cohesive it would have been hilarious.

[Gaelstrom]

Ah, that explains it then. If the intro had been just a little more cohesive it would have been hilarious.

Yup, that was the hope, but he did a great job. I was happy so many people reacted the way they did at "Carpeting, floor boards, Mango Chutney" because I was telling Scott it would make more sense closer to the question "What are you sending in?" but it definitely seemed to work, thankfully.

I'll get to the reaction vid a bit later tonight. There are several errands that need to get taken care of today since I was gone all weekend, but with luck I can dump it in virtualdub and split the intro and salad and everything should be good.

[Angelyco]

So...Saturday morning I was watching the new Shinkai movie in Video 5 and realized I was forgetting about something. I haven't gotten the subscription emails for this thread in months and completely forgot all about it. Apparently I missed about 30 pages of posts and had no idea when the video was going to be shown at Otakon. I honestly don't even know if my "Kid Sister" clip was used in the final video. I didn't purposely abandon you guys!

Thanks, a-m-v.org, for cutting me off.