WIP- (icarus)

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Tixi
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WIP- (icarus)

Post by Tixi » Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:36 pm

ok, so This is the first full-scale AMV i am attempting to make (about 2 years ago, i windows-movie-playered a 2 min "amv" for fun). I finally get to put all the research into use :D!! now... to uh... publicaly humiliating myself!!!

oh, and this is super-lq-export (mJPEG) and only a littlelittlelittle is done, i'll post more as i work through it.
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it uses the song icarus- by hopesfall

http://rapidshare.com/files/25347391/Se ... 1.avi.html
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i was wondering if anyone can comment (more) on the tech aspects (ie- timing, transitions, the effects i tried playing with) as i have actually never done any effects or anything before.

is it ok for a beginning?

thanks!!

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silver_moon
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Post by silver_moon » Tue Apr 10, 2007 10:50 pm

Not too bad for your first serious attempt, it looks like you found a variety of scenes and most of them aren't too long. You captured some of the energy in the song, and the scene selection was decent too.

This is a very short clip, and combined with the super-low quality it makes it a bit difficult to see what's going on and to comment on it. But I do still have a few suggestions:
- At 0:07 whatever transition this is, it doesn't look very good. Only cross dissolves or additive dissolves (if you're using Premiere) are pretty much the only two default transitions that look any good in a video, in my opinion.
- At 0:09 I think you needed to switch scenes on the cymbal crash after "miles", it's a fairly noticeable sound that you didn't sync to
- The scene of the curtain being pulled back at 0:12 felt like it should have come in sooner, on the beginning of the word "window", since this word is emphasized in the song and this scene didn't seem to come in on any particular beat
- The single black flashes at 0:13 and 0:20 seemed kinda random. You synced them to a regular drum beat that happens every two seconds in the video so it felt kind of weird to just randomly sync a couple of them.

A few general tips:
- When using effects, use them to sync to "interesting" sounds in the song. Like cymbal crashes, drum rolls, guitar solos, etc. You don't need effects on regular drum beats, they're just there to keep the beat and you don't need to draw attention to these sounds
- Your scenes are starting to get more drawn out towards the end. Make sure you keep your scenes short to keep up with the pace of the music

Hope that helps. If you want you can PM me with your later versions of the video if you don't want to keep posting in the forums later on.
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Tixi
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Post by Tixi » Wed Apr 11, 2007 6:52 pm

thanks for the comment silver moon ^^

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QE07FGG8

ok, its up to 1 min now...

ah, i'll upload a non s-l-quality tomorrow =/... since i have to check quality anyways =|

]ok, got rid of old dissolve at 0:06
]completely changed the miles scene (i couldn't see the person in the old one)
]got rid of girls falling because i didn't like it
]i don't know about the window i don't hear a word window =\
]got rid of black flash
]changed some scenes

]ah, and i have yet to rid myself of excessively used effects ^^ ''... i'll clean some uneeded ones out (i got a bit effect-happy =\....) ...

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silver_moon
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Post by silver_moon » Wed Apr 11, 2007 10:44 pm

It's getting better. :)
]i don't know about the window i don't hear a word window =\
Sorry I couldn't understand the lyrics. >_> I meant on the "we" on "we are empty".

- At 0:09 You still didn't time to the cymbal crash. :(
- 0:16 to 0:22 needed more scenes, the video seemed to really slow down in the action here
- The eye scene at 0:25 seemed very sudden. It was a very short, quick scene that wasn't really timed to anything, and it was a little strange how it was suddenly black and white just for one scene. The scene would be better placed on a "loud" or sudden sound in the song, like a split second before where it is now, where the singer goes "empty"
- The black space is very long at 0:30
- From 0:30 to 0:57, the song kind of goes into a quiet, flowy-sounding "lull", but I didn't notice that big of a change in pace or mood of the video. I think this section could definitely use a lot more cross dissolves to make the scenes all flow into each other better, the scenes could be a little more consistent in length throughout the section. The scenes of the torpedoes at 0:43 seemed like too actiony of a scene for this part of the song. The Haibane Renmei scenes worked well here though. And in general for this section, you have to pay attention to the subtle sounds in the music. There's no big cymbal crashes here to time to, but you can still sync to changes in the singer's voice, like when he emphasizes certain sounds, or to the guitar melody in the background. From 0:36 to 0:37 you did flashes on two of the regular drum beats again. I'm telling you there are more interesting things to sync to. :)
- Nice sync to the cymbal crash at 0:57
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Tixi
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Post by Tixi » Thu Apr 12, 2007 10:19 am

ok, so i got the huffyuv export
at first i thought there was a problem w/the export because there were a lot of pixilated colored flashes in parts of the vid. however, i don't think my computer can handle it =\.. as it crashed vdubmod everytime (after flipping though a little, it would crash.) :lol:... =|..

is there something i'm doing wrong? i think i have 1 gig ram, but it should be enough....[/i]

Tixi
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Post by Tixi » Thu Apr 12, 2007 12:37 pm

anyways, its m-q = i *will* have higher quality for final encoding, but this will work (no logo from pegasus on it :D )

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1PM6MCF1

about the cymbal crash at 00:09, should i add a white flash to it? (it doesn't really seem to stand out...)

only minor changes and nothing added to the current 1 min, changed some scenes and changed the eye's timing. added more cross dissolves and changed the flashing black scenes, but

i'll upload the clips in quality from now on . :)

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silver_moon
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Post by silver_moon » Thu Apr 12, 2007 1:18 pm

The scenes still have really jagged edges on them. Are you sure your export settings are right? Make sure the export settings are the same as the project settings, except for the codec.

Oh, and don't forget to compress your audio. Just use VirtualDub to do it, do a direct stream copy for the video then for the audio use Lame MP3 to compress the audio. Makes the file size much smaller.
Tixi wrote:about the cymbal crash at 00:09, should i add a white flash to it? (it doesn't really seem to stand out...)
If you don't want to change scenes on it, yeah you can do a white flash. But don't make it just a few frames of solid white, it looks better if it's semi-transparent then fades out. Like this:

http://www.members.shaw.ca/darkmoonstud ... mple01.jpg

Or another thing that I think looks better is if you use the brightness/contrast filter and keyframes to make a flash that fades out like this:

http://www.members.shaw.ca/darkmoonstud ... mple02.jpg

Yep, the changes look good. I noticed there's a stray frame right after the eye scene that needs fixed. And the Haibane Renmei scenes seem to be stuttering a bit, it looks like your program doesn't like those source clips. If the scenes are from DivX or XviD files, I find it can help tremendously to use an Avisynth script to import them into Premiere instead. Just make a simple .avs file with this one line:

DirectShowSource("C:\yourfile.avi")

Then import the .avs file into your program instead of the .avi and replace the scenes. It should help it not stutter. Or you can use VirtualDub to convert the scenes to Huffyuv and use those instead. (Premiere doesn't like working with DivX files).
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