Instrumental Anime Project

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Postby downwithpants » Sat Apr 17, 2004 12:47 am

hi guys, my tests are done and finals aren't for another three weeks, so i'll try to pick up on this project.

i borrowed fantasia (the 60th anniversary edition of the original) from the library and watched that. It's pretty neat that in the special features "Making of" section they showed what appeared to be a playbill reading, "From time to time the order and selection of compositions on this program may be changed." which i guess is the premise of the 2000 version. (apparently there was an unreleased section to Clair de Lune among other songs)

Also interesting was Deems Taylor mentioning three types of music: 1) music that was written with a story intended 2) music that was written to evoke imagery 3) abstract music written purely for the sake of music.

As for the narration intro part: maybe we can lip synch anime characters to our voices, or would that be too creepy?
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Postby downwithpants » Sat Apr 17, 2004 12:50 am

rose4emily:
I watched your third stone video (v 1.2). ~ I haven't watched any of your previous versions, so I don't know what direction your changes have taken.

Start to 1:46: The sequence has a very nice simple, innocent, and summery feel too it. At 1:38 the steam coming from the plant is too hard to see with the brightness of the video, so it's kinda hard to tell what's going on... so if you add color or turn down the brightness it might help there.

1:46-3:02: 1:46 is a nice change to the more energetic sequence of hakura hitting naota with her vespa, but it shows a very motionless scene of naota from 1:49-1:53. Again it seems to get too bright from 2:12-2:20, as the scenes no longer stick to simple close ups of the character's faces (which is easier to pick up under the bleaching), but show more complex scenes where you need more details to see what's going on. 2:26-2:48 looks really nice in the bleaching, with the action matching the development in the music.

3:20-3:47: At 3:20, the scene change is a bit too sudden it seems. We're suddenly moving from naota, minami, and hakura on the bridge to naota at home, but since everything is black and white and bleached, it might be hard to pick that up without prior knowledge of flcl scenes, and then one would be wondering where did minami go and why are they indoors? Maybe a fade transition or a fade to white and back from white would better present the scene change. Ditto with the change to the railroad crossing scene. During the railroad crossing scene, alternating between images of naota and hakura implies some dialogue, which doesn't fit with the music too well.

3:58-4:54: From 3:58-4:14, the scenes seem to a bit to relaxed against the developing music section, which is increasing in complexity and pace. The scene of Minami's cigarette at 4:15-4:19 seems to interrupt the sequence of the preceding and following sequences that would otherwise flow one after the other. But the increasing chaos demonstrated in Hakura, Minami, and Naota's behaviors from 4:19-4:54 are fitting to the music.

4:55-5:20: The video release the tension well at 4:55. At 4:58-5:10 I don't think the bleaching is necessary. We've already seen the simple-texture idea and left it before, so it seems unnecessary to return to it for 12 seconds.

5:20-5:44 works very well with the relaxed section in the music. Actually the bleaching might work well here, after 5:28 where we see the characters.

5:45-6:36: are you going to hold the bridge for that length or is that just filler material for now?

7:14-8:16: This section worked really nice, with minami following kanji while the music develops over a repeating motive in the bass. Is the switch to monochrome (7:21-7:55) intentional or just an experiment?

8:16-9:00 This section seems a bit awkward as the video segment alternates between scenes of stillness or constant expected motion, to scenes of rapid unexpected changes in motion. But with some hammering out it seems like it could work.

9:02-9:20 This section feels out of place as the music has relaxed again. The scene of kanji descending is a bit too effectsy, and it doesn't seem to fit in the direction of the video, looking at the previous and following scenes. In contrast, 9:45-10:05 seems like the video needs more action, as the acoustic guitar plays rapid solos.

10:05-10:18 works wonderfully. The music (both soloing acoustic guitar and supporting violins) is very dissonant over the bass. This really supports the idea of Naota realizing Minami's guilt as arsonist really well. 10:18-11:14 also looks neat with the scribbled japanese text over the free form in the upper instruments. It does end kind of abruptly though at 11:14.

11:14-11:32, although it does lead in to the following section, does at the same time take attention off from the Minami arsonry story to Hakura's ood behavior.

11:32-end: The rest works pretty well. At 13:01, the action in the video continues on, even though music dies down, so it doesn't seem as well supported by the music. It would be nice to see the change to the explosion in the video at 13:18 against to change to the long legato notes in the music at 13:15, if you can get frame by frame editing down. A similar effect was produced at the end of Kevin Caldwell's Engel.

I noticed there are a lot of shots of the power plant throughout the video. Maybe you could explore and develop that as a recurring theme in the video.
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Postby rose4emily » Sat Apr 17, 2004 2:29 am

Yeah, v1.3 has a lot of special little issues. I do need to drop the lighting some on the far-out detailed shots, as they don't work nearly as well as the close-ups where a few lines are all it takes to see what's going on (actually, I already did to some extent, but only enough to match levels, not enough to reveal the patches of field and such). The black separator frames also seem really intrusive and have to be removed, and the timing is still a bit off on the acoustic guitar solo (it should be syncing up with the lighting on the girders of the bridge) and the final explosions (those are synced to the two notes that fall in their vacinity in the project file, but somehow refuse to line up on the encode).

The black/white sillouette look for the scene with Canti as the "Canti, the God of Fire" standing on the roof of the burnt school and then ascending into the air is intentional. I kinda thought it'd look neat, and really highlight Canti rather than having more attention drawn to Mamimi at that point.

Oddly enough, there were no effects used on the scene of Canti's descent, it just looked like that in the first place. I saw it as a transitional "coming down" scene both in terms of Canti literally coming down and the use of the blue color pallate and the expression worn by Mamimi. This video, while encompasing the other characters, seems to me to be centered on Mamimi, and I thought this was a good place to bring her and Canti back. I also thought the flashing of Canti's lights and the spinning spotlights beneath him actually went well with the re-introduction of the acoustic guitar and bass.

The cut from the "Firestarter" chaos to Haruko and the cat occurs too soon. I have to repeat a bit of the Firestarter bit, though, to bridge the gap and put the transition on the musical change occuring closer to the long-shot view of Haruko rubbing her head along with the violin bows, doing that "crazy" hand-signal just before the similarly looney-sounding line opens in the music, and the cat assaulting her (or is it the other way around) on the acoustic guitar strikes. The hand sticking in the air though, really doesn't fit.

Some of the static scenes you mentioned (actually all of them but the rain-bridge) are places that are static for the purpose of using text there as part of the story. This could be seen in 1.1, but I temporarily took the titles out as I'm looking into a better way to include them that will make them look cleaner and more interesting. These talking scenes are meant to be like a silent movie, where you see a bit of text saying what is being said, and then you see some people moving their lips and making a few gestures that you can interperet as going with the title you were just shown. The actual source of the text is the repeated "nothing amazing happens here, just the ordinary" speech used on the static naota scene in the beginning, and the lyrics from the original Hendrix version of Third Stone from the Sun, which are included in the Naota/Mamimi by the river scenes before Haruko's arrival, on Haruko's arival, in the part where Haruko and Naota are talking by the railroad tracks, and on the scene where Naota and Mamimi are staring at each other just before the cut to the bridge where Mamimi "overflows" and giant robots come out of Naota's head. The actual lyrics from Third Stone are:

strange [Mamimi with glowing eyes]

beautiful [Mamimi embraces Naota from behind]

grass of green [didn't include this one]

with your majestic silken scenes [Mamimi and Naota in sillouette before the river]

your mysterious mountains [steam first comes out of Medical Mechanica]

i wish to see closer [close up of Medical Mechanica]

may i land my kinky machine? [Haruko's entrance on her Vespa of doom]

although your world wonders me
with your majestic superior cackling hen
[long-view of Naota and Haruko by railroad]

your people i do not understand [Naota running away from Haruko by railroad]

so to you [naota looking up at nurse Haruko]

I MUST PUT AN END [Haruko draws her guitar and smashes the hospital table]

and you'll never hear surf music again [Naota staring with quivering eyes toward Mamimi][/b]
may seeds of dreams fall from my hands -
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Postby rose4emily » Sat Apr 17, 2004 9:25 am

BTW - it looks like I'll be removing the 16:9 aspect restriction, as it seems I've made the only 16:9 video involved (unless we get to include Wasteland, that is). I originally made that one up to make it easier on people who had to remove subtitles, but it seems that isn't a problem for most of you. As for me - I can always add some black bars when I'm done.
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Postby pen-pen2002 » Sun Apr 18, 2004 2:47 am

Sorry for the absence, I was away for the weekend for a dagorhir event (as if I wasn't enough of a geek already...)

Rose4Emily - DLing new version, sounds interesting.

Otohiko - As far as my vid goes a lot of the flashes or really quick cuts aren't in the final stages so the timing isn't perfect. However there is a good chance that I'm over editing so I'll take a look at that.

Ararat - Defiantly nearing the final version. I saw you made A.R.A.R.A.T more visible, good job on that. There are still two that are hard to read and those are "Door to be opened" and "great evil..." Another one that is readable but might use some tweaking is "continents to be crossed" placement is good but it could stand to be moves a tad up or down so it isn't covered by the white lines on the road. I kind of liked the original placement of "when the struggle ends" because it feels late now since it's after the transition to that section of the video but I'm getting into matters of personal preference here.

One last thing that I think could be improved before the final version. The last fight scene is now a good length but in cutting it down it seems like you have taken out some of the best timing from the long version. I understand that you want to keep the more storylike shots such as the falling weapons and clearing smoke but you do so at the expense of a lot of the failed charges which showcase him never giving up. The missiles don't seem to be timed as well in this version especially the one with the shockwave. They also now take up a disproportionate part of the fight. The shot of the kid looking amazed is also not one of my favorites. In the long version there was some great timing with him being stopped dead in midair and shots of his springing back into the fray. Everything from the pan shot on is great. Maybe this is a personal thing too but I think it's noticeable enough to take another look at it.

Keep up the good work, you're almost there!
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Postby rose4emily » Sun Apr 18, 2004 9:21 am

Well, just got back from being flamed a bunch of times for necroposting.

Anyone know how to compile a few thousand .png frames back into a video file? I should have probably thought of this one earlier, but it kinda puts a damper on all the cool CinePaint editing I've been doing.

If not, I'll keep digging through Google, I just wondered if anyone had a quick answer.
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Postby Otohiko » Sun Apr 18, 2004 11:03 am

pen-pen2002 wrote:Otohiko - As far as my vid goes a lot of the flashes or really quick cuts aren't in the final stages so the timing isn't perfect. However there is a good chance that I'm over editing so I'll take a look at that.


I wouldn't worry too too much, but do get a look at it. I don't know if it's over-editing, but timing-wise it seems to be sort of all over the place, so even if it looks cool it might be a bit confusing, that's all. In general, as much as I might not like flashes - have them timed well and straightforwardly, and there's no problem ;)

Ararat - Defiantly nearing the final version. I saw you made A.R.A.R.A.T more visible, good job on that. There are still two that are hard to read and those are "Door to be opened" and "great evil..." Another one that is readable but might use some tweaking is "continents to be crossed" placement is good but it could stand to be moves a tad up or down so it isn't covered by the white lines on the road. I kind of liked the original placement of "when the struggle ends" because it feels late now since it's after the transition to that section of the video but I'm getting into matters of personal preference here.

One last thing that I think could be improved before the final version. The last fight scene is now a good length but in cutting it down it seems like you have taken out some of the best timing from the long version. I understand that you want to keep the more storylike shots such as the falling weapons and clearing smoke but you do so at the expense of a lot of the failed charges which showcase him never giving up. The missiles don't seem to be timed as well in this version especially the one with the shockwave. They also now take up a disproportionate part of the fight. The shot of the kid looking amazed is also not one of my favorites. In the long version there was some great timing with him being stopped dead in midair and shots of his springing back into the fray. Everything from the pan shot on is great. Maybe this is a personal thing too but I think it's noticeable enough to take another look at it.

Keep up the good work, you're almost there!


Yea, I've been wondering about some of the timing in the restructured fight scene. I'll give it a look again. In general though, if you look at it - with a couple of things aside - I tried to compensate for action sync with straightforward cut-sync. Still, I guess some of the things you mentioned wouldn't hurt.

As for titles - there's something I'm gonna try there. What makes them a bit more blurry than they should be is the fact that I adjust brightness in post-processing (with VDub). I'll try to actually change the brightness pre-processing (AVS), so that should be a bit clearer. Plus the final compressed version should be a bit better.

So, anyway, thanks. I'll get this one finished up before exams, hopefully...
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Postby Bakadeshi [AuN Studios] » Sun Apr 18, 2004 6:25 pm

you guys still need editors on this? I am just about finished with my entry for Otacon so I now have time to devote to something like this.
Except, I am unclear on alot of elements concearning this project, Does the music have to be from Fantasia? I am also not too familiar with Fantasia, just the old cartoon that came out a while ago. don't even remember if it was by disney or someone else.... does one need to be to work this project?
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Postby Otohiko » Sun Apr 18, 2004 6:57 pm

No, we're pretty open as far as music choices - so long as it's instrumental.

And yep, we could certainly use more editors. Contact rose4emily, and there shall be details.
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Postby Bakadeshi [AuN Studios] » Sun Apr 18, 2004 7:07 pm

synth works too? I have a realy good sounding track done from the Final fantasy series... but remixed using software synthesis, by the same guy that did my track for Angels Redemption. In otherwords its digital music, not made using real instruments. (www.ocremix.com has many examples) Don't let that fool you though, it sounds realy nice. Ask anyone that beta tested Angels Redemption for me.
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Postby Otohiko » Sun Apr 18, 2004 7:11 pm

Synth is fine, I think. Most of 'The Wasteland' uses a lot of synth, and that's a video that's at least in some way involved in the project (although the jury's still out on whether it'll be part of it...)

So yep, if you have an instrumental idea - that would be just fine for this purpose. Any instrument will do I believe.

Though, again, rose4emily is the person to approach for the ultimate go-ahead.
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Postby Otohiko » Sun Apr 18, 2004 9:42 pm

Meanwhile, back at the editing farm...

Right now, I'm uploading what I dubbed "Ararat v 1.99", which means that this is pretty much a final candidate - I think this is about as far as the video needs to be taken; although I can consider minor tweaks and maybe a title-less version (although I got to like them now). I have a great-looking 2-pass DivX encode on my hard drive, but it turned out pretty big (105 megs)... so I'll hold off sending that unless this version's decided to be the final.

I actually followed up on Pen-Pen's scene suggestion in the last-fight sequence, and that's about the only real editing change - the rest has to do with adjusting small things and smoothing out the titles.

Should be fine, looking for last-minute feedback now :roll:
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Postby Bakadeshi [AuN Studios] » Sun Apr 18, 2004 11:11 pm

Ok I have a few ideas. However before I continue on this, I shal take your advice on the talking with the rose4emily on the getting of the details of the instrumental project. I shall now get to the emailing of the rose4emily. and I have been watching too much powerpuff girls. :idea: powerpuff parody amv..... the ideas start rolling in.... not for this project of course ;p

Anyway, on to the emailing of the rose4emily on the possible submission of the Instrumental video to the animasia project that is instrumental in nature that is hosted by rose4emily. that I must email him/her for.
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Postby downwithpants » Sun Apr 18, 2004 11:38 pm

just watched Ararat 1.3, :shock: wow awesome video already.
sections look like they're placed where they should be relative to the music, timing looks close, can't find any problems really.

only suggestion i could think of is at 2:23 when it shows the siren in the dark, it might be neat to fade to black and back from black on the rests between the notes for a few beats. i don't know how this would look, but it might be worth trying out. and if it doesn't look good just scrap it.
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Postby pen-pen2002 » Mon Apr 19, 2004 1:12 am

Well I finally got around to making that sig. I think it turned out pretty well and now that it's this far I could add scenes pretty easily as new videos get underway. There is a scene from each anime in the project but some like the spriggan one on the right arn't really recognizable. If anyone wants it I can send a jpeg or photoshop file. I also have a 40 pixel legal version.

Bakadeshi - I just got the Angels Redemption vid and it's absolutely incredible. I have a few things to point out but it's getting really late so I'll do it tomorrow. As far as synth, the song in AR was great, there shouldn't be any problem. You should upload the song to the FTP and tell us what your thinking of doing with it. I still haven't finished your Laputa review but I'll get to it soon, damn I'm slow with these things. :oops:

Rose4Emily - thanks for renaming all those files for me, I keep forgetting. I think I'm going to make the working title "Requiem for a Nightmare."
Your new version of third stone from the sun is very impressive. The bleaching in the intro gives it a uniqe feel and makes it feel less like long sections of the anime. The parts where you can only see the eyes is just amazing. I don't know how well the titles are going to work with this effect though. Especially the silken scenes one as the water is all bleached out. The part where the color comes back in seems like an odd choice, I was expecting it to be at a place where the music picks up a lot. The monochrome is nice although when Canti is "praying" you can barely see him so the focus is very much on Mamimi. The overlays are very well done in the firestarter sequence.

Otohiko - 1.99! Argh, how do you edit so fast? I'll take a look as soon as the permisions are set but it sounds like the vid is just about ready for release. Now to stop procrastinating and get back to work on my own vid.
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