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Information

• Member: iserlohn
• Studio: Iserlohn Productions
• Title: Daicon V
• Premiered: 2002-02-15
• Categories:
  • Action
  • Fun
  • Parody
• Song:
  • Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) Twilight
• Anime:
  • FLCL (Fooly Cooly)
• Participation:
  • Katsucon 8, Katsucon 8 (2002-02-15)
• Comments: Video Stats:
  ---------------
  Title - Daicon V
  Anime - FLCL (Furi Kuri)
  Song - Prologue & Twilight
  Artist - Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)
  Completed - November 2001
  Participation - Katsucon 8 AMV Contest
  Notes Written for: Katsucon 8 Reel CD, animemusicvideos.org profile
  Indirect Link: AMV CD Distro. Go get my CD.
  
  Making the Video:
  ----------------------------------
  This video took four months and much stress to create. That being said I'm very proud of it.
  
  The footage was ripped from the R2 DVD's (thank you PsiPsy for driving down from Pennsylvania just to sit around while I ripped the DVD's - TWICE!!), stripped of audio, and converted to Ligos Indeo 5.11 with no bitrate cap and a keyframe every 10 frames. The resolution was 648x480. This is also the project that showed limitations in a lot of the things I was doing with this video setup.
  
  One of these problems was that there would be pixellations and other minor video glitches in some of the more vivid reds and the browns. The other was that Indeo doesn't handle flashing video very well and there were a couple of critical scenes that required that. When I ran off the original very very rough cut for the Otakon gathering I was going to, I tried running an SVCD only to find that the default SVCD bitrate was too low to keep from megapixels forming and getting blotchy in the video.
  
  This was again a project of experimenting. There's no real "effects" in this video, but every clip had its speed tweaked with and I made good use of experimenting with rubber bands to set transparencies (the only fade done with a Premiere transition is the one with the iron steaming through to Haruko and Naota.) Titles on the opening were made using Premiere's title cards and overlaid using rubber bands. There was one other rubber banded scene towards the end, where Naota/Atomsk was flying towards Haruko and we see a closeup of her, but it was so heavily saturated with red that I felt it looked off, so I played with contrasting colours and set up a matte to tone it down. This clip also had a MASSIVE speed reduction so it has kind of that smoothed over glazed look that screams "I'm running below 80%".
  
  This video also went through multiple editions. Many thanks go out to Nightowl, Fireye, Sawa, Omoikane, VicBond 007, ShounenDizzyCow, and Icechai for looking through the various beta editions and giving me lots of feedback that helped me to tweak this video. Because of them the complexity of the edits doubled (started working on editing to backing vocals as well as mains, following (and not following) beats, cleaning up lip flaps that ran too long, etc.) I especially owe Nightowl thanks for the three pages of notes that he'd written up for the beta, and for convincing me to leave the prologue on no matter what. If only he got to run the Katsucon AMV contest like he had planned (the con was unable to reply in time.)
  
  Once again, my magical sound editing skills come into play. In the original Daicon films, the song was sped up. I'm not sure how much exactly, but my guess is three to four percent. I sped it up five for this video. Secondly, there's some repetitive instrumental towards the very end of the song. I did a much better job cutting it out on the original short version of the video than I did on the final edition when I used the lengthened song. If you can hear it, more power to you, the secret is to listen for where it jumps the beat towards the end.
  
  What's this Video About?
  ----------------------------------
  For those who are familiar with the history of GAINAX, you'll know that way back in the early 80's, a bunch of the guys who later founded GAINAX made a couple of opening animation sequences for local scifi cons. These were the original Daicon videos. They have been included as an extra (sorry it's in DivX, TMPGEnc simply refused to work with it), for while the art style is a bit dated, these are still breathtakingly amazing works that every otaku should see sometime in their life.
  
  This was made to be partly a parody and partly a tribute to the original Daicon videos, as well as to have a little life of its own. The song itself is part of ELO's "Time" album, which is actually a story cycle about a futuristic couple who breaks up when the guy chooses to leave. He goes off for a while, but realizes that he misses his love, and when he tries to come back to her, she turns him down.
  
  The songs used for this video are the first two of the album. The prologue sets us up in a futuristic setting from the listener's imagination, and Twilight tells us the story of the breakup - the man only wanted a short-time fling ("I only meant to stay a while.")
  
  In the video, the prologue's footage comes from episode one, which has been inversed and slowed down. This is in parody of the original video =) The plot of Twilight starts with the original baseball game. We see Naota getting beaned, and when he collapses he hallucinates Haruko (at least in this video he was...discount original continuity from this). As he sits on the bench afterwards, he thinks back on the strange happenings of his time with her.
  
  The final sequences are from episode six, with the ultimate battle. I wanted to have two extended sequences, one from when they meet (the first chorus) and to focus mostly on the breakup, which is why it gets so much time in the video. She leaves but we see that he remembers her.
  
  Factoid:
  Originally I wanted to have the FLCL credits at the end of the video, but it would've been too long and the subbing looked crappy when blown up to a decent resolution. Also in the original plans were two seperate editions of the video - a "competing" edition which would be sent to the con and not have the prologue sequence (which was judged to confuse and bore casual viewers) or the credits, and a "director's cut" which would have both and be for those who were in the know of the Daicon jokes and such.
  
  
  Commentary and Notes:
  ----------------------------------
  This was a great learning experience. I'm no longer afraid to get technical (eradicating many fears left over from the LoGH video) and am willing to spend the time that it takes to get a perfect video done. Probably the worst thing about this video is the fact that I know that a lot of people aren't going to get it, and won't like it because of that.
  
  The other part is that it's such a pain in the ass to categorize. It's too light and random to be a drama, but there's not really enough happening for it to be action, and the jokes are subtle enough that it's definately not a comedy. The closest thing I can think of would be "Light Action." It turns out that the initial screening was done mixed up with everything else. The video didn't really go over very well at the con or with most people in the AMV community who saw it. *Sigh*
  
  
  Song Lyrics:
  ----------------------------------
  
  Just on the border of your waking mind
  There lies... Another time
  Where darkness & light are one
  And as you tread the halls of sanity
  You feel so glad to be
  Unable to go beyond
  I have a message
  From another time...
  
  
  
  The visions dancing in my mind
  The early dawn, the shades of time
  Twilight crawling through my windowpane
  Am I awake or do I dream?
  The strangest pictures I have seen
  Night is day and twilight's gone away
  
  With your head held high and your scarlet lies
  You came down to me from the open skies
  It's either real or it's a dream
  There's nothing that is in between...
  
  CHORUS:
  Twilight, I only meant to stay awhile
  Twilight, I gave you time to steal my mind
  Away from me.
  
  Across the night I saw your face
  You disappeared without a trace
  You brought me here, but can you take me back?
  Inside the image of your light
  That now is day and once was night
  You lead me here and then you go away.
  
  REPEAT CHORUS
  
  (You brought me here, but can you take me back again?)
  
  With your head held high and your scarlet lies
  You came down to me from the open skies
  
  REPEAT CHORUS
  
  Twilight, I only meant to stay awhile
  Twilight, I only meant to stay awhile
  Twilight, Twilight, Twilight, Twilight.