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Information

• Members: VegettoEX, MeriC, gambitt
• Title: Never Fall Apart
• Premiered: 2007-07-20
• Categories:
  • Drama
  • Romance
  • Sentimental
• Song:
  • Echo Image Will You Know?
• Anime:
  • Honey and Clover
• Participation:
  • Otakon, Otakon AMV Contest (2007-07-20)
• Comments:
  CONCEPT:
  This video is about friendship, plain and simple. True friends may go through problems from time to time, but in the end they will never fall apart.
  
  
  THE STORY:
  This video was intended to be primarily a "mood" or "feeling" video, followed directly by the story it tells to set up that mood. The beginning shots simply set up the atmosphere and locations for the story, and moves in to the character introductions (a staple of Meri videos going back years and years and years; see Liberation Of Memories Past for an example). Throughout the intro and the character introductions, you will see lots of comparison shots with characters moving their heads in similar ways, looking up at the moon, etc. These motions will even be re-created in the middle transition of the song where the characters are all shown looking longingly through windows.
  
  Similar to the show itself, Takemoto is used as the central character via which to explore all of the other characters. He brings us into the first verse remembering the good times the friends had together. Even though some things have changed in their lives, when they're together "nothing seems different, anyhow." The first chorus reiterates this idea, saying that no matter what happens, they will be there for each other. It's almost an unspoken rule among the friends; it doesn't matter what happens... they will always be there for each other.
  
  The middle transition of the video takes us back to the olden days when everyone was together. Good times were had by all. Again, though... things have changed. They can't always be together every moment of every day, and it is tough to come to this realization.
  
  Takemoto once again acts as the transition for exploration, taking us into the second verse. The reiteration continues: "We will never change, / We will never fall apart." No matter what happens, they will always be there for each other.
  
  The second chorus acts in the same way as the first chorus, but takes us into the part of the song with the answer to the big question... Will you know? Yes. "You will know." The video ends appropriately with every accepting in their hearts that they will always be there for each other.
  
  
  MAKING THE VIDEO:
  This video is a prime example of doing what we like to do with all of our videos: (1) strong opening with comparison shots, (2) character introductions, (3) consistency among musical elements in terms of effects, timing, etc., (4) paying attention to the music at all times, (5) letting the story tell itself in a coherent fashion.
  
  Raw video was laid down for every section of the video, and given to its proper work-horse upon completion. The timeline was constructed by Mike and Meri; clean-up work was done by Mike; the opening and verse effects were done by Meri; the middle, choruses, and ending effects were done by Jeff; the final compilation and transitions were done by Mike. General storyboarding and input on all sections (pre-, during, post-) was handled by all three individuals. Throughout the majority of the work on the video, the most was accomplished when all three of us were together in the same room working on separate computers. One person may be laying down scenes, one person may be searching for clips or working on effects already decided upon, and one person would be working on brain-storming a separate section's effects. We had a couple super-late-night sessions where grunt work would be done, which were super fun.
  
  The "fun" part of the video creation process was figuring out how to coordinate the editing between Mike & Meri on the PC, and Jeff on the Mac. Through a combination of various codec exports, PNG sequence imports, and lots of waiting, it somehow got accomplished.
  
  To our astonishment, we never had any arguments during the course of the video's creation. None. What-so-ever. This is strange for all of us. I'm thinking the message of the video somehow got into our blood.
  
  The video was constructed with Adobe Premiere 6.5 (PC), Adobe After Effects 6.5 (PC), Adobe Photoshop CS (PC), Motion 2 & 3 (Mac), and a handful of other utilities, soda, booze, and patience.
  
  
  CONCLUSION:
  At Otakon 2006, the three of us agreed that we absolutely had to work on a full-length video together in the near future (previously having done the Cell Game track in Doomrider). This video premiered at Otakon 2007. Never Fall Apart, man. Never Fall Apart.
  
  
  SPECIAL THANKS:
  AtomX - For being awesome. And helpful. In a variety of ways. We heart you.
  Skie - One of the hosts of Orange Lounge Radio, a video game podcast. Played this song on a live, spin-off show one night. Instantly fell in love. With the song. And maybe Skie. I'll never tell.
  Otakon - For allowing the video to be shown to so many people at once.