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Information

• Member: jonathanyeewen
• Studio: Epical Studios
• Title: Voices From a Distant Star
• Premiered: 2004-01-17
• Categories:
  • Drama
  • Serious
  • Romance
  • Sentimental
• Song:
  • Dido White Flag
• Anime:
  • Voices of a Distant Star (Hoshi No Koe)
• Comments: Quick comments:
  
  2007-01-06 15:06:18Music fit the AMV great, liked the trans.
  2006-09-16 01:28:20EXCELANT editing but many of the scenes just didn't have any reason... 2006-04-17 01:41:49very fitting video for the song
  2006-04-08 00:06:49Very good job!!!! It moved me. Keep up the good work.
  2005-12-06 13:16:54very nice, no very good video, with fabulous timing andgreat effects, "i thought: how did he did that?" no i know which i'll show in my video, it won't be a copy of yours but still i was inspired by your amv. see you at digital sloth ;-]
  
  Well, here's a nice vid that took me a while to make. Just in case you can't be bothered reading my fairly in-depth analysis of the video, I think all that you need to know to download this video is that it's well thought-out in my own head, and I'm very proud of my work.
  
  I have to thank member Dom_X for the idea for song/anime choice - I downloaded his video and liked the feel of it, enough to try and make it with my own ideas.
  
  Anyway, for those who are choosing to read this, you should download the video before reading this. I hope you really all enjoy it! After first impressions set in, THEN read my analysis, then it should be fairer to me and the video.
  
  Intro -
  
  0:14-0:29
  I thought it would be a fitting piece of music to use Tommib from the Lost in Translation soundtrack (that Sofia Copolla movie with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansen), not only because it sounds rather spacey and dreamy in atmosphere, which the anime is, but also because that other movie is about two people in love (although it's a bit of a far stretch) but separated in an unusual way.
  
  AMV -
  
  0:30-0:35
  I used the background of the camera moving up the stairs to the girl because the violins in the music had that rising melody. The scenes used for the overlays were pretty the same throughout the times I redid the video; I only changed the transparencies for those clips, and the order in which they were shown. The three-part overlay simulating the girl's foot walking down the stairs I was only able to do on the very last remake, when I'd figured out that part of the motion clip effects in premiere. I was never happy with that part until the very final version, which is much better than previous versions in my opinion (anyone who saw previous versions can agree or disagree with me?)
  
  0:35-0:36
  I tried to match the tension created by the violins doing their tremolo part and then finishing before the phrase ends by changing the background scene to the mech about to take off using its booster things, and also amping up the brightness and contrast, heading towards the end of the clip. The girl's hand is purely continuing the whole girl-on-stair motif going from the beginning (most of those short over lay clips were from the same part of the anime) but also this part of the song marks a change of mood (at least in my video) from uplifting, happy/joyful sort of thing to tense and conflicting.
  
  0:36-0:41
  This part of the song seems more tense and more imbued in conflict than the beginning, and as such my new background was basically a scene of tension - the ships heading into a dangerous zone etc. The overlays also try to match this mood, with images of the girl fighting, tense, breathing, etc. I changed the one overlay to vertical to distinguish that scene from the others, as I used a particularly intense moment in the anime, and I thought that showing her body sans face, breathing heavily like that, would be suitably dramatic. The overlays also make for an excellent contrast with the initial images of her - in the beginning she is on earth, and everything is fine, later on she is in space, and she's not fine (fighting for her life, sad for her loved ones etc.)
  
  0:41-0:47
  "I know"
  At the beginning, the video was a bit off, but I remember my friend recommending that I should time it so that she puts her head back exactly when dido goes "I know", so that it's more convincing that we are hearing the voice of the character herself. Also, I wonder how obvious it was that I made the brightness and contrast peak when that bell/wind chime sound came in? I more or less did something for that chime sound whenever it came back. The rest of that scene was used in contast to the heavy timing/beat sync of the beginning section, so that it would not be too in-your-face. I ignored the initial beats and went with the singing. I tried to keep up a pattern for the entire video, something I'll go into later. I had no plan at all for this video - I never have a plan for any video I do. This is not advisable, but rather it's something that's only possible when working with a small or smallish (OVAs) video source. When working with a 26 episode series, one definitely needs a plan, or at least a reasonably good idea of what will be in the video. Fortunately I haven't done any AMVs which have required a plan yet (although I'm working on one now) so I've escaped the time spent on the plans. I think that I try to make up for the lack of a plan in the story of a video I make with a plan or a pattern in the WAY I'm going to make it - i.e. which beats get emphasis, with which effects, and on what type of scenes I use (different from planning the video itself).
  
  0:47-0:52
  "Or tell you that"
  The words sync with the images, again, instead of the beats. I made a pseudo lip sync with that. The lip sync wasn't really a lip sync, because I really didn't want a real lip sync as it would have looked really bad in my opinion. Dido is talking about what she would have done, not something she DID, therefore to have the girl actually saying something like "or tell you that" would have been weird. The scene I used is actually a scene where she is telling the boy something, or at least she is supposed to, and she chickens out. So it's very fitting for the line of the song, because she is going away, and literally shouldn't tell him that she still loves him. Of course I would rather that my entire AMV would not be so literal and be more based on the feeling of the clip, but it's something to note anyway. The overlays were something I had serious problems with, Lock suggested that they weren't obvious enough at times. So I ended up moving them to the middle of the screen. What I wanted, with those echo beats, was for the boy's face looking at the girl to go halves with the girl on the right hand side of the screen. But I think in the end, this was better for the video as a whole, because later scenes where I needed to use that technique again for the same sort of echo beats, the main image was more to the centre of the screen, and it would be strange if I had the echo beats on the right side of the screen. So I moved all those to the centre of the screen. And made them black and white, for cinematic effect. The second shot is of the boy and girl, on the stairway, together, in case you couldn't make it out.
  
  0:52-0:59
  This whole sequence is purely word-synced. And it's entirely literal as well, meant to be taken literally. The girl is really trying to tell the boy something, and she does, and he knows what she says, but they're sad anyway, as the girl is going away. Dido is saying - what's the point of not saying it, when she would have felt it anyway - that's very relevant to the video indeed. Of course the shot of the girl moving her head to the side at "felt it" was a shot I was very enthusiastic about for obvious reasons.
  
  0:59-1:04
  "Where's the sense in that?" shows the boy with his head back, sad. This is an example of a scene which I used which I liked because it was not literal in interpreting it's correlation with the song. I think anybody would be able to get the feeling of it by watching it. The overlays here used in the centre were an example of ones which would have looked strange (I think) if they were put on the right side (or left side) to match up with if I had done it with the previous echo beats. Anyway, in case people couldn't see, they were of the boy lying on his desk, with mobile phone in hand). The clip of the girl walking down the stairs was slowed to 40% at one stage (at the end) so that I could get the second set of echo beats synced with the flashing of the light through the stairwell. Was that obvious or did people only realise when I said that?
  
  1:04-1:10
  These scenes were not synced to anything, but to me they're fine. I thought it was more important to tell the story here than distract people by using the beats or the words TOO much. Hopefully people get an idea of what's going on already by this point in the video.
  
  1:10-1:16
  "Return to where we were" is set to a scene where the boy and girl are peacefully sitting together at the bus stop waiting for the rain to pass. It's an entirely intimate moment for the two of them, and the images here are very lovely. So this is indeed, literally, "where they were". Did anyone notice that when the piano came in, at 1:13, I faded out the clip to make it full screen? This was another pattern for me throughout the video (I'm only talking about the not-so obvious ones I suppose). You can see the second bell chime thing, where I made the vertical strip of the girl looking up at an emergency, as part of the pattern I was talking about earlier. The Brightness and Contrast was amped up for that clip also. The clip was a nice contrast to the peacefulness of the previous clips, which now launches the girl into the war and conflict atmosphere.
  
  1:16-1:22
  "I will go down with this ship"
  Finally we get to the chorus of this song (makes you wonder how much I'm going to write, hope you don't find it boring if you got down to here already). In the context of the anime, this song talks about three things - 1. literally, the way in which the girl won't give up during her battles, and hence, she will go down with her ship, 2. the girl will not give up on her love (which is what Dido is actually singing about), and 3. a combination of the two, where in the anime the girl lives for her love, which is why she is willing to fight with all her heart and ability. The end of the anime, which is rather strange, I believe contains a feeling which can only be described as pure bliss - the joy of being in love, without the need of the presence of those whom you love. It is something comparable to the ideas of John Donne poetry (though far less complex) in that in true love, the lovers do not need to be with one another to be happy - the knowledge of their love alone is strong enough to carry them through life. Anyhow, in keeping with finally reaching the chorus of the song, I begin my main pattern of audio/video sync with images on the main beats. Of course the clips contain images of the girl fighting.
  
  1:22-1:26
  "...and, surrender"
  Who noticed the mini-pattern here, with the first two times Dido sings "...and"? Perhaps I didn't back it up enough with the last time, but I certainly did the first two times. Both times with "...and", I placed clips of the girl quickly turning her head, in time with the "and", which I think gives the feel of an intensity and tension of mood that really complements the context I wanted the song to be listened in. Which is one of passion for love, in the end. The "surrender" part for this time, I used a clipped image of the girl curled up in the foetal position - the image is very much an image of surrender, in the literal sense, and also a time in the anime where she perhaps feels like her life is falling apart, where she misses the people back home, and her loved one.
  
  1:26-1:30
  "There will be no white flag above my door"
  Fortunately I couldn't find an actual image of anyone above a door (AS OF YET) for this sequence. Or I was saving it for later. But I still think it while it works well later on, it wouldn't have worked well here. The background I used was her, in her mind, watching herself cry in reality. This is a powerful scene in the anime where it shows that even though she was truly sad to leave, she didn't show it to her loved one. Again, the scenes here aren't literal, and it would be inappropriate for me to try to explain the feeling behind them with words.
  
  1:33-1:37
  "I'm in love..."
  Of course, for the most poignant line in the song I would have to have a running gag *cough* pattern. Each time Dido says the line, I gave the video a broad, sweeping view of something. Or a long shot of something which would provoke a tremendous sweeping feeling (so that it had to be a beautiful image), such as the one I talked about in my synopsis. This first time, I put in this clip of the girl in her cockpit, curled up again, slowed it to about 60% and just ran it, because it really is a beautiful scene.
  
  1:37-1:39
  The bell chimes again.
  
  1:39-1:49
  Mess and destruction was a little too literal, or perhaps a rest from all the the other not-literal stuff I tried to put in before? You decide I suppose. Literally, though, it works, as the girl is shown to feel unhappy about the violence and the way it is portrayed, it's almost murder of the innocent, at least at first. So she may not feel happy about returning, after she has experienced all this. To "come back again", the keys in the door seemed the most fitting. They are the boy (now no longer a boy but a grown man) returning to his apartment. The background next used was of him entering his apartment and letting some light in, during which time I put in the overlays in the MIDDLE, of his uniform from work, and the newspaper he reads to find out about the girl's travels. I thought the choice of clip here was nice because it was a natural fade in and out - it fades out when he closes the door.
  
  1:49-2:01
  Here in the anime the boy recieves messages from the girl, which disrupt his life, as the anime shows him trying to get on with his life, but whenever he recieves a message from the girl he loves but can't ever hope to see again, his emotions go haywire once again. In this way, the girl of the anime understands that she causes nothing but trouble, and she understands that he may not want her in his life anymore. The clips which went from left to right as semi-overlays were done using the same technique of motion+transparency clip effects in premiere which I only learnt recently and hence only remade recently. I was unhappy with this part for a long time before settling on my final version as "fine". The scene choice though was nice for me, because in case you didn't notice, the scene goes from bus stop rainy, to bus stop sun shine. I don't think I even needed to use a different clip of the anime - it just did that, and I faded it in and out. The rain-to-sunny atmosphere is fitting, because as the song approaches the chorus once more, the music rises in key.
  
  2:01-2:09
  "The rules of 'it's over'"
  The boy is living his life as though "it's over", but the girl doesn't want to, and this is understandable from the anime context. I had scenes of them being sad, melancholy in atmosphere. Both are looking at their mobile phones, which are their sole connection to one another. The echo beats were matched differently because when there were three, all different notes, it would look weird to put them on top of one another which I had done previously.
  
  2:09-2:11
  The piano comes in again, and as I did previously, I change the clip, but this time in the opposite way. I think it works well, in emotional emphasis, and in the audio/video sync.
  
  2:11-2:19
  The chorus again. I felt like putting in the double image of ships - so the background was her in her ship (which she would apparently go down in), and the overlays were images of other ships. The pattern to match the beats here is the same as previously in the chorus. "I won't put my hands up" has a background and overlay of her fighting to stay alive, hence the choice.
  
  2:19-2:22
  "...and" comes in again, and I have a scene of her turning her head quickly. Both times I also faded to a clipped version of the same scene, focused in on her, and I also adjusted the brightness and contrast. With "surrender" I did something different here - I three scenes of the video, each further away from her - but in my head, I think compared the idea of "surrender" with the idea of "vast expanse of wonder". I think people would get the same feeling without explaining it, and it's certainly not literal, which I like.
  
  2:22-2:29
  Basic scenes here, not a lot of thought - just pretty pictures, and generally relevant ideas which link the anime to the song.
  
  2:29-2:34
  "I'm in love..."
  Again here, a long, pondering scene, this time of the girl crying over her loved one. To make it less boring than last time, I overlayed the scenes of rain and sunlight, both with the sun peeping through the clouds (on another planet). I thought it also matched up with the motif of rain-sunshine I had last time. I enjoy a happy ending too - at first I had it go sunshine-rain, but then I thought, that's pessemistic, so I changed it, and I like it much better now.
  
  2:34-2:57
  Here the my technique with Premiere really got a big boost, with the discovery of some very interesting stuff that I have barely seen in any anime music videos before. So I'm proud of that at least. But more than that, I think the effect is very fitting in that it serves to separate this part of the video from the rest of it - well, it's the bridge section of the song, and so it needs to be distinguished, naturally. The need to tell a story was more important here than otherwise and I'll discuss that now. Up to 2:46, the video basically shows us the life of the girl before, and the guy who is waiting for her. Dido sings, as the voice of the girl, "And when we meet, which I'm sure we will". I prefer to take this line as more like meeting, metaphysically? Lol, it's something that fits if you don't take it literally (which Dido meant you do - take it literally :P). Anyway, after 2:46, "I'll let it pass and hold my tongue". I have a scene of the boy taking out a letter of his shoebox, and this is a love letter, the kind that male anime characters get in anime :P. Anyway, this has serious implications for the boy, for obvious reasons. The entire following background (NOT the overlays) is in fact a clip running at -200% reverse. I wanted the clip to end up in the sky, as it approached the chorus and hence a climax of the song, but the clip started up in the sky. So I reversed it, and sped it up. It also works if you want to think of that scene as "moving on" for the boy - the camera moves away from the boy, and up into the sky. Okay, now to talk about the overlays. Did people notice that for the last four full-screen overlays (that is, for the last 12 part-overlays) I used three scenes that are exactly the same place only set during different seasons of the year? The final full-screen overlay is those three scenes, but using one part from each of the three, so that I got a really cool composite image of the same scene during different seasons, taking advantage of the exact same drawings for each of the three seasons. The idea in doing this was to emphasise the passage of time during the anime, something I felt was very important. The lovers were seperated by space and time - these two things, linked inextricably, just like the boy and the girl. And finally at the end, I raised the Brightness and Contrast of all clips to go into the chorus for the second to last time.
  
  2:57-3:06
  I used the same background for this entire section. I'd have to guess that nobody noticed, even those who know the anime, unless they specifically were looking for such things. I thought that was really neat, especially at the end, where I got to time a beat with something I sped up but still kept in the same scene - the mech coming in from the side-bottom of the screen at 3:05. Anyway, here is where I began using another of the effects I'd learnt on one of the final remakes. I did it more or less to emphasise that this was near the ending of the song, and that the chorus was about to end etc. The scenes I chose were pretty general.
  
  3:06-3:11
  I really like the scene I used here for "surrender". Although I missed the "...and", I think it was enough to keep it for the first two only, as these last two choruses have too much going on for a viewer to really appreciate the "...and"s. (that and also I'd run out of suitable "...and" scenes). Anyway, the girl opening up her eyes seemed extremely appropriate for "surrender". It's a long shot which I put efffects on for emphasis. The background also was very fitting for the mini-climax when Dido sings "there will be no, white flag above my door". The bold text indicates where the beat was. On the "no" beat, I timed it so that I used the same background from 3:06-3:11, of the girl being launched out over a planet. It goes from light to dark, without the need for any Brightness and Contrast, I thought, at 3:09. I realise that I missed the previous beat, which I usually sync, but I had so much trouble (seriously) making the beat look good (because I couldn't fade it out quick enough to let the viewer see this beat with the lyrics (the 3:09 one above)).
  
  3:11-3:14
  Bleh, place holding general scenes.
  
  3:14-3:18
  OMG this scene is definitely my favourite. I had heaps of trouble getting the appropriate effect to introduce the boy and girl on his bike along with "I'm in love...". During the final remake, I put in this clip/transparency effect. I think it really works. And again, the full-screen scene is one that has a peaceful, expansive vibe.
  
  3:18-3:22
  Bleh, place holders.
  
  3:22-3:30
  On the beats here, I'm not sure if it's obvious enough or not, but again I used the same scene but during different parts of the anime/different seasons to emphasise the passage of time. The first time it's shown, the girl is with the boy in summer, waiting at the train crossing. The second time, it's winter, and the boy is alone. I showed the same clip again the third time, for emotional emphasis, so that I could leave the viewer with the image of the boy, alone, in the middle, as Dido sings "surrender".
  
  3:30-3:40
  The story was the most important by far in this last entire section when choosing scenes, so I told the end of the story, basically, where she is fighting with all her ability.
  
  3:40-4:05
  This entire last chorus was really cool to do. It was one of the first things I envisioned when I began the video. The first part I did on my final remake, because I just discovered the cool effect where I could stop the scene in black and white (and flash it using Brightness and Contrast at the same time). Now that I think about it, I should have used clip there as well. Anyway, All that is about "I will go down with my ship." Did people notice that I had the two "door" clips for the last two choruses? The boy standing in front of his door, and the girl opening her door. At first I had the girl opening her door right on the "door" part, but that was just too corny, so I displaced it just before, and I think it working has absolutely nothing to do with the "door" thing, but rather the feel, atmosphere of the clip. I am extremely fond of the shot of the girl in her mech, crying. I like the look of the Clip on that clip, so that you don't see her whole face, but you feel her emotion that much more strongly. I adjusted the Brightness and Contrast on every clip so that it flashed each time the piano beat came in, and that worked, I thought, so that I could follow both the beat and the lyrics with the imagery on screen. The scenes I chose when she sings "I'm in love", are as if she is remembering her love, and it's an emotional scene, so I treated it as such. The lyrics almost would be called lip-synced. But considering the big fuss about lip-syncing, I feel that in this situation, somehow, it's ok. Usually I really dislike lip-syncing, like everyone else, and for all the same reasons as everyone else - in emotional anime music videos, lip-syncing is a big no no. It's a testament to Sky's feel for AMVs that he didn't make everyone make a collective groan when he did it in his extremely serious Naruto video, although he still did for some. So sometimes it's ok, sometimes it's not, I think it really depends.
  
  Outro-
  
  4:08-4:42
  I love the song, also off the Lost in Translation soundtrack. It was fitting in many ways as well. However, I was worried that people would be a bit weirded out by the sexual imagery in the song... hopefully I didn't just relate that to you all!
  
  That's all, really.
  If you want, you can give me an opinion, and I'll reply to it for sure.