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Information

• Member: Second Element
• Studio: Second Element Video
• Title: Twilight Dreams
• Premiered: 2005-08-30
• Categories:
  • Other
  • Character Profile
  • Serious
  • Horror
• Song:
  • The Moody Blues The Evening: Twilight Time
• Anime:
  • Vampire Princess Miyu (OVA)
• Comments: Okay, first things first.
  
  !!!***Audio: Keep in mind when viewing this AMV that the song is an absolutely clean rip. It's an older song that was recorded using the Deramic Sound System, which is a recording technique that creates and seperates several layers of the vocals, instruments, and sounds to make a "surround sound" that is supposed to make the listener feel completely immersed by the music and hearing it from all directions. So when leaving reviews/opinions, please remember I have done nothing to alter the audio, or made a bad copy. It's *supposed* to sound that way. If you really want to freak yourself out, try encoding this song and playing it on a tv, or a car stereo. Depending on the device you play it on, the song will sound different. You will hear eerie vocals that you can't hear otherwise just by listening to the song via this AMV. You gotta love DSS.
  
  !!!***Damn it all: This video was originally in production at the same time as the original version of "How Many Stars". It was about 90% completed when a partition in my computer collapsed, and I lost EVERYTHING. This video had to be re-made completely from scratch. I didn't even have the stupid Premiere Timeline anymore to use as a "map" to the original work I had done, which included several long transitions and a scene that was composed of over 6 layers of video track. So in a way, I think I have a lot of anger directed at this amv, simply because it had to be redone, and no matter how much I tweak it, it's not nearly as technically good as the original of it was. It would be like writing a novel, and then having your computer crash and lose it entirely, and realizing that you will have to rewrite it all over again- and you know it will never quite be the same. So yeah, I approached this video with that same kind of frustration.
  
  
  This is the first and last video I will ever make to the "Vampire Princess Miyu OVA" series, simply because the DVD transfer is so absolutely awful. Seriously, AnimeEigo owes the fans a remaster of these DVDs, because the footage is so junked, and just about every scene has "traces" of the scene before it, which was a real headache to work around. I probably would have been better off working with VHS tapes.
  
  Okay, on to the creative process.
  
  
  I was long overdue a tribute to my favorite band of all-time, "The Moody Blues". The Moody Blues changed the face of music when they made the ground-breaking album "Days of Future Passed", which was the then-experimental blending of pop/rock music with classical music. The album, which was the musical poetry of everyman's day, was a smash hit, and was spectacularly crowned with the wildly successful song, "Nights in White Satin". The album is divided into the different times of the day, and "Twilight Time" is part of the segment called "The Evening". Compared to all the other songs on the album, I always thought "Twilight Time" had a very supernatural, eerie feel to it. And while as young as a child, I envisioned my own scenery to it's music, it wasn't until I saw the Miyu OVAs that I had finally found something to visually realize the song.
  
  For this particular AMV, I had to both cut down on the intro and exit to the song, as well as repeat one part of the song to suit a scene fade-out.
  
  The Miyu OVAs are very different from the tv series. In the tv series, we are very close to Miyu and her companions, but when watching the OVA, you feel like you are on the outside of Miyu's world, looking in. So my idea was to take the parapsychologist Himiko and show how she experiences Miyu's world. To her, Miyu is a very enigmatic figure that she never gets to know on a personal level. Miyu takes her into her "twilight world" and gives Himiko only fleeting visual explanations of her world and what it is to be her. In the OVAs, Miyu is very much a supernatural stranger to us- we cannot get close to her or really understand her, yet she mystifies and intrigues us. That is the same effect she has on Himiko, which is why I chose Himiko as the focus of the amv. She is the constant when night falls and she becomes company to all these bizarre events and creatures. She experiences Miyu's world almost unwillingly, and in the end, is still left both repulsed and itrigued by it all.
  
  ***In response to a quick comment I received about it 'being hard to tell what's going on behind the video'..well, duh. Did you read the description for this video? You're supposed to be the invisible companion to the character Himiko, who is experiencing all these bizarre things and is completely confused and bewildered by it all.
  
  ***You will need a proper XVID codec to view this video.
  
  ***No official lyrics have ever been in print, but surfing online, you can find several good "guesses" as to what they are, since a lot of the times, the lyrics are hard to discern. I've compiled below the best of the educated guesses as to what the exact lines in the song are:
  
  "Twilight Time to dream awhile
  In veils of / unveils a deepening blue
  As fantasy flies / strides over colorful skies
  Of form disappearing from view
  At Twilight Time
  Dream with me awhile
  A nightingale lays
  A dark mellow phrase
  Of notes pure, rich, and so true
  An aerial display by the firefly brigade
  Dancing to tunes no knew
  At Twilight Time
  Dream with me awhile
  At Twilight Time
  Dream with me awhile
  Building castles in the air
  Whistling to the wind
  As nature bows
  Down her head
  See what tomorrow brings
  At Twilight Time
  Dream with me awhile
  Bats take to wing
  Like puppets on string
  Prancing through cool evening air
  In a sightless glide
  There ain't no reason to hide
  Away from the sun's blinding stare
  At Twilight Time
  Dream with me awhile....."