Butch & Sundance: "Premiere" ed. (Remastered a

WesW · Post by **WesW** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 10:33 am

If you are looking for something similar to the award-winning GitSP vid, then you've come to the wrong place. This vid is about as far removed from that one as possible, and still be an action vid. Namely, this vid has no special effects.
What is does have is a great rock song, at 320kps, a surprising amount of lyric-synching, a lot of beat-synchs, and a flow and rhythm that matches the song quite well, imo. It also has an editing style which attempts to preserve the coherence of scenes even as it trims and mixes footage so as to synch up with the song. Don't make the mistake of thinking that the editing is lazy- it's not lazy, it's just not what you would normally expect in an action vid. (For more info, see my second post down (my third total).)
So, if you are willing to try something different, give this vid a chance, and tell me what you think.

purplepolecat · Post by **purplepolecat** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:04 pm

That was pretty badass. It's refreshing to see a GitSSAC video that isn't techno.

WesW · Post by **WesW** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:00 am

purplepolecat wrote:That was pretty badass. It's refreshing to see a GitSSAC video that isn't techno.

Glad you liked it. Did you happen to play the Synch Game?

Savia · Post by **Savia** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:24 am

Certainly an interesting audio choice for this source, but I felt that the editing was staid and slow and that the majority of the action was too static to really get me going. The comedy subtitles were sadly more of a distraction than a real source of laughs and the final section in particular felt like very little editing had taken place from the original.

WesW · Post by **WesW** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:34 am

Savia wrote:Certainly an interesting audio choice for this source, but I felt that the editing was staid and slow and that the majority of the action was too static to really get me going. The comedy subtitles were sadly more of a distraction than a real source of laughs and the final section in particular felt like very little editing had taken place from the original.

Well, I strongly encourage you to read my Profile page, http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... _id=665869.
This section in particular I think will clear up the misconceptions you have as to what I want to do in my vids:

"Perhaps the main difference between my vids and your typical ones is clip length. I try to keep scene disruption and discontinuity to a minimum. This can often involve quite a bit of non-effects editing so as to keep in synch. Unlike the typical editor, who uses edits and effects to let the viewer know just how much effort he has put into the vid, my aim is to achieve synch and tone in such a way that you never notice the edits. I want it to seem as if they were there to begin with. Another thing I like to do is use a single clip for multiple synchs, either beats or phrases. One thing many people don't realize is that it's exponentially harder to create multiple synchs in a single, unedited clip. Many people think that the more clips you have, the more work you have done and hence the better the vid. I don't believe this is necessarily true. In the Butch & Sundance vid, there is one clip which contains four beat synchs and one lyric synch. To me, that is a sign that a show and a song were made for one another....
So, In short, my aim is to produce vids that are enjoyable both musically and visually without tiring the viewer out with hyper-editing or the use of unneeded effects."

Edit: I just watched the GitSP vid, and if that is what you were expecting, then I can see how you'd be disappointed. It was a great vid for what it wanted to do, but that style is the exact opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish. For those of you who haven't watched my vid yet, please keep that in mind.

Savia · Post by **Savia** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 7:33 pm

To expand upon my point:

I fully respect (indeed, encourage) the mentality that you express in your quote; I am not someone who looks for a GitSP with every video that they download but instead look for good presentation of a concept. Slow change of pace is not a problem in and of itself, and insofar as it's part of your style, that's fine. My particular problem here is that the synch that you went for was loose enough that I felt that it was often invisible, making it hard to really appreciate them and instead making it feel that the attachment between video and audio source was drifting away.

Again, this is obviously just my take on the video, but I felt it was a point worth expanding on.

WesW · Post by **WesW** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:26 pm

Well, this was one reason I went to all the trouble to create the Synch Game on the file's download page, because I figured some people wouldn't catch everything. On the first version of the vid, one guy posted in to say that he had to watch it twice in order to catch all the "subtle" synchs that are in the vid. I guess everyone is used to cuts or special effects to signify synch, while I use things that happen naturally in the course of the scene.
On songs that are fast and long, like Sugar, my mind starts to drift after a while, and I figure most other people's do to, whether they realize it or not, which is one reason why I try to avoid unnecessary scene cuts.
Another thing about the song, and this may be what you are referring to, is that it's almost all riffs and beats, to the point that there's no way to hit all of them for the full 5+ minutes of the vid, at least not without chopping up the scenes to the point where they would be almost incoherent. I know that this is exactly what most editors would indeed do, either that or add in some special effect just to hit the beat, but I don't want to be like that.
My emphasis was on the overall rhythm and flow of the vid. I wanted to use the music to highlight the naturally-occurring action, rather than go the standard route and state that each beat must be accounted for.
I synched it so that each distinct event in the scene was accompanyied by an appropriate beat or riff, but if all the events had been used, I wasn't going to disrupt the flow of the scene in order to manufacture something or import something that would seem out of place.
I did let synching slide some during the last 15-20 seconds of the vid, but at this point I thought that it was more important to let the scene play out naturally, since it was the most dramatic portion of the vid. I felt that the synching had served its purpose by that point.

I value your opinion, and would like to get better at making vids, so I would encourage you to view the vid once more, go through the lyrics and synch notes I made, and then let me know where you think I could have improved things.