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Information

• Member: yoshi1001
• Title: Duck, Duck, Psy?
• Premiered: 2008-01-01
• Categories:
  • Comedy
  • Character Profile
  • Fun
• Song:
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic I Want a New Duck
• Anime:
  • Pokémon (TV)
  • Pokémon Channel (Game)
  • Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire (Games)
  • Pokémon: (Movie 04) Pokemon 4Ever
• Participation:
  • Katsucon, Katsucon 14 Anime Music Video Awards Contest (2008-02-15)
  • ConNooga, ConNooga AMV contest (2008-02-22)
• Comments: Okay, first thing out of the way: Yes, Psyduck is technically not a duck, but a duck-billed platypus.
  
  Now that that's over with, let's start talking about the video. I've actually had the idea for quite some time (pretty much dating back to when I first heard the song back in 2003). It amazed me to no end that no one had used this idea before, as it seemed blatantly obvious-anyone who's watched the first five seasons of Pokémon knows about the love/hate relationship between Misty and her Psyduck. The door was wide open.
  
  The first issue was editing the music down. One of the key complaints for my first AMV ("Hungry for More") was that the video went on too long (just because the contest says "up to six minutes" doesn't mean you have to even approach that!), so I wanted to edit this one down. Additionally (and perhaps, convienently), there were some lines from "I Want a New Duck" that just didn't make sense:
  
  -"One that won't steal my beer" (hopefully Misty doesn't have any beer to steal, although there is a funny picture out there of Psyduck holding what looks like a wine bottle)
  -"One who'll teach me how to swim and help me not to drown" (although Psyduck has a notable inability to swim, Misty is obviously an accomplished swimmer, so this had to go)
  -Several references to the feathered variety of duck (Farfetch'd video anyone?)
  
  Additionally, I shortened the intro to get into the action quicker. Editing the music isn't too hard (I work with audio quite a bit for my internet radio station anyway)-you just have to use zero crossings (where the sound is in the neutral position) and experiment until things sound right.
  
  Now that the audio was ready, it was time to work on the video aspect. Whenever I do a video, I start by making a storyboard. This done by taking screen captures from my DVDs and putting them in place on the timeline. You should never start an AMV project without doing this.
  
  Once the storyboard is made, it's time to capture video. While most of the video came from DVDs, two of the shots (the one with Psyduck with a tie and the "nickname" screen-they were too good for me to pass up) came from video games. I used my Pinnacle USB capture card (also does nice HDTV) to grab the images over S-video using Pokémon Channel and the Game Boy Player to get images from Pokémon Sapphire (I used black bars to cover up the frame of the Game Boy Player). Unfortunately, I had to deinterlace (as opposed to inverse telecide) both sources, though it didn't really matter for the Sapphire shot due to the low Game Boy Advance resolution.
  
  Since the song was from the 80's, I wanted to have a "mixed media" style for the video. The video game images helped start that, but I wanted more, so I grabbed Images from some outside sources. The "swan" and "goose" are both taken from the SNES classic "Mario Paint", and I used several cards from the trading card game as well. In case you're wondering, yes, I did make that card for Dan Quayle in there. I was originally going to use a Starly card in the video, but since Starly isn't technically a quail (and "Mr. Potatoe Head" seemed like such a great idea), I decided to switch the picture.
  
  Another complaint with my previous video was that people were distracted by the people's lips moving while the song was going. Psyduck is a dream to work with since its mouth doesn't really move when it talks. The only point where it really looks like Psyduck is talking is near the end, but there are no lyrics there anyway.
  
  As should be expected, several of the scenes I had chosen for the video were not long enough. I extended these by splitting the clip on the last frame and then doing a frame hold. However, this leaves a noticeable halt to the action. To disguise this, I added a slow zoom to both the moving and held parts of the clip and added a small (less than 10% in Premiere Elements) amount of noise to the held portion to simulate moving film grain. One way of dealing with pans that aren't long enough is to stitch together the beginning and end of the pan (easily done in Photoshop) and then have the video pan across it during playback (this is popularly known as the "Ken Burns Effect"). Small amounts of noise helps make this look more natural as well.
  
  One more complaint I received for my first video was the lack of variety in terms of transitions. This video is fairly evenly split between fades and cuts, depending on the mood of the song at the time, then ends with a cheesy (but appropriate, in my opinion) iris transition. In the second version (shown here on the org) I added several peel transitions as well.
  
  Overall, I feel this video was a major improvement over my first video, and I'm already looking at ideas for my next one.