Anyhow, for my first foray into something halfway creative I'm doing a series based on the game "Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2." It's got some really exciting boss fights, but it doesn't use the show's sound track (due to licensing I think) and I find what they used instead pretty boring. One night for fun I replaced the audio on some footage with music that played during the same scene in the show and what do you know -- the cinematic neatly synced with the music. And not just in a "Dark Side of the Moon" / "Wizard of Oz" way, I mean every shot transition and action was consistently timed to the beat. This turned out to be true for all the boss fights, so I'm convinced that music is what the animators worked from.
Here's an example (I apologize for it posting a YouTube link as I gather it's frowned upon by many of the artists here).
So I'm hoping for insight on two things:
First, while I've been able to figure out which scene goes with which song it's often fuzzy precisely which beat the cutscenes should begin and end on. It will seem lined up perfectly one day, but the next time I look it seems off by a few beats or a whole section. Are there any things I should be looking for besides my wild guesses and what "feels right?"
Second, most of the cutscenes don't last entire songs and I have to fill the rest with regular gameplay. At first I used chunks of unedited fighting, but it was pretty boring. So I've tried two different solutions:
- Character A combo->transition->Character B combo ->repeat. Advantage: Fast-paced. Disadvantage: Choppy.
- Editing the video to remove anything boring/repetitious. Advantage: Naturally flows well. Disadvantage: Slow.
I know this isn't strictly an AMV-type project but I think there is a good bit of overlap. And since you folks are the experts at turning media from various sources into art I'd be grateful for any thoughts you may have.
Thanks.