Starry Heavens [Tales of Symphonia AMV]

[Cirera]

My one and only wish is that this reaches Tales of Symphonia fans because people who don't know the story or characters will understand maybe 10% of this video... I think out of all my friends and people I've shown this to, two people actually see it for what it truly is. I tried to portray the story as best as I could and I think I succeeded in writing the message to the people who know the story... I struggled with many things during the editing of this and in the end remade a lot of things before I was ready to call it finished. It took me a long time, and even after finishing I kept it hidden for a month or so.
Special thanks to my wonderful betatesters Chikasole, Dingooh, Strane-Stelle, coralnix and vexavi.

The video is dedicated to my best friend, and I am overjoyed to be able to say he actually liked it. Wolf Seal of Approval, get-to~! Personally I am very pleased with this, I truly wouldn't change a thing myself and I think it is my best video so far. Nevertheless, comments are welcome and I hope I get some feedback on this project. There's always room to improve and this forum has a lot of editors I admire so I hope people take the time to watch this and write their thoughts.

And if anyone is free and patient and wants to help me with compressing this to a smaller filesize, I would be extremely grateful. Running it through zarx just didn't do the trick this time.

YouTube link. Subtitles added as annotations. Download links are raw.

Thank you~!

[Mol]

Nice sentimental value vid. Pretty decent sync too. Tho i probably would have cut this song to 3mins ;p, good thing it changes it's pacing for a while there xD. Oh well not bad, not my thing tho, need some tales one day.

Edit:
Well im just stating my problem with this song, and what I would do. No need to look into it too much. But answering question:i don't mind long songs as long as they keep me interested ;p.

[Cirera]

Nice sentimental value vid. Pretty decent sync too. Tho i probably would have cut this song to 3mins ;p, good thing it changes it's pacing for a while there xD. Oh well not bad, not my thing tho, need some tales one day.

Thank you for your comment~!
It is a very lenghty video, one of the longest I've made probably, I'll give you that. The main thing I wanted to achieve with this video was to try and fit the story into it, and that required the whole song. In three minutes, I would've been able to tell Colette's and Lloyd's journey somewhat well, but the last chorus about Mithos and Martel and the similarities between their journey to Colette's and Lloyd's would've been left out. That, I just couldn't do.
Thank you for being honest ^^ I warmly recommend all of the Tales games!

[CrackTheSky]

I liked this, more than I thought I would. One major complaint I have is that there are way too many crossfades in the video, I definitely would have cut back on those and opted for hard cuts, especially for some of the faster-paced parts of the videos. IMO quick crossfades like the ones that dominate this video look really sloppy and rob the video of its momentum. Also, there's still the same video quality issues that seem to be in all of your videos, that make the final product look too bright and washed out...I suspect there's something funky with the way you're rendering the video and/or encoding it.

Still, even with those problems this was a good video. The storytelling was spot-on, the scene selection was nice and you were able to keep pace with the song from beginning to end. It worked more often than not and I definitely enjoyed the video overall. Nice work

EDIT: Also, I disagree with M'o'l, I don't think the song should have been cut and I'm glad you didn't. Story-wise, it was much more satisfying this way. Plus the song isn't really that long, take out the credits and it's a four and a half minutes video...good Lord, are people really that ADD that they can't sit still for four and a half minutes anymore? [/rant]

[Cirera]

I liked this, more than I thought I would. One major complaint I have is that there are way too many crossfades in the video, I definitely would have cut back on those and opted for hard cuts, especially for some of the faster-paced parts of the videos. IMO quick crossfades like the ones that dominate this video look really sloppy and rob the video of its momentum. Also, there's still the same video quality issues that seem to be in all of your videos, that make the final product look too bright and washed out...I suspect there's something funky with the way you're rendering the video and/or encoding it.

Still, even with those problems this was a good video. The storytelling was spot-on, the scene selection was nice and you were able to keep pace with the song from beginning to end. It worked more often than not and I definitely enjoyed the video overall. Nice work

EDIT: Also, I disagree with M'o'l, I don't think the song should have been cut and I'm glad you didn't. Story-wise, it was much more satisfying this way. Plus the song isn't really that long, take out the credits and it's a four and a half minutes video...good Lord, are people really that ADD that they can't sit still for four and a half minutes anymore? [/rant]

Ah~, I'm so glad you watched it! Liked it more than you thought you would, meaning you were expecting not to like it? D:
Yeah, the video is pretty much full of crossfades, I'll give you that, but I think they fit with the song so I chose to go with them instead of hard cuts. ><; You're not the only one who gave feedback on that tho, so I will pay more attention in the future!

As for my renderings settings, there may be something off there. ._. I'm kinda lost when it comes to that, unfortunately. >.< I'll try to play around with them and fix that!

I'm glad you still liked most of it and as always I value your opinion greatly !

[CrackTheSky]

Ah~, I'm so glad you watched it! Liked it more than you thought you would, meaning you were expecting not to like it? D:

Not in the way you're probably thinking -- the source anime turned me off, and when the song started I was hesitant (not a huge fan of J-pop). But those things didn't matter in the end

[Mol]

Ah~, I'm so glad you watched it! Liked it more than you thought you would, meaning you were expecting not to like it? D:

Not in the way you're probably thinking -- the source anime turned me off, and when the song started I was hesitant (not a huge fan of J-pop). But those things didn't matter in the end

Damn... for tempting me ! I miss that.
Anyway forgot to say good job

[Bakadeshi]

I've only played through the first maybe 10% of this game, so although I recognize the characters, don't know much of the story. This does kind of make me want to go finish it though. Nice atmosphere and feel to it. I felt you captured the feel of the game quite well.

[Cirera]

I've only played through the first maybe 10% of this game, so although I recognize the characters, don't know much of the story. This does kind of make me want to go finish it though. Nice atmosphere and feel to it. I felt you captured the feel of the game quite well.

Thank you so much for saying that! Even if you haven't finished the game yet it means a lot to me! Now, go finish it, hurry!