When She Loves, Her Love Sticks Out Like Stars

[AbrogateNeed]

These are older but I can still watch them and feel alright, so I thought I'd spread em around here.

If you like the music contained herein, a better Joanna Newsom song is "Soft as Chalk", and a better Robert Wyatt song is "Moon in June".

[seasons]

Glad I watched Easy before the video was taken down. It had a good run (2 or 3 months?) before biting the dust. A 35 year old OVA that most anime fans here have never even heard of would seem very safe from the content ID bots for AMV editing purposes, but here we are (thanks for the Google Drive download, these things are gonna happen). The intro to this is really beautiful. The whole first minute is. Maybe there's nothing here that's not beautiful and just a total pleasure to soak in. The problem is most viewers want a bolus injection of emotion and adrenaline or story from their AMVs, they don't have time to soak in anything that takes a couple minutes to unravel, but I know you don't need me to tell you that. This video isn't for everyone and that's okay. We need more stuff that isn't for everyone. Anyway, I watched this AMV twice last week and I treated it just kind of a warmup to watching Rock Bottom, which I enjoyed with each viewing...but I'm really watching it for the first time now and it's really impressive how well-timed every shot is in this. I was digging this just as a selection of gorgeous mid-80s anime visuals and everything that a title like this delivers, the way that cel animation has a rich quality to it ("rich" meaning whatever you want it to here, I guess), the way that shots were composed back then that you just don't see anymore today, and the way you give all these shots room to breathe and linger, some viewers will find this too slow paced and not know what to do with the music, others will find it a pure pleasure, I just happen to be part of that second group. This is really growing on me in a way I didn't expect at first.

Rock Bottom had a much more immediate appeal to me, probably because of feelings for the music, definitely also due to the surreal imagery--somehow 70 days of non-stop anime didn't really prepare me for this. It's beautiful and psychedelic but also sort of campy (I think this guy can hold his breath forever or just doesn't need to breathe at all, idk), maybe that's just the reaction that most people have to anything that's "strange" and/or dated-feeling, who knows. Overall, this AMV has a loose sense of sync but in a way that I thought was consistently tighter than DESERTSHORE, which I'm only using as a point of comparison here because both AMV have a some extended scenes in them and contain more than a single song. I think it does establish the same magical and "weird" vibe of DESERTSHORE, although I found it to be a much more pleasant AMV experience to watch for probably obvious reasons.

By about 6:20 in this video you really establish a sense of completeness, and I think you really could have released two separate AMVs here, as there's a strong sense of beginning, middle and end with each. I'm not saying you should have, only that you could have, but getting absolutely lost in a ten-minute long video like this is an experience I'm glad I got to have. Was watching this when my gf walked in at around the 9:00 mark and I was just like, "just watching some totally normal television, nothing to see here." Guess you had to be there but it was funny.

Both of these AMVs are really good and I'm glad you shared them here. Just noticing there are a lot of videos on your account that I still haven't watched, going to download them all now and do something about that.

[AbrogateNeed]

Boy howdy Seasons I can always count on you to be on point.

Yea lol I was really surprised by Toho content ID-ing me for a movie I'm sure most people haven't seen. I contested it in the same way I did with Shore Leave (which actually worked), but no dice. Guess the work wasn't "transformative" enough.

It's funny that you bring up the narrative hang-ups in regard to this video because in my experience if I force those types of people to sit down with this one they tend to come out semi-satisfied. I think its due to the more identifiable story arc in it, with regards to the central character getting over her fear to talk to the guy. It definitely takes its time about it though. Interestingly enough this is actually a cut-down version of a much longer, over 30 minute video. I was really lost with what to do with this video other than I had this vague notion that I wanted to combine Leda and Have One on Me in some way, so I really just abridged the whole movie with like 4 album tracks in a manner very similar to DESERTSHORE. However this slow folk style over a bunch of action scenes felt really off and had no discernible coherence or concept to it, so I left it for a few days and, since I loved the first minute so much (thank you for noticing, I think it's a fantastic little intro), found a way to cut the video down to its essence.

80s anime is so, so beautiful man. Like you said, its got this richness and warmth that I rarely see elsewhere. It's strange for such silly little films but you really feel that a lot of love went into making each little work. The story behind Rock Bottom is that I sensed a similar warmth in Robert Wyatt's work, particularly Rock Bottom, and really wanted to bring out that connection. I searched a bunch of anime databases for any animes relating to the ocean, and the one that interested me the most was BB Fish. I managed to find a copy, which after watching the opening sequence I knew it had to be the anime for this AMV, however it had hardcoded subtitles. I searched everywhere and could not find a raw video copy. I had really high hopes for this video and didn't want it to be marred by subtitles, so I actually located a used laserdisc copy online for a reasonable price. I had just bought a laserdisc player second hand recently, and so, once the BB Fish laserdisc arrived, I borrowed a friend's Hauppauge and recorded my laserdisc player's output. It's not a perfect transfer but I think this method gave the video a little bit of a soft, retro edge that suits the footage really well.

Beautiful, psychedelic, and also sort of camp are the three most Robert Wyatt adjectives out there and I'm really glad that came across in my AMV! I agree that it's much tighter than DESERTSHORE. DESERTSHORE almost functions similarly to Washer but for AbrogateNeed: it was a breakthrough for me because both helped me realize the feasibility of a certain style of editing, but I struggle to rewatch either because I made a lot of strange choices.

In regards to splitting the video in two, that's been something that's been a big point of contention for me ever since finishing this video. Both videos do work perfectly well on their own, however I think they compliment each other in nice little ways that works well when they're presented together. If there was a way to release the videos separately, but under one little packet, like a single A-side and B-side, that would be ideal, but for convenience I'll keep it on Youtube in its current form.

I can only imagine someone walking in during Rock Bottom's final moments! Crazy stuff, only in 80s anime!

Thanks so much for the terrific feedback, man. Hope you find something of interest in the vids that passed you by as well!