Mushishi - Some Kind of Mushi

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extraterrestrial elephant
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Mushishi - Some Kind of Mushi

Post by extraterrestrial elephant » Sun Feb 28, 2021 8:49 am



First time posting. I didn't realize this was one way to get or give opinions. Usually just did it using the submit opinion option on someone's AMV. If anyone wants to do that "Opinion Exchange Form" I'm down. I'm assuming I'd just go on your page and submit an opinion or multiple on your AMVs?

Somewhat long but here is a description of the AMV, thought process and where I myself felt there might've been issues.
Spoiler :
So, this is the latest AMV I've made. I heard the song and had some ideas for anime like Another, Tasogare Amnesia, and possibly some other horror/ghost anime to fit the theme/general feel of the song. In the end, I went for Mushishi because the second half of the song really exaggerated the spiritual side of ghosts or creatures like that.

The actual editing ended up being very simple. I've never edited mushisi and going into it I just went with intuition that it would match so didn't have too many specific scenes or stories stringed together beforehand. It's basically dissolves and fade to blacks (and one smooth zoom in) and using the scenes to match certain musical parts like the sub bass hit in the chorus and using scenes that had already had a time effect on them in the anime (first chorus for example, when the rain slows down) and one speed ramp in the second chorus. Also it was slightly weird to use Mushishi (first season) and the second season since the second was in HD, don't know if it was noticeable at points though.

A few problems I notice myself is that the second verse and second chorus kind of felt a little more phoned in or less inspired. As an example in the first verse when she sings, "Wherever I go, whoever I meet", I thought of his travels and had scenes to go with that. But something about the tempo or continuity of the second verse felt off even after getting scenes that felt passable. It was sort of hard to tell when to use general scenes of Mushi versus things more specific, like I tried to match the lyrics of "sea" and "eye" to well, scene or scenes of the sea and something with the eye (in this case I used the thing where Ginko gave an eye to the girl though I could've used Ginko's backstory as well). But maybe I could've just done what I did after that and used more general scenes of Mushi kind of just doing stuff in their environment. The only problem with that is if it would be repetitive even if it would end maybe being more uniform.

The second chorus I think I just felt somewhat uninspired. Basically just went with a water theme if you want to even call it that and chose scenes where characters were underwater. I think it only sort of worked out because of some of the instrumentals in the background sort of having the sound of bubbles but they felt sort of longer compared to first chorus with there essentially being only two cuts that collectively equaled to about 17 seconds of time and didn't have too much to do with lyrics or what happened before. The uniformity of it I think is the only thing that saved it, the fact that both were in the water. The second iteration of the line "some kind of ghoul" I think maybe didn't hit as hard as the first. The decision to cut off after the bass hit instead of on it like in the first chorus maybe did something, I'm not sure. After that I just did a little montage of some cool scenes like a mini sakuga.

So I wonder are they effects or whatnot that you would use for a certain part of the song? Are there any moments you felt maybe lost your interest or dragged on too long for maybe felt too short? Any other critiques or things you noticed?



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vkamv
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Re: Mushishi - Some Kind of Mushi

Post by vkamv » Sun Feb 28, 2021 1:25 pm

An interesting and engaging visual experience. You did a good job finding the right scenes and deciding how long to linger on each one. You allowed the source material to speak for itself without having to add external effects. An enjoyable watch.

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vivafruit
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Re: Mushishi - Some Kind of Mushi

Post by vivafruit » Sun Feb 28, 2021 11:21 pm

I enjoyed this. The low key song fits the mood of Mushishi well, and the key phrase of the refrain, "change for better or for worse," really gets at the core feeling of Mushishi, which is about a lot of things, but in particular about how life is unstable and subject to wild, unpredictable change.

Some notes at specific timestamps I jotted down. Nothing too major to note, I'm just finding nitpicks to try to be even half as detailed as the very nice review you left for me, haha.

0:39 thru 0:57 is the highlight of the amv for me. I particularly loved the internal sync at 0:48 to the beat. Just excellent stuff. It really drew me in.
1:25 This clip seems a little out of place. I wasn't feeling a strong reason for why it got picked to be here. I realize it's a quiet part of the song and it can be hard to pick stuff to those spots.
1:37 Here there's a shot of a boat that fades to black, and then a hard cut of the boat again. It's a little awkward.
1:43 I don't like the lyric sync here to "salt in the eye". I think lyric sync works best when it matches the mood and substance of the lyrics rather than just the superficial text. To pair with "salt in the eye" I would have looked for someone crying or showed something emotionally painful.
1:56 I agree with your own critique that the second refrain doesn't hit as hard as the first refrain. The underwater stuff while the refrain is talking about change doesn't seem to fit, and there's a lot of opportunity for showing change in Mushishi.
2:15-2:25 this sequence is really cool!
2:38 the hard cut from panning left to panning down looks a bit awkward here.
3:02 The fish is another nice bit of internal sync (although the timing looks ever slightly off here? I'm not sure). Mushishi is a show that probably has a lot of these opportunities, and it would have been cool to see more of those.

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Re: Mushishi - Some Kind of Mushi

Post by extraterrestrial elephant » Mon Mar 01, 2021 12:42 pm

vivafruit wrote:
Sun Feb 28, 2021 11:21 pm
I enjoyed this. The low key song fits the mood of Mushishi well, and the key phrase of the refrain, "change for better or for worse," really gets at the core feeling of Mushishi, which is about a lot of things, but in particular about how life is unstable and subject to wild, unpredictable change.

Some notes at specific timestamps I jotted down. Nothing too major to note, I'm just finding nitpicks to try to be even half as detailed as the very nice review you left for me, haha.

0:39 thru 0:57 is the highlight of the amv for me. I particularly loved the internal sync at 0:48 to the beat. Just excellent stuff. It really drew me in.
1:25 This clip seems a little out of place. I wasn't feeling a strong reason for why it got picked to be here. I realize it's a quiet part of the song and it can be hard to pick stuff to those spots.
1:37 Here there's a shot of a boat that fades to black, and then a hard cut of the boat again. It's a little awkward.
1:43 I don't like the lyric sync here to "salt in the eye". I think lyric sync works best when it matches the mood and substance of the lyrics rather than just the superficial text. To pair with "salt in the eye" I would have looked for someone crying or showed something emotionally painful.
1:56 I agree with your own critique that the second refrain doesn't hit as hard as the first refrain. The underwater stuff while the refrain is talking about change doesn't seem to fit, and there's a lot of opportunity for showing change in Mushishi.
2:15-2:25 this sequence is really cool!
2:38 the hard cut from panning left to panning down looks a bit awkward here.
3:02 The fish is another nice bit of internal sync (although the timing looks ever slightly off here? I'm not sure). Mushishi is a show that probably has a lot of these opportunities, and it would have been cool to see more of those.
Yeah at 1:25 that was a moment I was stuck on for some time. It was basically, did I want to continue the mushi thing just before that and show more mushi in different environments or something else. For this AMV I ended up having a lot of different scenes scattered around the timeline (without any opacity) as sort of possible alternatives for points of the song. There was one more basically of a bridge mushi in midnight that I possibly could of ended off at . The slow movement of the hands and the blank eyes of the kid made it a little mysterious as well. Also I edit in headphones and the way the singer reverberated and faded as the she held his ear I thought was somewhat interesting.

1:37 no I noticed that as well. It was part of the clip itself so adding a dissolve wouldn't be possible but I probably could've done a blur possibly. The color grading for it was pretty annoying because the source itself isn't super high res. I think in a less bright screen it could just be too dark.

1:43 For sure, I was thinking about this one. Preferably I like it when a lyric matches both surface level and meaning. When a friend was making his first AMV using Demon Slayer, he used a song that had "demon" in it but the actual lyrics/meaning didn't really fit aside from that. I ended up just going with this scene because the pacing of it wasn't too bad and I know Mushishi fans like ginko's lore with his eye. The most popular AMV for Mushishi for example (one I watched a some time ago) is named "One Eyed Fish." I actually didn't really know what "salt in the eye" meant hearing this song. The interpretation of it meaning someone crying makes a lot of sense.

1:56 Yeah I was stuck here the longest. Part of me thinks I would've had something better if I had watched all the seasons of Mushi-shi before making this. Essentially watched the first and part of the second. I think I just went for the biased choice because that scene was in my favorite episode of that season and because it sort of worked in filling the segment I marked without having to really do any editing by my own (the fade to blacks were in the anime itself and not added by me). I think it's a habit I have where I let the momentum of the beginning of the AMV sort of carry a little until I get to a part I want to get to like the bridge of the song.

2:38 yeah another case of just being the clip itself like that. I think here at least it would've made sense for me to go a bit before when it cut and then make a dissolve that way to make it smoother. Though at least on this one unlike the sea one, the cut is made as there is a sub-bass hit.

3:02 I don't really know what you mean by "internal sync". Basically just ended it off because it was the last scene in the first season and the way the fish peters off was a decent way to end I thought. Also it was a pretty cool story going into Ginko's past but no scenes from that episode other than this really made sense to have in the AMV.

It's good to know that some of the places I thought were problematic are noticed by people even on first watch.

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vivafruit
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Re: Mushishi - Some Kind of Mushi

Post by vivafruit » Tue Mar 02, 2021 1:15 pm

Oh yeah sorry about the jargon. Internal sync is when the video itself matches the music in a clear way rather than just using cuts (external sync). Both are important but as I've watched more and more stuff, I think internal sync is what really makes it shine. The two best examples in this one were the particles syncing with the beat on the first chorus, and the fish synced with one of the instruments near the end.

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seasons
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Re: Mushishi - Some Kind of Mushi

Post by seasons » Tue Apr 06, 2021 12:16 pm

I loved the mellow and thoughtful vibe of this, which never downplays how strange these scenes and these beings are but reinforces Mushi-Shi's themes of peaceful coexistence with them.

Wonderful work!

extraterrestrial elephant
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Re: Mushishi - Some Kind of Mushi

Post by extraterrestrial elephant » Thu Apr 08, 2021 2:04 pm

seasons wrote:
Tue Apr 06, 2021 12:16 pm
I loved the mellow and thoughtful vibe of this, which never downplays how strange these scenes and these beings are but reinforces Mushi-Shi's themes of peaceful coexistence with them.

Wonderful work!
Thanks a lot, appreciate it. You put it very nicely.

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