My Accy Vids - Vision and Red Lights

[vivafruit]

Here are my two Accolades vids! I'm happy with how they both turned out.

Vision is sort of a culmination of the "psychedelic nature" style I've worked on this year. After I heard the song I knew I wanted to make an AMV to it, and researched the Island of Socotra. The project came together quickly; I had a beta ready in a week and was done a few days later. I had saved some Bubble footage a few months prior and it fit right in. From the youtube description:

The Island of Socotra is a Yemeni island in the Indian ocean known for extremely strange plants that can only be found there. It was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008. In 2018, the UAE invaded the island and now controls it.

I tell a different story in the AMV but I think it hits on the same themes. One funny thing is that, despite being pretty pretentious, it seems to be my baby's favorite AMV. At his age he tends to fuss when I show him any video that's not Baby Shark, but he'll sit quietly for Vision every time. Mysterious!




Red Lights is the result of me wanting to make something that appealed more to the AWA crowd, while at the same time being something I enjoyed as well. I sometimes struggle with the conundrum of editing for myself vs. editing for the contest's taste. Ideally you satisfy both, and I think I was able to do that here.

Gathering all of the sources was a huge pain. I don't think this project would have been possible without AI upscaling, as the video quality of all of my sources varied wildly, and a lot of it was in 4:3 and had to be cropped. I also am not sure how I would have found everything without SauceNao, google and Sakugabooru to track down clips.

[SynaesthesiaVideos]

Vision is sort of a culmination of the "psychedelic nature" style I've worked on this year. After I heard the song I knew I wanted to make an AMV to it, and researched the Island of Socotra. The project came together quickly; I had a beta ready in a week and was done a few days later. I had saved some Bubble footage a few months prior and it fit right in. From the youtube description:

The Island of Socotra is a Yemeni island in the Indian ocean known for extremely strange plants that can only be found there. It was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008. In 2018, the UAE invaded the island and now controls it.

Socotra has been on my "bucket list" of places I want to visit in my lifetime since I first heard about it years ago, so I was really happy to see it used as your inspiration for this vid! I've watched it quite a few times already but I'm just now watching it with the captions on (I'm not really in to lyrics and I don't like reading them during music vids) but now that I've read them it really puts this whole vid into perspective! Its sort of a melancholic song but your vid feels more hopeful with the way you chose your scenes. I get a sense of "everything returns to nature" from it

Red Lights is the result of me wanting to make something that appealed more to the AWA crowd, while at the same time being something I enjoyed as well. I sometimes struggle with the conundrum of editing for myself vs. editing for the contest's taste. Ideally you satisfy both, and I think I was able to do that here.

this is such a fine line to walk.. one where I'm still always leaning on "edit for myself", but I feel you did a nice job balancing both with Red Lights! Even if it was out of your comfort zone it still feels like a "Viva-edited" vid.

[seasons]

Two really interesting works here. "Vision" has an unparalleled beauty and relaxing vibe that I was initially kind of disappointed to see interrupted by the direction it took in its final minute or so. But, like, that's kind of the point now isn't it? The ending pulls no punches but somehow resolves into a peaceful and satisfying conclusion. Beautiful footage throughout all of this video, I love how the quietest shots are given plenty of room to breathe (while still being effectively synced in ways that keeps up a steady but unhurried feeling of momentum for the first 2+ minutes), but the sequence beginning at about 2:20 (and ending at 2:35 or at 2:59, depending on how much I feel like dividing this video into "sections," which I actually don't feel like doing with this AMV) is possibly the tightest and most effectively composed passage of editing I've seen from you so far. Terrific work on this.

"Red Lights" also set some expectations in its opening two-thirds, feeling like a compilation of cool driving scenes with compelling aesthetics (a point I wanted to make before I saw the "Night driving aesthetic" in the title, I swear!), recurring visual motifs and a strong sense of flow from shot to shot. In the last minute or so, it turns into a a full-blown action AMV I never saw coming. This is probably for the best as it ends on a climax instead of just staying in the same lane for four and a half minutes. Maybe one could argue that this was also done in the most intense parts of "Vision," but there are times where you want to cheer for things to blow up and times when that's not gonna feel right at all, and I think it's obvious which one of these AMVs fits into each of those slots.

Great stuff!

[vivafruit]

Great stuff!

Thanks so much!

One thing I battle with when making these multisource AMVs is how much "plot" to add versus just focusing on mood matching and sync. With both Red Lights and Vision I had a very plot-heavy approach, and they turned out well enough that I'd like to keep doing them if able. That being said, I don't know how feasible it would be to do this kind of thing for every amv I made, so it's an open question to me on what direction I'll go for this year.