Blazing Wild Hearts - Vivy AMV

[SilkAMV]

RICE 2024 - Best Draction

The story told in this video, not quite the same as in the show, but close, is this: Vivy is a Robot idol who desires to touch the hearts of her fans through song and also save the world from a robot apocalypse. In this video, the death of her biggest fan triggers the installation of a heart, and she blazes with passion to fight and to sing. In the course of her quest, she meets another robot and that blazing passion spreads to her as well. This triggers a duality in Vivy's own heart, bringing her singing to life in a way that she could never achieve before.

When I first started out making AMVs, I wanted to use ALL the effects. Real editors use video effects and I wanted to be cool like them. The results were...well, let's move on. I did a complete 180 and became afraid to use any effect at all, and decided that it was safer to leave the footage un-altered. At times, it possibly even became a complex. But I still had that desire to alter the footage in ways that didn't really intrude upon the aesthetic, and developed a style around transitions and masking that satisfied both my desire to use effects, and my aversion to disrupting the purity of the clips.

This video was born out of a desire to see just how far I could push these two competing goals. I wanted to use a video effect, I wanted it to be everywhere, and I wanted it to matter, but I also wanted it to feel natural to the footage itself. Enter Trapcode Particular, a particle effect that professionals use that you see everywhere in movies and shows if you're looking for it. I know the look I wanted to go for, so I went through my video idea list to see which of them I could use this effect with.

I eventually selected my Vivy idea. This is a show that really needs more attention and AMVs made with it. Seriously, go watch it. It's fantastic. Sayonara Wild Hearts is a musical rhythm based video game with an amazing album, and this track suited Vivy perfectly.

Knowing just how much work this would be, I procrastinated a lot getting this video done. I had a full timeline done in mid-2022, but didn't really finish the base video until the end of 2023. At that point I had about 3 months until the RICE deadline, and a LOT of work to do on the video. I wasn't sure I could finish in time with something I was happy with, but I managed it somehow.

RICE came around, and I couldn't wait to see everyone's reaction to the particle effect. I had this fantasy that everyone would see this video effect and admire how well I'd integrated it with the footage. No one has done anything quite like this to my knowledge, and I was certain it was going to blow everyone away.

What actually happened was almost no one realized I had created the effect. They thought it was just part of the footage. *Surprised Pikachu Face*. Because I was blinded by how much work I'd put into it, the video didn't make nearly as much of a splash as I'd hoped, even after the effect was pointed out. It did win Best Draction though, the first year that category has been in RICE (congrats Speedy! Your baby made it!). The irony is that I'd achieved exactly what I set out to do: use a video effect in a video to change its story but make it feel natural to the footage. It was a very humbling triumph. I don't expect this video to compete well, or that most viewers will notice all the work that went into it. But that's fine. I set out to make something, and it turned out exactly how I wanted it to. I'm more than satisfied with everything I learned while making it.

I've included a version with most of the effects removed so you can see what I changed. I only left a few necessary masks in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMGt3l30TKE