Way Too Long Haruhi...

[spk1983]

Well, this is my 2nd AMV, spent a significant amount more time on this one than my first, hopefully it shows up a little.

For the most part, this is a no-effects video, minus the B&W scenes at the start, if that even counts as effects in today's editing world .

Most of you all here would likely not know the song, but I hope you all like it ...

If the name of the band looks strange, to get its meaning, read it in reverse, and change the 'y' to an 'e' (They originally used that form of spelling)...

Please feel free to leave a comment.

[dazza1008]

I don't really know Haruhi that well.

well, technical issues first: bad quality encode - all the blocking.
Lipsync: for the most part good, but not perfect.


It was OK, but I thought the song went on for... way too long.

Sorry I can't be more helpful here.

[Panky]

It seems you had issues with the quality of the video like dazza says, I bet it could have looked better, but that's the less important in these cases.
I didn't quite like the lip synching you did, it looked like it was spaced out from the music, which doesn't mean that it wasn't actually well synched but it didn't look like it could fit quite well (near 0.50 there's an example of what I mean, and it also looks like the image freeze, that may actually be what happens, but shouldn't be noticed).
The fonts also didn't help in some cases. And for example, near 1.05 I think you should have fade to black the "long" at the same time you faded to black the clip.
As for the general synch between the music and the video, I think it is pretty well synched. It does good for the entertaining purpose, and I have to agree again with dazza in that the song was a little long.

Bien!

[spk1983]

Yeah, I know the encoding could have been better, only found out how to get a proper encode 3/4 way through the video...and I didn't have the heart to start it over from scratch. Hopefully, it wouldn't happen in future, especially since I have the space to work with lossless footage.

The song I actually shortened up, the song was supposed to be about 6 mins in length, so it was as much as I could do to cut it down. So IF I had tried to use the full song, I know it would have been WAYYYYYYYYYYY too long .

I know the lipsync wasn't perfect, but it was a learning experience - first time I've ever tried to do lipsync, and one of frustration for me to get it remotely close...keeping in mind that I have yet to learn to use masking and other more advanced features, just basic cutting, speeding up and slowing down footage, and simple panning...I need to do some research on how to mask properly, so I can improve my abilities.

Thanks for the comments though, I highly appreciate it!

[Kionon]

So much potential in the concept... and so much failure in the execution. Some pretty simple things you could have done to have made this a decent video just weren't followed.

First, read this.

Okay, now that you've done that, let's talk about the technical stuff and get it out of the way. Haruhi is 16:9. Your letterboxing isn't even that. So, using the methods above, please make sure your source material is in the proper representative resolution for 16:9. 848x480 for Standard Definition, or if you have access to anything High Definition, go with 1280x720. There should be no need for letterboxing, and the characters will not appear squished.

Here's what yours looks like:



This is what it should look like (after I messed with VLC during playback):



Horrible encode has been mentioned. You said you would work with lossless next time.

Okay, non-technical. I didn't like the text. And I am not sure I was okay with you switching voices from Haruhi to Kyon. I can easily get into either one of them being the singer, but I see Haruhi as the better choice. Kyon much less enthusiastic in general, as a personality-type. Some of your cuts seemed sloppy, but it was something more felt than seen. I say this had outstanding potential because I liked the song, I liked the concept, I felt it fit the situation between the characters, and in general I liked the editing style. The fact the lip sync and flow both have jarring errors, and the quality was atrocious meant that what I would normally consider a very reviewable video is destined for my trashcan unless you can go in and scare up a better encode. Or at the least, export out into a more appropriate resolution. I prefer you go ahead and bait/switch your old encodes with new high quality encodes, and reupload. Then I would actually probably keep it in my usual watched playlist.

[spk1983]

I guess this was the type of critique I was looking forward to.

I've already said I would ensure for better encoding methods in future, so no need to go back there - I guess I should have found out about the AMVApp before, so I'm hopeful that encoding issues won't be a (significant) flaw from now on.

As for the non-technical aspects, I can see that the text idea was a bad one. That will definitely go in the remade version...or cut down to maybe one or two uses early on and nothing more.

The factor with the switching of voices between Haruhi and Kyon, it largely came down to a fact that I could not determine enough footage for Haruhi doing all the lip sync, while still providing various expressions, plus I wanted to largely avoid scenes where her mouth was more flapping than looking like she was talking. Kyon's mouth movements was a bit easier to do, as it moved a little more natural...hence why I did it. Keep in mind that for a lot of the lip-sync scenes, I could only do it by splicing a scene with different mouth movements, and lining them up to go with the words frame by frame, hence I know some of them didn't really flow as well as they should.

I'd like to hear more of your opinion as to how the cuts seemed sloppy, and as to how the flow was jarring, and how I could possibly rectify it in a remastered version. You could either post it in here or PM me, either way is fine for me. If I am to redo this, I want to make sure I get it right!

I won't be re-encoding this just yet, as I've run out of space due to doing lossless renders for my next AMV, but once I'm done with that one, I'll start this one over from scratch and hopefully do a more worthy job. Please keep in mind I've only started video editing for the first time, 3 weeks ago, so I'm still kinda feeling the ropes when it comes to editing styles and techniques.

Thank you for your comments, it's highly welcome!