Sephiration Anxiety beta download (21 MB) Not your average Advent Children video...IMO.
All right, it's taken me about four years, but I finally have an AMV that's going to see the light of day. I need some help, though, because I know this AMV could be better and I've kind of run out of ideas (or, more accurately, ways to implement those ideas because I'm not very good at this). The plan is to improve what’s already there, not rip it apart and start all over again, so please keep this in mind when making complaints... er suggestions.
If you have an AMV you’d like me to op in exchange for some quality feedback on mine, I’ll be happy to do so. I can only watch/op one or two a day, though, (I only have dial-up at home, which means I have to download AMVs at work and deal with them during my lunch break) so it may take me awhile.
I figure that people kind enough to give me their 2 cents will be picking up on problem areas without me going into detail on what I think are problem areas, but I do have a few things that I would particularly appreciate input on:
1. At the lyrics “thought I was wrong when I thought I was right,” around the .16 mark, Cloud’s eyes open up more, which is what I wanted, however I’d prefer that it occur faster and also a tad sooner. This is almost impossible to accomplish, however, because on the back end of the clip there’s about one or two frames of his eyes closing, then a sharp cut to that annoying red bubble transition in the movie. The clip as it stands now is actually reversed and slowed down to about 80% to get his eyes opening a little closer to where they should, and I’ve tried everything I can think of to make it synch better with no luck. “Everything” includes slowing down the clip even more, chopping it up and rearranging the frames, moving it around on the timeline and adding transitions. This is the best I’ve ever been able to get it, though, and I’m still not pleased. Suggestions? Am I being too anal about this? (I had to be anal with this AMV...)
2. The black fade transitions used at 1.04-1.06 mark: I deliberately avoided using the same black fade effect found in all four places of this triple beat refrain (or whatever you want to call it) because I do not have enough footage to pull it off correctly each time. I’m not sure if I should keep some kind of black fade in all instances of the refrain, however, rather than using variations of it in two (second and fourth refrain), a gradient wipe in the third and repeating footage in the first. Anal, I know, but it's something people might not come right out and criticize unless I point out I'm not completely happy with it.
3. I don’t like the ending. The idea is to have Cloud conclude his trial with Sephiroth by finally standing on his own two feet and being quite relieved it’s all over. I kind of also want Aerith to get one last huzzah, but not as big a one as I currently give her. I’ve tried a bunch of things to make this more subtle (with the handclasp I’ve lowered the opacity, moved it to the very end, you name it; I also tried other footage of her that just wound up looking weird) and would love ideas for improving this scene.
4. Do you want to see more of Aerith? “More” as in more shots of her and/or “more” as in her face/body. She’s where she is now because that’s where the music goes into a softer cadence and we only see her hands/lower body because my original rip of AC failed to grab the very end of the movie where you DO see her fully and I didn’t realize this until recently (nor did I remember that there was more footage to be found.)
5. Although a lot of this AMV relies on footage being presented in sequence pretty much as it is in the movie, there were a couple of places where I paired up things that came from very different places. In a few instances someone isn't moving the right way/standing in the right place or the backgrounds aren’t what they should be, but I’m not sure how apparent this is because – even though I know what I’m looking at and where it came from – I don’t know if the average viewer would.
6. I never tried to lipsynch in the one place (around the .56 mark) that someone's mouth is really noticeably moving (Sephiroth needs to give me a break and just shut up and look evil) and this is my justification for leaving it in: while Cloud is off in la-la-land with Aerith, apparently not focusing on his predicament, Sephiroth is getting more and more ticked off since it seems a sword through the shoulder is not enough to get Cloud's attention. So, he starts telling him for the umpteenth time how pathetic he is, which finally snaps Cloud of his little dream segment. I really need to use this clip of Sephiroth here and I also suspect his head movements would look bizarre if I masked out his mouth, so please don't jump all over me for using this clip unless you feel it completely throws a wrench into everything. On that note, there are a few other places where mouths are moving that I plan on trying to fix, but there are still more that I'm not sure I need to bother with because you can barely SEE the mouths moving...if you want to point out all the instances where you think I need to go in and cover up yapping, please do!
Regarding the use (or non use) of effects: I tried to only use noticeable "special" effects in specific places for the purpose of emphasizing the distinctive triple beat segment of the music. I broke my own rule of using bigger effects only in these places three times, but only because I believe it was less noticeable than the alternative (no effect or just a plain transition effect that for some reason didn't work very well). If you believe I should take these anamolies out, please say so.
Um right...I guess that's it. I'm probably asking for way too much, but I really would appreciate assistance, so thanks in advance for at least reading this huge request. You can post or PM or e-mail me any comments/questions. *takes a deep breath and hits Submit*