The Quickening - Videos

[FadingSundown]

Ringo Days - Matching the lyrics with the anime here is a bit of a stretch; I can see where it's drawing from, but overall fit is kind of weak. Stronger focus on effects than the King of Hearts video, and partly felt like that was to make up for weaker scene selection options. Use of black & white felt inconsistent.

Happened to watch this one with a friend of mine who's a bit of a film critic. His main complaint was excessive use of fade out/fade in. While the use of various effects in AMVs are often for a different purpose than for film, on a second watch through I can see where he's coming from; it did seem to draw away from the focus of the video, and became a bit of a distraction (too much black over the course of watching).

Minor lip sync issues (eg: ~0:34).

Generally good, but weak in a few noticeable areas.

First of, thank you for your feedback , I appreciate it and if I get to R2 I will try my best to make something better. The black and white was supposed tp represent the past (colour=now b&w=past), but if you didnt see it then I didnt do it well xD.

For the transitions, well, I kind of felt like hardcuts were not a fit for my video. But I agree on the fact that I did overuse (abuse !) fade in/out, I tried push in the beginning but I think that pushes wouldve become annoying to watch. The weaker scene selection in the middle... I have no explaination for that other than that I was running out of time .

Also, can you please start putting names with these file names? I'd like to know who's editing what?

i kind of like the fact that in the beginning you dont know who edited it. Because some editors (even if they claim not to) are prejudiced. I know that this doesnt count to most of you, but I have heard editors say strange things about AMVs because well-known editors made them. But this is just my opinion/view on it ;P

[Kinematics]

The black and white was supposed tp represent the past (colour=now b&w=past), but if you didnt see it then I didnt do it well xD.

Well, I could kind of see it, but it didn't really feel naturally 'separate'. It can work in film where you have time to solidly establish the past events and isolate them from the present, but in this case it doesn't feel like there's a strong enough of a reference for it. Watching again I can see it better, but still had issues: some of the song lyric instances of 'past' (eg: 0:33~) include mixes of color (so, 'present'); several of the fades also took the color to almost black-and-white levels, which helps confuse the issue; etc.

Also -- and this is a very, very subjective point -- the color palette of Spice and Wolf just doesn't seem to complement well when going between color and greyscale, without some additional effect.

i kind of like the fact that in the beginning you dont know who edited it. Because some editors (even if they claim not to) are prejudiced. I know that this doesnt count to most of you, but I have heard editors say strange things about AMVs because well-known editors made them. But this is just my opinion/view on it ;P

While I understand it's possible that issue may arise for the judges, for the rest of those viewing the contest it's mostly just a hindrance. For me, it's that because every single video has its title written differently, it just becomes confusing to work with and remember. If the judges are downloading the same pack as the viewers then not including the editor name is fine, but it would still be nice to at least have a simple and consistent naming scheme.

[pacotacoshell]

King of Hearts - Tie with the basic lyrics of the song was fairly loose, but overall theme fit wonderfully. Editing was fairly simple, but is just what was needed for this video; the focus was on the characters and the story, not the effects, but at the same time avoided dragging anything out.

Felt a bit too literal with the broom during the "sweeping" part of the lyrics. That was the only bit that really caught my attention, though.

Overall, excellent video.

There was a scene that had him actually sweeping, but I decided to keep it less literal than it already is. >.> Thank you though, glad you liked it.

King of Hearts: The mood was spot on and did a really nice job of capturing the emotions of the characters and their inner troubles.

Thank you Code! ^-^

[Radical_Yue]

The first RAR of R2 videos is up!

[AimoAio]

Ringo Days:
I like this one but I wasn't really fond of the editing - slow pacing, long fades and lipflap bugged me a bit, the idea is nice though.

The Quackening:
Haha this one is good. A lot of the comedic moments made me laugh. (like at 2:00 xD)

Wars Dimension:
This one had a nice idea to it when you dropped him into another dimension but then he completely disappears from the video making that whole first bit kinda useless.

Cybervida:
So abstract I didn't get it. But editing is quite nice.

I Was The King:
My favourite section is 1:39-1:49, it complements the intro very well. Mostly pretty good except for the ending.

King of Hearts:
TWGOK! I like the focus on the characters and because I've also seen the show, your concept was very easy to see to me. One or two scenes didn't fit quite as right but it's simple and nicely edited.

RAWRAWd:
I want to know who edited this so I can beat you up into making it into a full proper video because the sections without the head bobbing are really well done and could have easily been my favourite of the round. D<

St. Ryuk:
This is what I pictured with the song but those song cuts are so awful. Some weirdly placed scenes at times too.

--

Top 4:
King of Hearts
I Was The King
The Quackening
Ringo Days

[JD_Lord1]

Good job group A, R2 was thoroughly entertaining!

[Kairih]

Top 4:
King of Hearts
I Was The King
The Quackening
Ringo Days

x2
Good job guys! :3

[MimS]

The first RAR of R2 videos is up!

Really disappointed that Kuro gave up : (

Seems like Round A final will be between LopezAMV and TwlightChrono x)

GJ Lopez, your vid is the best one for this round imho

[Kinematics]

Round 2A


[Evil Environmentalist] BlueOut

The only one that used a single video source, and appeared to be going for bit of a story-like theme. Pretty good sync throughout. Reasonable carry-through on the story side (caveat: I haven't watched the anime myself).

A fair bit of noticeable effects used. Most worked OK, but there wasn't a consistent feel to their usage; they were just sort of scattered about. Reversal at the stairs (~0:06) was kinda meh; mainly noticeable since the action hadn't really picked up yet.

Bit of video encoding ugliness around 1:04

Subtitles present at 2:00+. Have to assume it was deliberate, but it still felt wrong. Also, if they were deliberately maintained, would have been better to include as a real subtitle track rather than burn them into the video.

Weakest part, I think, was the feel that, despite the effects and sections of very good sync editing, there was too much time spent where you were just letting the anime play out and carry things (eg: 0:57-1:05).

[LopezAMV] And Then I Said 'Meow Meow Meow Meow'

Pure action, no story.

Seemed to focus too much on Bakemonogatari for the intro section. Given the vast number of source animes, it seemed to linger there longer than it should have, compared to the rest of the video.

Transitions were done well, for the most part; constantly kept up with the pace of the audio. Somewhat weak when revving back up around 0:55; pace was good, but selected cuts just didn't seem to work. Segment from 1:30+, though, was *very* well done.

[TwilightChrono] Amp It Up

Only pulled from a handful of series, so a blend of focus and simple dynamic action. Love the Higurashi bits; effects were put to good use there. FMA, I'm a bit more ambivalent on; there were some good bits pulled from it, but it also felt like you were letting the anime do your work for you in several spots, and just letting it drag out. The ending bit was somewhat amusing, but really didn't match the mood of the rest of the video.

This was the only one of this group that made any attempt at lip sync. Hard to say how well it worked; the -idea- seemed to work well, for the chosen points where lip sync was done, but at the same time no effort was made to edit the lip flaps to match the sounds, so it felt a bit... incomplete? Some worked as-is, but some needed extra tweaking.



After several runs through, it's still pretty difficult to choose just 2. So, aside from anything else, good job to all three editors.


Top 2 picks:
And Then I Said 'Meow Meow Meow Meow'
Amp It Up

[LopezAMV]

Good job group A, R2 was thoroughly entertaining!

I'm intrigued by your icon....what in the world is that supposed to be? Lol