The Quickening - Videos

[Kinematics]

Group D-2

[lloyd9988] Goodbye_Days

First 10 seconds or so: weak intro

Sync editing is good, but theme editing is weak. For the first minute (first verse, basically), I'm not feeling a strong link between the video and the song. It only seemed to really pull itself together after the 2:30 mark.

Pretty much the first half of the video just felt 'bleh'. Poor matching between the lyrics and the video, and effects that didn't really help it. A bit of randomness that generally felt disjointed.

As it moved into the final action-heavy chorus, things tightened up, but the early story sections didn't seem to have a very strong grip on what they wanted to do or be.


[ProjectBarcodeError] Tell Me A Journey

Only 3 reframes. Animation tends to compress better with at least 8-12 reframes.

Interesting choice of source.

Sync editing was good. Thematic editing is better than "Goodbye Days", but was still only middling. It felt more closely linked to the song, while at the same time not needing to hew as closely to the lyrics (eg: the moon imagery not lining up with the lyrics does not feel out of place here). Still, there were lots of scenes that just didn't seem to contribute anything to the overall construction.

There were a number of awkward transitions. EG: Switching to the outdoor daytime fight at ~1:38 after the song is moving more heavily into "dark" imagery; gravestone cut at 2:35 doesn't blend well with previous imagery; etc.

Directional flow was all over the place, going in whatever random direction it pleased.

However, just about all of the "the stars, the moon" segments fit beautifully, without dipping into literal imagery.


[riccardocasu] InTheShadowOfYourHeart

Edited the audio a bit, rearranging the song to better fit the story it wanted to tell. Clean editing, but still feels a bit odd after listening to the full version several times just before this.

Seems to have a stronger feel for its theme. Editing was clean. Sync was good. Color tones maintained coherency, didn't feel like any parts were distinctly out of place.

Obviously much weaker in the chorus, where you'd expect a lot of heavy action, than the other two videos. And actually, the chorus around the 1 minute mark felt like the weakest part of the entire video, since it didn't really even make use of the editing forms used elsewhere in the video.




Top picks:
[riccardocasu] InTheShadowOfYourHeart
[ProjectBarcodeError] Tell Me A Journey


This group is really hard to write reviews for, particularly as a lot of impressions I had the first time watching them, that I wrote down, don't actually match what I see when coming back to it the next day. The majority of my objections in the first two is in scene selection; tedious to detail, and not like I can really provide a "this should have been used instead" list, so the critiques are a bit hand-wavy. While technical skills were good all around, overall I just wasn't impressed as much as I'd hoped, given the song.

[Radical_Yue]

Have some more vidyas

[Animated]

I'd go with Ileia and FadingSundown - with my second choice to be on a tie with PacoTacoShell. "Descent" seemed like a small summary of Kara no Kyoukai's episode 3 (very interesting plot... ). As for SatoshiSakura's video... felt quite cheap, seemed like the editor had very little time to make this, who knows? (exactly 2 minutes and an abrupt ending - also mpg). Anyway, good luck on all four of you!

[xDreww]

Ileia took it again this round I guess.
Wanted to see more amazing stuff with the song that I choose!! But I only liked hers than the rest though. Couldn't really get into the other entries.

[SatoshiSakura]

As for SatoshiSakura's video... felt quite cheap, seemed like the editor had very little time to make this, who knows? (exactly 2 minutes and an abrupt ending - also mpg). Anyway, good luck on all four of you!

You got it, I only had 3 hours the day it was due to work on it, my sister had her graduation and a cousin from CA came over to visit.
Good luck everyone!

[Otohiko]

Also, is it just me, or have the last 5 (I think it's 5?) groups to edit have all been getting really good songs? There was a couple early in the tournament that made me rage a little (especially since i had to listen to them over and over), but the last couple of weeks have been pretty awesome as far as the music goes

[MycathatesyouAMV]

Dear god, Lloyd's Angel Beats video really entertained me. I've worked with Angel Beats before and I know it can be a tough source to edit a video that long with. There were a couple of parts that threw me off like the one crazy section of shaking, and some other minor things, but I still really enjoyed this.

[Nya-chan Production]

Dear god, Lloyd's Angel Beats video really entertained me. I've worked with Angel Beats before and I know it can be a tough source to edit a video that long with. There were a couple of parts that threw me off like the one crazy section of shaking, and some other minor things, but I still really enjoyed this.

I have to say I agree with this, though not wholeheartedly :3

[lloyd9988]

Dear god, Lloyd's Angel Beats video really entertained me. I've worked with Angel Beats before and I know it can be a tough source to edit a video that long with. There were a couple of parts that threw me off like the one crazy section of shaking, and some other minor things, but I still really enjoyed this.

I have to say I agree with this, though not wholeheartedly :3

I'm glad you guys enjoyed it

[Kinematics]

Group E-2


[FadingSundown] Left Behind

The lip sync was very weird, to the point where I'm not even sure it was -trying- to lip sync. Very disorienting, regardless.

Technically very good, but the more often I watch, the weaker it feels overall. Possibly a fair bit is my not being familiar with the source. Two female characters, but I couldn't get a strong feel for what position the short-haired/green-eyed one held, as she really didn't link in with the total composition.

Basically, it felt like part of a larger story, but wasn't able to condense itself down enough to make sense as a standalone.


[Ileia] The Yin, The Yang, and the Girl

More video/banding problems. I'm starting to wonder if I screwed up my playback settings somewhere, as I keep noticing this more and more, but checking some video sources that I know were encoded well, they still look clean. Should probably suggest everyone consider more postprocessing filters before the final encode.

Aside from that, it was wonderfully constructed. A simple enough story, but played out well, and didn't let itself drift off course.


[PacoTacoShell] Descent

Impressively disturbing.

Lot of video banding and macroblocking problems. Not sure how much was from the source, but at least some was from the encoding (CRF 20), as average bitrate was only 1320 kbps, quite low for 720p video.

Seemed to have occasional issues with direction -- the feel of the flow as scenes transitioned from one to the next. It was done very well in the fast-paced periods, but not quite as good in some of the slower segments.


[SatoshiSakura] Song

Poor video quality. Very high bitrate couldn't compensate for encoder and/or source weakness.

Cut short. Ended at exactly 2:00, which is the first I've seen do that. Most at least go to about 2:10 to find a good cutoff point. This one just faded out mid-stream.

Scene editing rather weak. Mostly long shots plus zoom effect, and the scenes chosen only somewhat blended with the song (some better than others).

Also, not the editor's fault, but that ponytail was really bugging me.



Top picks:
[Ileia] The Yin, The Yang, and the Girl
[PacoTacoShell] Descent



Summary: Another very difficult group to evaluate, but for different reasons. My first impression for most of the videos was, "Wow!" I was very impressed. Then, after the usual break before I start writing, going back and watching them again more carefully I found more and more that just didn't quite work. I seem to be getting more nitpicky as I do more reviews, as I judge each group more harshly than the one before it.