I Am Not Alone, Samurai X (AWA Pro entry)

PaperIsland · Post by **PaperIsland** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:26 pm

This was a long time coming. It took me 2 years to finally edit my idea, then I wanted to wait to premiere it until AWA. After AWA, my computer crashed. So it took me a while to get my computer running again and ready to encode this video for the web. But now it is here.

I'm really looking forward to people's comments and opinions (particularly specific comments). However, if you are an impatient video watcher -- this video is probably not for you. It's almost 6 minutes long and moves pretty slowly at first.

Enjoy.

souretsu · Post by **souretsu** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:44 pm

/gets

inthesto · Post by **inthesto** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:40 pm

That was...uh. Well, it's a first video.

I feel like the beginning could have benefitted from more fades rather hard cuts, the transition between tracks was rather anti-climatic (since that's the real high point of the entire song), and not enough attention paid to certain part of the music. Example: at 4:50, the lead guitar is playing a pretty prominent melody that immediately sticks out to the ear, but you chose to pay attention to the lyrics instead.

In all fairness, though, editing to Tool is pretty ambitious, especially for your first video.

Also, was Parabol always that damn long?

EDIT: Also, is there ANYTHING that cannot be ruined by Samurai X's fucking built-in strobe?

CrackTheSky · Post by **CrackTheSky** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 10:35 pm

As I remember, I couldn't make it through this video on the Pro discs.

Emong · Post by **Emong** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 5:02 am

Oh! Tool! Parabola! :O

/fucking gets

EDIT: Well, okay, it wasn't really worth the "/fucking gets"..

You had some sense of mood sync there. The contrast between the slower parts and faster parts of the song was good. It actually didn't get so boring as I thought when I had watched the first 30 seconds of it. It's good you kept up the action during the whole second half.

I couldn't see any sync there though, besides from mood sync. Beat sync would have done wonders for this video yet you ignored it completely :/ It killed it for me..

2/5

EDIT #2:

inthesto wrote:In all fairness, though, editing to Tool is pretty ambitious, especially for your first video.

x2

And it's difficult even if you're not a newbie....

PaperIsland · Post by **PaperIsland** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 5:34 pm

Thanks for your comments.

inthesto wrote:the beginning could have benefitted from more fades rather hard cuts

I agree. I come from a film studies background and I've been told you should only use a fade when there is a clear reason for it. Thus, I have only a couple fades in this video. However, thinking about it just now, if you're trying to connect your visuals to a song which plays notes that linger and fade, a fade is probably a good idea.

inthesto wrote:the transition between tracks was rather anti-climatic

I'm kind of surprised, I was pretty happy with the track transition. What do you think might have made a better one?

inthesto wrote:at 4:50, the lead guitar is playing a pretty prominent melody that immediately sticks out to the ear, but you chose to pay attention to the lyrics instead.

Again, I'll agree. I'd have to restructure that part of the video to allow for it, but I should have done something extra with the solo.

emong wrote: I couldn't see any sync there though, besides from mood sync. Beat sync would have done wonders for this video

My intention with this video was to make a video which highlighted the dual nature of Kenshin's personality as well as paid attention to the important parts of Samurai X which are often ignored in AMVS (such as the focus on nature and the seasons). I'm not sure beat synch would have worked with this goal. Unless you mean at certain points in the second half like the 4:50 inthesto mentions. Also, I do cut on beats, so I wouldn't say I "don't sync" -- I just choose to skip some beats in favor of lingering on a scene. I also use lots of lyrical sync and internal sync (things like the clashing of metal). I didn't want to diminish the purpose of the video by cutting too quickly, but perhaps there are a few points where I could have edited faster. It might have given this video more of a sense of urgency which it needed to really sustain its audience. Although I really wasn't thinking of the average AMV spectator when I made it.

crackthesky wrote:As I remember, I couldn't make it through this video on the Pro discs.

I'm kind of sorry to hear this because I assume that if you are a professional you would have some educated constructive criticism to offer.

souretsu · Post by **souretsu** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 5:37 pm

crackthesky wrote:As I remember, I couldn't make it through this video on the Pro discs.

I'm kind of sorry to hear this because I assume that if you are a professional you would have some educated constructive criticism to offer.

Bias?

CrackTheSky · Post by **CrackTheSky** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 9:05 pm

PaperIsland wrote:I'm kind of sorry to hear this because I assume that if you are a professional you would have some educated constructive criticism to offer.

Mmk, fair enough.

First thing I realize because it sticks out like a sore thumb is the abundance of hard cuts and lack of fades. Especially in the beginning, when the music has a softer, more flowing feel to it, the hard cuts are annoying and distracting. You say you came from a film background, and that's why you used so many hard cuts, but this isn't film. It's quite different.

Secondly, the scene selection/arrangement of this video was a mess. The beginning, with a million different shots of the moon, was drawn out and cheesy to me. The scenes with the black flashes shouldn't have been used at all - I realize they're from the anime, I'm saying you should have chosen different scenes or found a way to get rid of the black flashes altogether (and there are ways you could have done this, so don't say it's not possible to). The black flashing scenes in particular annoyed me because a lot of them didn't follow the rhythm of the song and messed up the video's flow.

I'll admit that most of the time the mood of the video was at least in the right area, but since I've never seen Kenshin for myself it was hard for me to follow the story you were telling. I didn't really connect to this video on any level, sadly.

The last problem I have kind of connects with the first two, in that there was a serious lack of beat sync. You seemed to be worried more about nailing the mood of the video rather than the actual rhythm of the song, and as such I felt like the video suffered and rarely had any type of flow going. You had a multitude of synching opportunities in here, most of which you either passed up (the whole first portion of the video), synched in a way that didn't make sense with the music (black flashy scenes around 3:30ish and on), or just plain synched poorly (4:19-4:21).

For these reasons, I didn't like the video and give it 2/5 stars.

dreamawake · Post by **dreamawake** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 12:00 am

Ladies and Gentlemen, crackzorz has spoken =o

xD

eh...I may check it out...but judging by Crack's post, I doubt I'm going to like this much :\

PaperIsland · Post by **PaperIsland** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 9:52 pm

Thanks for your comments CrackTheSky.

CrackTheSky wrote:The beginning, with a million different shots of the moon, was drawn out and cheesy to me.

Yeah, maybe so. I wanted to start off slowly and highlight some of the nature shots, but maybe I needed something special to really pull people in at the beginning and hook them in if they were on the line between interested in the song and not interested.

CrackTheSky wrote:The scenes with the black flashes shouldn't have been used at all

Again, I'm a little surprised everyone reacted negatively to this. I thought the black flashes fit in pretty naturally with the reverb of the guitar, but I guess I was wrong. Either that or people are hearing the drum more prominently than the guitar.

CrackTheSky wrote:I've never seen Kenshin for myself it was hard for me to follow the story you were telling

Well, I wasn't really telling a story. I was trying to explain his character as the personality of the person speaking in the song. It definitely helps if you've seen Kenshin though, and that was one of the faults of my video that I noticed quickly showing it to friends. Thus, it's one of the complaints I'm not surprised with. Next time I'd like to make a video with more universal appeal and that speaks for itself.

CrackTheSky wrote:synched poorly (4:19-4:21).

I rewatched this and didn't understand why you singled this point out. The landscape is supposed to show his mind traveling to another place during the turmoil and is graphically matched on the downward motion... it seems synched alright to me.

Well, I appreciate the specific comments from everyone, as I really feel that's what will guide me towards what people will enjoy more. I've started on my next video which I've been planning for a while and it's going to be a lot different. Hopefully some of you will check it out when I finish it.