A Sent./Romance and a Drama/Other

[WesW]

Two new vids are available from Classic Rock, one a sentimental romance about Souske and Kaname from Full Metal Panic, and the other an eerie adventure/drama using one of the greatest pop-rock songs of all time set to footage from Magnetic Rose.


Two Steps Behind is a soft-rock acoustic ballad from a band known for electronica-themed rock.
The vid is a sentimental romantic-type which shows how the relationship between Souske and Kaname developed, from the opening episodes, when he seemed like some kind of weird stalker-type, to the life-saving bodyguard and romantic interest he became. Suffice to say that if you enjoyed <i>That Summer</i>, you should also enjoy this vid.
With this vid I had two primary aims:
1)To serve as a counterpoint to ARM'd Combat (no mecha appear in this vid), and
2)To show some of Kaname's myriad facial expressions. She has some of the most exaggerated, and occasionally most beautiful, expressions in all of anime, and I really wanted to showcase them.
I wanted this to be a feel-good vid, hence the ending scene, and don't forget to keep watching after the credits appear for a nice little scene that should leave you
with a smile on your face.


Hotel California tells the story of a small group of men in space who decide to investigate an S.O.S. emanating from a dangerous region of space, and find themselves in an environment they could never have imagined.
Song notes: From the song's Wikipedia entry:
"Hotel California" won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1978.
In a 2004 issue, Rolling Stone magazine placed it as the forty-ninth greatest song of all time, and
the song's guitar solo is ranked 8th on Guitar Magazine's Top 100 Guitar Solos.
Its album, also titled Hotel California, is the 15th best-selling album of all time, in any category.
The song's lyrics describe the title establishment as a luxury resort where "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave." On the surface, the song tells the tale of a weary traveler who becomes trapped in a nightmarish hotel that at first appeared inviting and tempting. The song is generally understood to be an allegory about hedonism and self-destruction in the Southern California music industry of the late 1970s; Don Henley called it "our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles".
Sync notes: This vid is primarily synched to the guitar, rather than lyric lines or drumbeat. This means that occasionally the lyrics will begin and then the scene will change, but if you listen closely you'll notice that the singer will emphasize the syllable upon which the guitar sounds and the scene changes.
Lyric-matching notes: On a difficulty scale of 1 to 10, HC would have to be a 10 as far as finding scenes to match the lyrics of the song. Combine this with the fact that Magnetic Rose is only about 40 minutes long, and it's inevitable that there are going to be some lyrics for which there are no identically-matching scenes in the film. In these instances I tried to find either a scene with similar imagery or activities, or failing that, a scene which contributed to the story of men.

The challenge with this vid was to construct a coherent and logical visual narrative while incorporating as many scenes as possible which matched the lyrics and story of the song as closely as possible. In most cases I think I succeeded pretty well, though to get the most enjoyment from the vid you'll have to occasionally use your imagination, and not be anal about the fact that sometimes what you hear and what you see don't completely correlate.
Hotel California is all about allegory and using your imagination, so if you like the song, I think you'll like how I've interpreted it.

Btw, if you have had problems playing my vids, I have now posted links to the Wiki entry for the CCCP, which should let you play most any vid, including mine.
http://www.cccp-project.net/wiki/index. ... Here.21.29