A new Koi Kaze AMV

Rorschach · Post by **Rorschach** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 1:43 pm

I notice there are exactly 9 of these AMVs focused exclusively on Koi Kaze including my own, so if you're one of those offbeat people who admired this series for its harrowing realism and meticulously delicate examination of a controversial subject, here's my take on it:

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... p?v=160008

Reading the long-winded explanation is not required, but as mentioned there, I do recommend seeing the anime first if you haven't already. Enjoy!

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 5:01 pm

Well, I will say that I haven't seen the anime, only read your (rather interesting!) video description - and I think it's safe to say you've got a good feel for this anime. Honestly, to me it's still very much a character-focused slice-of-life/romance video with very little explicit dramatization but a very good feel for the two main characters. The editing is very uncomplicated (understatement!) but it works well and keeps the focus on the story. I enjoyed it! I can't say much more, but I guess I'll check out the series someday.

Rorschach · Post by **Rorschach** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:17 pm

Really? I'm most delighted to hear you say so. The editing is uncomplicated because it's old school--there's no school like the old school!--but then so is the anime. Since you're thinking of seeing Koi Kaze for yourself, it might interest you to know that it's a very subdued kind of drama; it compresses very well with any codec because it has so many scenes in which nothing and no one moves around at all. The scenes I chose for my AMV probably made it look a bit livelier than it really is.

That was definitely the right way for the series to be done, though; it's played completely straight with no fantasy elements whatsoever so that you can believe even something as horrifically improbable as this twisted romance really could have happened. I recommend it for a change of pace whenever you've seen enough action series to suit you for a while.

WesW · Post by **WesW** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 3:37 pm

To me, Koi Kaze in a way represents the best of what anime is about- bringing you shows that you would never, ever see anywhere else in any other country.
I have plans to do my own KK vid some day, and I'll look at yours as soon as I can especially since it seems that we have similar editing styles.

WesW · Post by **WesW** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 4:53 am

Having just read your profile, it's nice to see a thoughtful, intelligent Christian on a site where those attributes are often in short supply.
As for the video, though, I have to say I was somewhat disappointed. The song seemed to be an alright choice, but it looked like you put much more time and effort into the vid's write-up than you did in making the vid itself.
As for scene choices, they did a good job a making a coherent storyline, but unfortunately they often had nothing to do with the song, either in lyrics or mood, really. The timing of your cuts was sometimes at awkward places, and for a song that was soft and flowing, all the hard cuts were totally wrong. This song should've been filled with gentle cross-fades instead.
You're obviously very intelligent, and your understanding of the series is very impressive, however your understanding of musical structure and editing technique are still at the beginner level. You remind me of myself when I first started making vids. You really need to try making vids more often, so that you can improve. This place needs more vids with as much forethought as you put into yours.

Rorschach · Post by **Rorschach** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 1:12 pm

WesW wrote:Having just read your profile, it's nice to see a thoughtful, intelligent Christian on a site where those attributes are often in short supply.

It's nice to see there's still some call for that. It's one of Japan's greater mysteries how the culture there on the whole tends to be so materialistic and apathetic toward religion, and yet the anime is so often full of religious symbolism.

WesW wrote:As for the video, though, I have to say I was somewhat disappointed. The song seemed to be an alright choice, but it looked like you put much more time and effort into the vid's write-up than you did in making the vid itself.

I'm sorry it didn't suit you. I did do a real speed run on actually putting the video together as I say, but I did also put a lot of effort into choosing what went into it. Doing the write-up was actually much easier, since I've been writing that way ever since I went to college, and my professors there were always chiding me for making my papers too long!

WesW wrote:As for scene choices, they did a good job a making a coherent storyline, but unfortunately they often had nothing to do with the song, either in lyrics or mood, really. The timing of your cuts was sometimes at awkward places, and for a song that was soft and flowing, all the hard cuts were totally wrong. This song should've been filled with gentle cross-fades instead.

This seems to be a matter of differences in perception: that song didn't seem "soft and flowing" to me! I thought it was more rollicking and obsessive. Of course, matching scenes to the repetitive and abstract lyrics was one of the biggest challenges. I'm sorry if the connection between the lyrics and the scenery was a bit too broad and tenuous to you, but matching anything concrete to the day of Wednesday is rather difficult, and Lisa Loeb never did say exactly what was so important about that particular day of the week in her song; that's why, whenever she mentioned "waiting for Wednesday," I attached every scene I could find that seemed to have anything to do with waiting for or anticipating something. Every repetition of "show you goodbye" is likewise attached to people bidding each other farewell in one sense or another.

As for the cuts, I did them mainly in tandem with the cuts I made to the song itself when I was dividing each of its musical "phrases" into a separate file; these cuts seemed logical enough, though they sometimes made me feel squeezed for time when clipping the scenes to match them. I've had the odd complaint about the hard cuts in some of my AMVs from a critic or two before, but I still prefer the old-school minimalism of clean breaks to the overdone transitions and fading of completely unconnected scenes into each other I see in a lot of AMVs these days. Maybe someday I'll do a video with lots of fades, but I haven't ever seen a combination that really called for that yet.

WesW wrote:You're obviously very intelligent, and your understanding of the series is very impressive, however your understanding of musical structure and editing technique are still at the beginner level. You remind me of myself when I first started making vids. You really need to try making vids more often, so that you can improve. This place needs more vids with as much forethought as you put into yours.

I'm not so sure of that; maybe I'm just getting too old and set in my ways for you little whipper-snappers. (As you may notice if you look at the comments on some of the other AMVs I've done, I used to get some praise for not being so amateurish as some of my colleagues back in the day.) I've been looking at some of your videos, and I notice their style doesn't seem to suit me much better than my style seems to suit you. This may also be because of our differing musical preferences: you've done a fair number of rock classics, I notice, but mostly the ones I didn't like very much back when I was hearing them on the radio. (It's too bad Bryan Adams had such a sick sense of humor. I used to like that "Summer of 69" song back before I knew what a 69 was.)

All the same, I'm rather interested in seeing what you'll do with Koi Kaze. I'll be looking for more stuff to make up into AMVs in the meantime, of course, but I can't make any guarantees about when I'll have another one. Maybe next time I'll try something from my parents' time.

NeoQuixotic · Post by **NeoQuixotic** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:27 pm

Yay, a Koi Kaze AMV ^_^! It was good, nothing amazing though. I do like the simple editing though since it worked well with the song. Although the lyrics didn't really mean much to me while watching it. Video quality was medium, but sometimes had heavy blocking or banding. Also H.264 in AVI is a bad idea. Anyways, nice to see a good Koi Kaze AMV ^_^!

theDarkSite · Post by **theDarkSite** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:48 am

It was nice vid, albeit not something new or special. I enjoyed the vid partly because Koi Kaze is one of my favourite animes, partly because the synch was well-made. The lipsing was not good though, and there are some problems with the audio now and then. But in overall the vid is nice and well-made, so Good Job

WesW · Post by **WesW** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 12:09 pm

I kept meaning to come back to this thread. Nice to see your thoughtful responses to my criticisms.

Rorschach wrote: It's nice to see there's still some call for that. It's one of Japan's greater mysteries how the culture there on the whole tends to be so materialistic and apathetic toward religion, and yet the anime is so often full of religious symbolism.

This reminds me of a segment in the preview segment to HBO's Rome, where the actress said that you don't realize how much Christianity permeates Western thought until you delve into the period before it existed.

This seems to be a matter of differences in perception: that song didn't seem "soft and flowing" to me! I thought it was more rollicking and obsessive. Of course, matching scenes to the repetitive and abstract lyrics was one of the biggest challenges. I'm sorry if the connection between the lyrics and the scenery was a bit too broad and tenuous to you, but matching anything concrete to the day of Wednesday is rather difficult, and Lisa Loeb never did say exactly what was so important about that particular day of the week in her song; that's why, whenever she mentioned "waiting for Wednesday," I attached every scene I could find that seemed to have anything to do with waiting for or anticipating something. Every repetition of "show you goodbye" is likewise attached to people bidding each other farewell in one sense or another.

As for the cuts, I did them mainly in tandem with the cuts I made to the song itself when I was dividing each of its musical "phrases" into a separate file; these cuts seemed logical enough, though they sometimes made me feel squeezed for time when clipping the scenes to match them. I've had the odd complaint about the hard cuts in some of my AMVs from a critic or two before, but I still prefer the old-school minimalism of clean breaks to the overdone transitions and fading of completely unconnected scenes into each other I see in a lot of AMVs these days. Maybe someday I'll do a video with lots of fades, but I haven't ever seen a combination that really called for that yet.

It seems I missed a lot in my initial viewing of the vid, then. One thing fades can do is give you some extra frames for a scene, which maybe could've made the context of the scenes more obvious. If people haven't heard the song before, and therefore are trying to take in both new audio and visuals, being as obvious as possible is a benefit.
I agree with you that many editors overdo the transitions and fades. That's why I try to keep mine crisp and in tune with the transition note.

I'm not so sure of that; maybe I'm just getting too old and set in my ways for you little whipper-snappers. (As you may notice if you look at the comments on some of the other AMVs I've done, I used to get some praise for not being so amateurish as some of my colleagues back in the day.) I've been looking at some of your videos, and I notice their style doesn't seem to suit me much better than my style seems to suit you. This may also be because of our differing musical preferences: you've done a fair number of rock classics, I notice, but mostly the ones I didn't like very much back when I was hearing them on the radio. (It's too bad Bryan Adams had such a sick sense of humor. I used to like that "Summer of 69" song back before I knew what a 69 was.)

All the same, I'm rather interested in seeing what you'll do with Koi Kaze. I'll be looking for more stuff to make up into AMVs in the meantime, of course, but I can't make any guarantees about when I'll have another one. Maybe next time I'll try something from my parents' time.

Well, I'm 38, so I don't know about being a young whipper-snapper.

I guess it's too bad I didn't get into anime and AMVs "back in the day", because a lot of the comments I get are from kids who don't appreciate taking your time in a scene, the use of subtlety or a soft-sync.
As far as song choice, I actually prefer softer stuff to listen to than what I normally choose for my vids. Some of my favorite groups are Chicago, Journey, Heart and Boston, to give you a taste of them. I actually didn't care for the whole Hair Rock scene back when it was in style. It was only after these groups started appearing on VH1's "Where Are They Now" that I went back and just listened to the music, without all the lifestyle baggage that went with it, and found that the best of it was actually pretty good from a musical standpoint.
I hope Bryan wasn't making a sexual reference with Summer of '69. It sounded more autobiographical to me, with the band and all.
I don't think you'll like the vid I just released, but you might like the next two I put out. One is a re-make of Every Time, and the other is a visually beautiful piece set to Journey's "Lights".
As for Koi Kaze, the song I have in mind is Dan Hill's "Sometimes When We Touch". I think it captures the way the guy feels about his sister. I feel about like you do as far as how the relationship would eventually turn out, (to me she seems like the classic rebound relationship) but for the vid I think I'm going to try and stay neutral.
It's been nice conversing with you.

anime wardrone · Post by **anime wardrone** » Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:26 pm

It is obviously very controversial but your amv made it seem fairly interesting to me i might check it out sometime 10/10