A new Koi Kaze AMV

[Rorschach]

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

I've been away a while myself. Welcome back!

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.

I've heard it had some influence on Eastern thought as well; when Christian missionaries arrived in the East, they found that the Buddhists had a number of legends about heroic sufferers that echoed Christ's life story quite a bit. Vash the Stampede in Trigun might be based on some of these legends, although of course the makers of that show also had the benefit of modern Christian influences.

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.

That's the difficulty with subtlety: sometimes it leaves my viewers scratching their heads. As I warned in the description, it pays to have seen the series.

I see what you mean about the extra frames giving some context, but that probably doesn't apply so much to this series. Did I mention how easy it was to get tight compression on Koi Kaze? Everybody spends so much time standing or sitting around talking in this story that very little ever changes from frame to frame in most scenes. Most of the frames cropped for time constraints in this AMV were just the same as the frames that came before or after them.

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.

I guess I'll never be good at guessing anyone's age at a carnival! Well, you've got your critics and I've got mine. The reason I thought you might be younger was that I notice you've just gotten started in this hobby and you're full of enthusiasm for it. It should be interesting to see what effect a few years of this will have on your personality.

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.

Hey, those are some of my favorites too! I think I know what you mean about the lifestyle baggage: I didn't like a lot of the 1980s music until I was well out of that decade and a lot of those singers had faded from the scene. I like a lot of my parents' music for similar reasons; paisley and bell bottoms are long gone and a lot of the 1960s singers are dead now, but their music still holds its own.

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 know what you mean, but well... there has been some pretty conclusive research on this subject, albeit by online comedians:

http://www.cracked.com/article_16442_6- ... think.html

I'm sorry if I ruined it for you; I felt just as bad when I found out about it.

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".

We'll see when we'll see, I guess. I don't really have any plans for making another AMV myself right now, though I'm considering doing something with Vampire Knights eventually. (I want to see what happens in the second season, though.)

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.

Ooh... that's one really, really sappy song as I recall. Maybe it does capture the feeling, but are you sure it won't sound a bit too much like you're endorsing incest?

That was what had me rejecting one love song after another for this AMV: so few of them expressed any guilt or misgivings or doubts about love at all. What gave "Waiting for Wednesday" the edge over the others was that it had the virtue of the singer seemingly going back and forth over she wants "to show you goodbye" or not and wondering whether she'll be able to withstand her guy's seductive qualities when he's in close proximity to her.

I did consider a few songs from my parents' era for this as well:

"Go Away, Little Girl" by The Happenings
"Young Girl" by Gary Puckett

"Go Away, Little Girl" had a line, however, about the singer belonging to somebody else, which neither Koshiro nor Nanoka ever really did after their respective romantic interests rejected them. "Young Girl" focused entirely on the age difference, which was at most a minor concern in Koi Kaze. (The legal age of consent in Japan is 16, and in a few years the age difference wouldn't matter to anyone anyway.) Hence, I rejected them both.

Bottom line: picking a song for a Koi Kaze AMV is tricky business. Think twice and choose carefully.

[Rorschach]

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 ^_^!

It had a bit of banding because that's the way it came down to me, but I didn't see much blocking; certainly not enough of either artifact to think they were "heavy" by any measure. Maybe it's a difference in what we have as a basis for comparison? The x264 codec's results looked a whole lot clearer and crisper than the codecs I was using before it. I'd be interested to know what codec you use.

The article about H.264 in AVI files was interesting, and I've since re-wrapped this video into an MP4, but I should mention in response to some questions raised there that the reason I had these files in AVI in the first place is because that kind of file is a lot easier to access and edit without having to re-encode the video. There doesn't seem to be any way to direct-stream H.264 footage back into an AVI once it's in an MP4 the way there was with other kinds of MP4 wrapping.

The AVI played fine for me with my old WMP2, but since receiving a complaint or two about the audio play being choppy, I've tried playing it on my other players and noticed them having some of the same problems. Those problems went away as soon as I re-wrapped it into an MP4 file using YAMB. Shall I replace the download with an MP4 for you guys, then?

[Kionon]

To be fair, the main reason I liked this video was, oh yeah, LISA LOEB.

Who is awesome.

...and now, I'm waiting for Wednesday, because I can't get this song out of my head. I'd sue you, but I'm not a lawyer anymore.

[WesW]

I've heard it had some influence on Eastern thought as well; when Christian missionaries arrived in the East, they found that the Buddhists had a number of legends about heroic sufferers that echoed Christ's life story quite a bit. Vash the Stampede in Trigun might be based on some of these legends, although of course the makers of that show also had the benefit of modern Christian influences.

I think it depends upon who you ask as to who influenced whom between East and West. The general theory is that, since Eastern civilization is generally older than Western, if they share tales then they probably originated in the East.
Vash defintely seems to have a messiah complex, though.

I guess I'll never be good at guessing anyone's age at a carnival! Well, you've got your critics and I've got mine. The reason I thought you might be younger was that I notice you've just gotten started in this hobby and you're full of enthusiasm for it. It should be interesting to see what effect a few years of this will have on your personality.

Well, I love the creative process of making the vids- taking an idea in your head and creating something tangible from it. It's unlike anything else I've ever done. My previous hobby was modifying straegy games, and while I had more natural talent at that, this seems to work different parts of the brain, and it's nice to create something that can bring forth emotions when you view it.
As far as the atmosphere here on the forums, that can definitely influence you the wrong way if you let it. I went back and re-read my initial post, and kinda cringed at how impolite some of my comments were. Meeting you has been a nice breath of fresh air, especially with some of the obnoxious, know-it-all brats you run into around here (see the latter part of my Darcia thread).

I know what you mean, but well... there has been some pretty conclusive research on this subject, albeit by online comedians:

http://www.cracked.com/article_16442_6- ... think.html

I'm sorry if I ruined it for you; I felt just as bad when I found out about it.

After I made the post, I went back and listened to the song closely, and as it's fading out he sings "me and my baby in a 69". I don't guess I had ever listened to it loud enough to distinctly hear the words that late in the fade. I'm surprised radio stations played it if it was known what he was really talking about. I wonder if he regrets any of it now that he's older.
Btw, I just uploaded the latest build of my Journey video to my webpage: link. I'd really like to get your thoughts on it, if you don't mind. You can PM me you like, so as not to hijack the thread or anything.

Ooh... that's one really, really sappy song as I recall. Maybe it does capture the feeling, but are you sure it won't sound a bit too much like you're endorsing incest?

Yeah, it's pretty sappy, especially for an amv. It was just one of the ideas I came up with a couple of years ago, long before I knew anything about actually making vids. It was one I had pretty far down on my list.
As far as endorsing incest, my main aim would be to explore the inner conflict that the brother goes through, and try and get into his head and explain why he makes the decisions he does, not to get into the morality of the tale. People have to make up their own minds on that, and this is definitely the wrong crowd to try to preach to.
I definitely agree that it's one tough series to pick any kind of song for- I was pretty happy to have even come up with a plausible idea.