The Quickening - Videos

[MimS]

Hahaha The Quackening, cool one \o/

[Kireblue]

I think that group E has the best batch of videos so far. I do wish that somebody had made a Yu-gi-oh AMV with that song though. The combination would have been absolutely perfect.

[pacotacoshell]

Woot, go group E!

[FadingSundown]

Ringo Days was my entry, you cant believe how happy your comment made my Code xD. I totally agree on your feedback and thank you for pointing them out ^^. Im trying to post my AMV on YouTube but the song is very very copyrighted, I wonder how Ileia got it up on YT ><

[Ileia]

Im trying to post my AMV on YouTube but the song is very very copyrighted, I wonder how Ileia got it up on YT ><

Last week it was blocked, this week it wasn't. I didn't do anything.

[SatoshiSakura]

St. Ryuk: This was the kind of video I was expecting. Felt like you had a good AMV here, BUT the scene selection was all over the place, and the story was out the window after the first of it. Akward audio cut was also very akward.

I agree with you, it was completely all over the place, I lost my patience with it after a while. Death Note was my 3rd source choice after Kuroshitsuji and DRRR didn't work out how I was expecting them too. As for the audio, honestly, instrumental is my main enemy so I was trying to do anything to avoid it, the cuts don't sound too awkward once you've listened to it over 9000 times in a week.

[RAWdangers]

Group E:

General: I was really impressed. Not the videos I was expecting. Actually, I was expecting 6 Code Geass videos. XD

I Was The King: I was a little confused as to the context of the story, but still had good editing and a solid mood. Some of the scene selections did me in though. Could have been better in that regard.

Yeah, when i was watching my render i realized some of the scenes didnt work and were really static, but my render finished like 30 minutes before it was due so i didnt really have time to go change it x.X I had meant for the video to be longer and come to a good ending but i ran out of time as you can probably tell X.X Oh well. Thanks for the compliments though!

[Kinematics]

Nothing wrong with any of the video this time. A few did 2-pass instead of CRF, but given the low complexity of all the videos it didn't hurt them any. Reviews will focus on the editing and thematics instead.



King of Hearts - Tie with the basic lyrics of the song was fairly loose, but overall theme fit wonderfully. Editing was fairly simple, but is just what was needed for this video; the focus was on the characters and the story, not the effects, but at the same time avoided dragging anything out.

Felt a bit too literal with the broom during the "sweeping" part of the lyrics. That was the only bit that really caught my attention, though.

Overall, excellent video.

Ringo Days - Matching the lyrics with the anime here is a bit of a stretch; I can see where it's drawing from, but overall fit is kind of weak. Stronger focus on effects than the King of Hearts video, and partly felt like that was to make up for weaker scene selection options. Use of black & white felt inconsistent.

Happened to watch this one with a friend of mine who's a bit of a film critic. His main complaint was excessive use of fade out/fade in. While the use of various effects in AMVs are often for a different purpose than for film, on a second watch through I can see where he's coming from; it did seem to draw away from the focus of the video, and became a bit of a distraction (too much black over the course of watching).

Minor lip sync issues (eg: ~0:34).

Generally good, but weak in a few noticeable areas.

St. Ryuk - Serious Title is Serious - Audio edits hurt it; they were very noticeable, and pulled me out of the video. Overall theme felt workable, but scene selection felt weak. Hard to pick out specifics; just didn't hold together very well.

Cybervida - First question: Is there a penalty for use of live action (ie: the original music video)? Contest rules, article 3, 4.4: "The video entries may only use Japanese anime...".

However, as an abstract video, it was pretty cool. Can't really comment on theme and such since it doesn't really apply. All I can say is that what it does, it does very well.

I Was the King - Not familiar with the anime, so I'm sure there are subtle references I'm missing.

Seemed to take certain lyric references too literally, in matching up video for it.

Ending clip and fade felt very out of place, used only to fill the time requirement.

War Dimension - Technically very well done, but really felt like the song and the video had almost nothing to do with each other. Very difficult to critique beyond that.

No idea what to make of the intro anime segment. The brief colored segment in the middle seemed like it would have done well as the intro while keeping the anime consistent.


The Quackening - Solid match for general concept. A couple of the lyrics/effects seemed to be taken too literally (eg: shattered windows; the default effect is pretty bleh, but I know it's difficult to find a good effect of that type), but at the same time somewhat appropriate, given the source.

Good integration of secondary video sources (eg: Saki, Utena). Nifty underwater interlude.

Overall, very well done.

RAWRAWd - Had about 20 seconds of actual video? With the rest being the headbobbing background track. Not a withdrawal, but sadly probably should have. The handful of effects seen indicate it could have been a pretty good video on technical merits, though.





Top picks:
King of Hearts
The Quackening
Ringo Days

Runner up:
Cybervida (a top pick if not penalized for live footage)

Also, can you please start putting names with these file names? I'd like to know who's editing what?

Yes, a standard naming format would be nice. Something like:

Editor - Title [Round info].ext

EG: "Cecco - Magicarl Dansen [Quickening 1.D].mp4"
instead of "magicarl Dansen.avi-zarx264gui.mp4", or whatever other random bit of text is thrown together.

[Ileia]

The Quackening - Solid match for general concept. A couple of the lyrics/effects seemed to be taken too literally (eg: shattered windows; the default effect is pretty bleh, but I know it's difficult to find a good effect of that type), but at the same time somewhat appropriate, given the source.

Good integration of secondary video sources (eg: Saki, Utena). Nifty underwater interlude.

Overall, very well done.

The overly-literal lyric sync is intentional.
The shatter effect was not done by me, it's in the source. Aside from a few zooms/fades, the only "effect" I did was masking near the end.

[Kinematics]

The overly-literal lyric sync is intentional.
The shatter effect was not done by me, it's in the source. Aside from a few zooms/fades, the only "effect" I did was masking near the end.

Heh.

Obviously it's been way too long since I watched Excel Saga, then. Luckily this provided a bit of impetus to rewatch it with a friend