+ Easy to tell you really do love the original
+ Good source selection for copycat purposes
- Effects work
- The meaning from the original is lost
- Bad Text. Wut r u doing? BAD TEXT! STAAAAAHP!
Original Video
While I'm not a huge VNV fan this video was pretty enjoyable. It made all of us watching nostalgic for the days when video game AMVs with a lot of love and dedication in them were a common occurrence. We've gone from seeing massive amounts on a regular basis to basically none. :<
But anyhoo, it's a pretty neat video and was actually the only one out of the bunch that I hadn't seen before. Being an FF8 fan it gave me plenty of feels and like I said, made us all nostalgic for those classic GMVs.
The Remake
To start with, for such a somber and depressing video, advertising with the fact that it's "powered by linux" and it's goofy penguin mascot is a very...odd choice to say the least. It's like marketing the tearjerker movie of the year by having silly puppets come on screen and narrate the trailer.
Casshern was a pretty great choice in source to match the bleak and desolate scenes from FF8. Definite feels and sad death times match that should work successfully....But what's this?! Whoa-ho-ho! You're on a new gameshow Casshern Cam! The Gameshow where the most emo little bitch wins the perfect grey landscape to stare off into while they examine the depths of their soul! Provided by MS Paint.
What I'm getting at is that it looks like some kind of goofy media player or watermark, one made in MS Paint at that. Why is there a Casshern logo? Does he have his own action figure too?
The camera in the original video played a major part in building the dramatic atmosphere. What is going to happen when the counter reaches zero? There isn't much battery life left so how will it end? And finally when everything is erased and they begin rebuilding and recording again, right before the battery goes out...That is some of the magic that really set the original video apart from the other FF8 videos out there. It created it's own storyline mechanic and I personally think it used it incredibly well. Yet with this video, if it wasn't for the original I would have no idea what the Casshern logo and play button are supposed to be. Then it randomly deletes everything and that's kind of it. There is no reason for the viewer to ask "What is going to happen?" because they probably don't even realize they're looking at memories or a recording.
Now let's move onto the text aspect. In the original video it made sense because it's calling back to the lines associated with the game and it's opening credit sequence. They were on screen long enough to take in and they faded out smoothly. Your attempt at recreating them did not go so well. They fade in incredibly fast and are gone in the blink of an eye. This combined with the horrible grammar and the fact that the text is dimmed left me saying "What the fuck was that?" The changing font and random text locations didn't help either. I think it's time you were introduced to the
title safe area...
Beyond that the story was rather muddled. I get that Casshern and the girl have some semi-romantic sad times going on, but what does the kid have to do with it? Is that supposed to be their lovechild or something? Those scenes should have been cut out and more focus on their relationship needed to be added. The song is incredibly long and would have benefited from a song cut. The editing itself is incredibly slow even when the song picks up, but then again this was a problem that was shared with the original video too.
I can tell you really adored the original and you wanted to emulate it the best you could, but you didn't know how. I give you kudos for going against the grain and sticking with what you love by selecting a video that isn't that well known but is something you enjoy. The heart is willing but the skill isn't there
yet.
t had to be said: the world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrifice.
