Nausicaa-Truly New AMV by Kiskasca Productions

[RutKiskasca]

I have been waiting to make this AMV for 17 years, and now it is finally done. Please check it out and leave me an opinion. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts.

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... hp?v=57911

[dokool]

Well, here's my first thought - What's wrong with the aspect ratio and why is there a big black border around the video?

[TaranT]

I have been waiting to make this AMV for 17 years, and now it is finally done. Please check it out and leave me an opinion. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts.

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... hp?v=57911

Just a suggestion to fix your comments section. What you saw on HBO was called "Warriors of the Wind", and I don't believe Disney was involved. According to nausicaa.net it was a New World Pictures production:

Q: What is wrong with "Warriors of the Wind"?

New World Pictures felt it could only be marketed as a kid's action movie, so they cut out about a quarter of the movie (the parts they felt were "slow moving") and garbled the storyline in the process. Nausicaä was changed to "Princess Zandra". The voice actors and actresses...said later that they were never told what the story was about and so the acting was substandard. Miyazaki was horrified when he found out what they had done to his film, and Ghibli asks everyone to forget that this version ever existed. Fortunately, New World Video's rights to Nausicaä expired in 1995.

A Google search will pull up more info if you're interested.

[RichLather]

The aspect ratio is a bit off, just enough so to be noticable and distracting.

And maybe Rut will explain for sure, but the black border seems to allow space for the "bump" effects to occur. That said, some cropping and resizing to fix the aspect ratio and the dead space around the main picture would be beneficial.

Overall, I liked it. The lyrics were generally adhered to and video edits to the lyrics were very poignant in a lot of places. That can't have been too easy to do and still maintain the general chronological pace of the footage.

It seemed to me, however, that a lot of the bump and ripple effects just kinda...stopped close to the end. Oh, and also there's about 20 seconds of dead space at the end that ought to be trimmed.

[AquaSky]

I'm really impressed with this one. Even never having seen Nausicaa, I enjoyed it. Also, you matched the effects and transitions exceptionally well with the pace of the music. There was enough story to get a good grip on the overall plot, which was an achievement given the amount of action there is in the video. It seems like you've put a lot of work and heart into this video, and it shows. A job well done, my friend.

[RutKiskasca]

I tried to use effects rather judiciously. I wanted them to be subtle, and blend with the scene, rather than overpowering the frame. I know exactly what you are talking about when you say they "seem to stop early." I thought that they were a bit more "organic" and less mechanical cutting them where they were. Yeah, the border was for room for the bump effects, and I didn't want to resize the video after the opening part to take out the border. Also, I had put a lot more effects into it in the middle and end, and I decided that the effects were far too distracting, so I trimmed them WAY back. It was turning into an effects video, rather than a serious emotional video, and people were noticing in the betas that there were way too many effects. I'm also kind of experimenting with different aspect ratios, just to play around a bit. This was a learning process, and since it was that distracting, it may not be something that I repeat in future videos. Thanks for the input!

[dokool]

I'm also kind of experimenting with different aspect ratios, just to play around a bit. This was a learning process, and since it was that distracting, it may not be something that I repeat in future videos. Thanks for the input!

It's one thing to try different aspect ratios (i.e. cropping a 4:3 anime and using it in a 16:9 AMV), but you shouldn't distort the actual image (beyond cropping, of course, in the process. It was just distracting to me because the characters all looked stretched, but I know how easy it is to get it wrong (my first work with anamorphic ended in partial tragedy) so I can understand where you're coming from.