Muppets and Elfen Leid, how can you go wrong

[CHAMELEON_D_H]

Great job!

[AMV_4000]

what
the
hell???


loved it! brilliant!

coulda used a little bit more editing, but overall, nice job!

[Knowname]

Aaah I think I speak for everybody, but I was expecting 'it's not easy being green'. I mean, after you had said it was a sad song sung by a frog.

I was thinking WHY??!!! WRONG CHARACTER! I mean STAIR STAIR!!! This really shoulda' been done to lucy, I mean....

The end you sorta' pulled off a miricle though. Ya got me to stop curseing this vid in my mind ;p.... But the rest -> horrible, sorry to say. Maybe I'm not catching something and thinking of this WAY too logically.

[RutKiskasca]

WOW...these are some great comments. I feel compelled to respond to some of you.

I learned from my stepfather, who is an artist by trade and passion, that anything can be art, but not everything is. He taught me that one measure of art is the emotion it evokes in the observer. Whether it be love, hate, joy, sorrow, or any shade of these, the stronger the emotion, the more profound the piece. While I would not compare my videos to others, I hold up Ian's "Wired Hypnosis" video as a powerful example of misunderstood art. (Especially if you were in the room when he screened it at AWA!)

Let me start from the bottom and work up.

Knowname, yes Lucy just steps up and beats you in the face with the whole "Stairs" reference. This video, unlike my other recent videos, was not supposed to be about beating you in the face. There were lots of subtleties that were thought out and intentional.

Mayu is halfway down the stairs when you meet her. She's fallen almost all the way down, and been stopped at the last moment by the appearance of her dog. She climbs about halfway back up, and loses the dog, only to have it come back. She meets a new family, but doesn't feel good enough to burdeon them. She is never quite at the bottom or the top, always drifting to middle, and her whole life shows how miserable and tortured that can be.

The imagery to me was far more beautiful than a whole video of Lucy and her stairs. The lyrics were key to the decision. Every line was significant to the images in my heart.

It isn't in the nursery...Mayu being molested in her room.

All sorts of funny thoughts...Mayu's mother in denial about the molestation.

It isn't really anywhere, it's somewhere else instead...Mayu running to nowhere, and having nowhere that she belongs, and the use of the word "IT" describing her as a broken thing, less than human. It being the person, not the place.

The final chorus, "so this is the stair where I always..."

Stop...I tried to portray the dog showing back up to stop her from killing herself, but being too late.

Also showing her shoes pointed out to sea. I don't know how common this custom is, but in some Japanese homes, when guests come to visit, they place their shoes against the wall, but before departing, the host turns the shoes so the toes face away from the wearer, making them more convenient to put on when they leave. Mayu was leaving forever, and the toes of her shoes were pointed out in the direction of her final journey. I don't know how many people would get that, or even agree that it was meaningful, but it was emotional to me when I made it, so that's why I chose it.


AMV4000, says it needs more editing. I actually retouched a lot of this, down to the audio. the original track I have sounds like it is recorded from an old record player. There are needle pops and hisses in it all over the place. I ran it through adobe audition fairly meticulously to normalize it and dehiss and pop it. I nudged all the keyframes endlessly around, until I was happy with the transitions. You will notice that the piano and vocals don't match precisely in a lot of places. That's because Rolf the Dog is playing the piano, while Robin sings, and the ebbing and flowing of the tempo results in some unsynced entrances between the two. I wanted to reflect this duet motif in the transitions, not synching them up like a machine, but meandering with them a bit, kind of like a jazz improvisationalist would with a solo. One thing I wish I had done better on would be the post production filtering and mastering. There were some artifacts that I was not happy with from such an easy source.

I am most pleased with Warheart's reaction. It flatters me immensely that he has taken such note of my style, and the fact that I have made a great effort to change genre so much. (Humor, action, techno, hungarian techno, industrial, metal, live action, etc...) And, the fact that he hated it means that I provoked his emotions. If that was an opinion, I would definitely make it public.

Oh, and my wife loves it, and my best friend couldn't watch it all the way through. He said it was too disturbing.

Thank you all for watching it!

[Niotex]

its not THAT disturbing

[Rurounikeitaro]

Oh, forgot to say, I liked it

[Warheart]

I am most pleased with Warheart's reaction. It flatters me immensely that he has taken such note of my style, and the fact that I have made a great effort to change genre so much. (Humor, action, techno, hungarian techno, industrial, metal, live action, etc...) And, the fact that he hated it means that I provoked his emotions. If that was an opinion, I would definitely make it public.

Haha, good to see you're not thinking I just tried to be mean .

[Knowname]

Wow! thanks for your time both on this video and in your reply. I'm... just not good at catching stuff. I mean I caught that you were on to a very abtract way of describeing her stairs, it's just my brain rareley goes far enough out there to fully catch on ;p I don't really want beaten over the head, lord knows I HATE too much literal synch, it's just I like to have something to start with, something to come home to.

I dunno, seems to be a conflicting style. I love that you have very strong convictions though ;p must have something to do with the military lol.

[RutKiskasca]

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

[RutKiskasca]

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

lol...bad timing.

that was directed to Nio, and was a joke.

See, this is why you guys are so awesome. Warheart, Knowname, you are two big reasons why I love this community so much.

I'm gonna go hug a puppy...

Oh wait, the puppies here are breeding grounds for leishmanaisis. Maybe I'll just hug mself.