Manga AMV, Yuki Kaoris Boys Next Door, "Cruel" by

staces · Post by **staces** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:08 pm

Hey I have spent the past year off and on making a manga AMV (and noooo it's not a "slide show" I assure you!) for Boys Next Door, a short manga by Yuki Kaori (the creator of Angel Sanctuary). It's done to the song "Cruel" by Tori Amos. I know that the song is a little overdone but it fits the footage so well. Anyways, this AMV took over 400 stills edited in Photoshop, but I think that it was worth the effort in the end, I hope that you'll give it a chance.

Anyone who leaves an opinon (a fair one, not an all 1s just because it's got shounen-ai) is welcome to ask for one in return. =)

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... p?v=128085

Anyways, without further adieu enjoy! =)

dj_ultima_the_great · Post by **dj_ultima_the_great** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:21 pm

Ooooh... I adore the illustration in Angel Sanctuary (and I adore the manga itself!), so I'm definitely downloading this. I've been wanting to see a manga music video recently, too. Unfortunately... I'm overloaded on videos right now. Once I knock off a few star ratings I'll come back. Promise! ^_^

- Jen

YouTube · Post by **Ileia** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 1:57 am

I enjoyed the colour scheme, the sync and the masking, definitely one of the better manga music videos that I've seen. Good job, Staces.

staces · Post by **staces** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 1:01 pm

Ooooh... I adore the illustration in Angel Sanctuary (and I adore the manga itself!), so I'm definitely downloading this. I've been wanting to see a manga music video recently, too. Unfortunately... I'm overloaded on videos right now. Once I knock off a few star ratings I'll come back. Promise! ^_^

Yeah, Yuki Kaori's art is awesome. ^^ I hope that you like my vid when you get a chance to watch it, no rush. =) Also, since I've seen you around the Opexchange forum, if you want we can trade opinions?

I enjoyed the colour scheme, the sync and the masking, definitely one of the better manga music videos that I've seen. Good job, Staces.

Hey, thanks a lot! I'm glad that you liked it. But I just have a question. Not to sound like a total dolt but what exactly is masking? I know it's something people do in Premiere (and probably other better programs than my stinky WMM2) but I'm not sure. ^^;;

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 11:16 pm

That was wicked, Staces.

That manga is so screwed up. I don't know why so many yaoi stories have to be so screwed up.

The song fit great, though I admit I still flash back to a certain YnM vid when I hear it. I have this whole "Cruel = Muraki" link hardwired into my brain. It'll take a few viewings of this on repeat before I can really appreciate the match.

Some of the pans seemed a little jerky, or blocky around the edges. Did you edit the pics at 640x480 or larger/smaller before taking them to video? Just curious. I love the way you layered scenes, like using a close up of the boy over the bedroom scene, or the way you cut scenes into pieces so you could pan the smaller strips across the screen. Just a lot of creative things in the way you put the stills to motion. It was cool looking.

I like the reds, and that you added color for the eyes. It contrasted well with the b/w scenes. My only complaint? I sort of wish you'd colored that last scene of them on the roof. If you'd done it in full color, anime style, I think the impact at the end would be wicked cool, and not just cool.

staces · Post by **staces** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 11:29 pm

That was wicked, Staces. That manga is so screwed up. I don't know why so many yaoi stories have to be so screwed up.

Wicked in a good way right? And well EVERYTHING by Yuki Kaori is at least a little screwed up isn't it? ^_^ And yes, there does seem to be a larger percentage of screwed up YAOI than het out there. Curious...

The song fit great, though I admit I still flash back to a certain YnM vid when I hear it. I have this whole "Cruel = Muraki" link hardwired into my brain. It'll take a few viewings of this on repeat before I can really appreciate the match.

That's where I first heard the song actually.... I didn't really want to use this song, but the more frames I made the more this song became connected to my idea until I just couldn't use anything else, ya know?

Some of the pans seemed a little jerky, or blocky around the edges. Did you edit the pics at 640x480 or larger/smaller before taking them to video?

They were all edited at 640, but A) WMM2 had a lot of issues with this vid and putting it together nicely for me and B) Prior to starting this project I'd never used photoshop before so some of it was just me learning how to make stuff. Kind of how like on your Dark Half AMV the parts you made later were better than the IY scene you made first. =) But hey, it's all about learning right? Did you ever work more on more original art AMVs?

I like the reds, and that you added color for the eyes. It contrasted well with the b/w scenes. My only complaint? I sort of wish you'd colored that last scene of them on the roof. If you'd done it in full color, anime style, I think the impact at the end would be wicked cool, and not just cool.

I'm glad that the color worked well, it was just too plain black and white and I really wanted it to look uniform and put together. Glad the color (And the eye colors) worked. =)

I hadn't even thought of coloring the last panel. Dammit I should've done that! Oh well. It's a good idea and I'll have to add it to my arsenal if I ever make a project like this one again. Thanks!

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 11:45 pm

staces wrote:Wicked in a good way right?

In a mutant turtle way. You know, wicked, bodacious, totally tubular?

They were all edited at 640, but A) WMM2 had a lot of issues with this vid and putting it together nicely for me and B) Prior to starting this project I'd never used photoshop before so some of it was just me learning how to make stuff. Kind of how like on your Dark Half AMV the parts you made later were better than the IY scene you made first. =)

Yeah. Did you use virtualdub for the pans? If you export the pictures as bmp or tga, vdub's 'logo filter' works great for that sort of thing, so you can have all the footage in avi (huffyuv) format by the time you take it to wmm. My wmm stopped accepting picture files years ago, so turning everything into video first probably avoided a lot of wmm-caused problems. As for the 'learning as you go'...I didn't see any sections that really seemed below the rest. It was all pretty uniform coolness. I started a new manga vid, but it didn't go anywhere. I couldn't come up with a combination style to fit the song - that's why I like the way you combined scenes in this vid, it had a style of its own all the way through. Lots of layers and motion, and it didn't look chaotic at all. Had beat sync, fit the mood/story, and looked good (reds/blood) with the singer's voice.

staces · Post by **staces** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 12:20 am

Yeah. Did you use virtualdub for the pans? If you export the pictures as bmp or tga, vdub's 'logo filter' works great for that sort of thing, so you can have all the footage in avi (huffyuv) format by the time you take it to wmm. My wmm stopped accepting picture files years ago, so turning everything into video first probably avoided a lot of wmm-caused problems. As for the 'learning as you go'...I didn't see any sections that really seemed below the rest. It was all pretty uniform coolness. I started a new manga vid, but it didn't go anywhere. I couldn't come up with a combination style to fit the song - that's why I like the way you combined scenes in this vid, it had a style of its own all the way through. Lots of layers and motion, and it didn't look chaotic at all. Had beat sync, fit the mood/story, and looked good (reds/blood) with the singer's voice.

I tried to download and use virtual dub but it didn't work for me at ALL and it messed with the way my other media programs worked so I deleted it. =/ I'm a WMM2 through and through. I can't figure out Premiere and maybe I'm an idiot but the guides just don't compute with my meager brain. Oh well ^_^;;

Thank you for the notes on style, I am glad that it worked.

For years and YEARS I have seen soooo many AMVs made with Premiere and After FX that have so many cool boxes and movments and stuff that I could never do in WMM or WMM2. But then I noticed that you were a fellow crappy-software user but you didn't let program limitations stop you from acheiving cool effects, so I decided that if one of my favorite editors can put the effort into manually editing frames for the sake of YAOI then I guess that I could too (because YAOI is worth it! XD)

Thanks again! I'm glad that you liked it. I like all your stuff so to make something you like makes me feel like I'm giving back a little for all of then entertainment you've given me.... God that's mushy. =)

dj_ultima_the_great · Post by **dj_ultima_the_great** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 12:08 am

Eeep. Sorry. Took me a bit to actually watch this. I kept forgetting I had downloaded it. ^_^;;

Anyway, besides saying "that was freakin' cool," I'm gonna leave my thoughts to you in an opinion (since you asked so friendly...ly... o_O ) I don't have anything I really need opped at the moment, so if you like, just let this be a freebie. ^_~

I'll get to writing it on Thursday, since that's my off day from classes.

- Jen

Moonlight Soldier · Post by **Moonlight Soldier** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 10:21 am

I always like downloading manga amvs to see exactly what people do with them. As an Angel Sanctuary fan I just had to see what this was about.

It really surprised me, because there were parts of the video where my eyes widened at how eerie and creepy it became.

Good work. oO'