AMV Review #53: Songbird21's Unbreakable

[Batto!]

you have to take in consideration the fact that editing isn't necessarily how long you spend on a single video, but the experience you've gained over the years and knowledge of how to edit that make the video good no?

[JaddziaDax]

What?

I've been using 6.0 for years and I've still yet to find myself limited in what I can or can't do in the effects apartment.

you are only limited by your own imagination.... O.o

[Kionon]

I am only responding to these for the benefit of the nicer ppl that participated in this chat such as Bash and Driftroot. After that I will ignore any future bashing comments about my vid.

We do not bash. I warned you ahead of time we could be harsh, and often were. Normally we do not tell the editor ahead of time. I told you, and I invited you out of respect. I very clearly said in the log that I do not know you personally. None of this is meant personally. This was a critique by a few of your peers. We saw value in dissecting your video. This does not reflect on you as a person. Nothing makes you more immune than any of the rest of us. You might consider reading Coundown's -review thread before you accuse me of bashing or dishing out what I can't handle. Art gets criticised, and sometimes, you don't like what you hear. That's how you get better. That's how you grow.

We aways choose examples from editors we think are capable or show potential. You are both capable and have great potential to be even better. I didn't feel this was your best work, but the implict compliment of choosing your video at all is there.

We cared, or else your video wouldn't have been chosen at all.

Godix can handle himself, so I'll only resond to my comments.

No. I picked them because the main characters push themselves no matter what the odds. And in case you hadn't noticed--Shana is not a popular anime.

I keep hearing about it. That doesn't change the other series I mentioned. And Bashar called it knowng your audience. Are you saying he's wrong?

Amazing how you can say this kind of crap without knowing me. I worked my ass off on this vid. At one point for nearly 35 hours straight. And the reason I wound up so short on time to finish it was because I initially thought the contest deadline was further off. And you try making a vid fast when you have a 7 year old child and tons of art comission works. Not to mention one of the comissions being a rush order.

Context. I don't have to know you. I know it takes a five second AVS script to correct for AR and letterboxing. I know this because I write such scripts every single day. If you don't know how, that's one thing, but I think evidence shows you do. And earlier comments are still relevant: you could have made org-version corrections before announcing the video. I wasn't at Boston. I would not have known the difference. So tell me: why didn't you? Unless you just didn't care. Your child is more important. Your income is more important. No one will argue that. It just means your effort was elsewhere; not on fixing those errors I mentioned. No one is judging your worth as a person for making such a decision. I'd have made the same decision, but I wouldn't be angry when people point out that I did so.

No. I don't. And as far as filtering goes, I was using a lot of new AVISynth filters I'd never tried before. And my God, you'd think there were giant boxes all over the screen the way you guys went on about it. Picky much?

This was a serious question. If you had training I would have been harsher still. And why have a review at all if you can't be picky? Why have o-p-i-n-i-o-n-s? Why give scores? Why share at all? Why write literary criticism or have a fine arts column in a newspaper? I treated your video with respect by criticising it. If it wasn't worth my time to do so, I wouldn't have done it. Criticising your video helps the dialogue and helps the community move forward. Aren't you at all proud to have contributed to that?

And I didn't just "throw" in drama. I used drama where the song called for it. It's called "using the lyrics". The song itself is a mix of moods.

I disgreed that the song called for it when you used the style that you did. DriftRoot disagreed with me. These are o-p-i-n-i-o-n-s. Not facts. Your mileage may, and likely will, vary.

And as far as me "taking things personally". How do you expect somone to read comments like yours about a video they put their heart into and not take it personally?

I do it every day. I remember that SOBE was by a KOR fan for KOR fans, and no one else understood it. I moved on. I remember watching in horror as people cocked their heads in confusion as Popularity was played. I moved on. I let people see betas of Minmay 2.0 and hear that it basically just isn't funny and pretty much bores people. I move on and keep editing it. What makes you so special? I take it personally sure, and I have some emo moments. We all do. But if we're artists, we get back on the horse, and we keep going. You've been at this long enough I shouldn't have to explain that to you. Some of the best advice I ever received came in the form of harsh criticism. I am a better journalist, a better novelist, a better politician, and a better editor for having been subjected to such criticism. I feel you too can beneft from what is posted here. Everyone can.

[godix]

I was gonna let it be but I'm bored and have kio's example to follow so...

It wouldn't have worked with a single anime. There wouldn't be enough of the right kind of scenery. And the reason I chose the number of shows that I did was because I had a different opening sequence in mind initially that matched the number of opening beats.

Naruto alone is over 200 episodes and Bleach is over 150. Are you seriously telling me that out of 350 episodes you couldn't have found the right footage to limit this to just 2 anime? Assuming, of course, making it a single anime with just 150 or 200 available episodes was just too limiting. I don't believe you.

I doubt it was an intentional contrast with your vid but I do find it interesting that the bonus video tonight was a well done drama that present emotion and made it's meaning clear to at least one reviewer who hadn't seen the source. The bonus did this using only half an hour of source. And you expect anyone to believe you couldn't do it with two hundred times that amount of source?

I don't care what you guys think. The AR isn't that bad. Talk about nitpicky.

The AR is that bad. It's really is as simple as 'is the AR correct?' In this case it isn't. There isn't anymore to this issue than that, honest. It's an easy to fix technical mistake. It isn't an artistic choice nor is it an impossible demand to expect the correct AR. You screwed up, plain and simple, and you decided to release it to the masses anyway. Once it's been pointed out to you that it's a mistake your attitude is basically 'oh who cares'. Well everyone who pointed it out to you for starters. And if you really did 'put your heart' into it as you say you did then you should care as well. It's an easily correctable mistake. Instead of correcting it, or asking how to correct it if you don't know, you try pretending it isn't important. It is important. If nothing else it serves as example of how little 'putting your heart' into a video really means.

I am an old school editor. I don't put insane FX in my vids (I might try it if I did a pure dance vid, but I digress). I go for simplicity. I also am stuck with Adobe premiere 6.5 (Not pro) so my choices are a bit limited.

Uh, did you watch your video? Hell you start off with colored lensflares. It's hardly 'simplicity' or, for that matter, old school. Kionon does old school, not you. For the record, I have premiere 6.5 and the only effect I've ever seen in AMVs that I couldn't emulate in it are the insane 3dish effects. Even then the transform filter and keyframing could do a halfass job of it. The problem isn't your program limits you but that you limit yourself.

And I didn't just "throw" in drama. I used drama where the song called for it. It's called "using the lyrics". The song itself is a mix of moods.

The song does has slower parts, that I'll grant you. Still doesn't mean the drama was well done, fit the video, or flowed well with the faster bits. I think your drama bits and upbeat bits didn't flow well into each other and were jarring enough to seriously destroy enjoyment of the video. Other people may think otherwise but oh well, I still think the drama bits killed the upbeat and the upbeat bits killed the drama. The attempted comedy killed everything but you apparently removed that later so nevermind.

And as far as me "taking things personally". How do you expect somone to read comments like yours about a video they put their heart into and not take it personally?

Perhaps listen to them? Figure out why they didn't like your video and what could be done to improve in the future? Maybe even just not trying to blow off the slightest criticism no matter how legit? Yeah, I bashed the video. Not surprising, I tend to view my hobby as insulting things more than watching/making amvs. But I'm the only one yet to bash the video. Everyone else I have seen has presented reasonably well formed reasons as to what they thought with flaws. Hell, even I gave you reasons although admittedly I did so crudely. Don't dismiss everyone as being nitpicky or bashing. It's rather arrogant and rude to offhandedly dismiss people who take your work seriously enough to talk about it beyond the 'she sux' level.

(slight edit, I just remembered sto. Ok, make that two people bashing your video. Still doesn't change what I said about your attitude towards those who didn't)

At any rate. I love my vid. You may not understand it, but oh well. So say whatever you want. I'm happy with my vid and that's all that matters.

That's the first thing you've said that I'll agree with. If you did it for yourself and you like it then none of our opinions matter. OTOH if you did this just for yourself you wouldn't have uploaded it for us to see either.




As a total side note with the april fools day avatar thing going on I was kinda hoping this avatar would pop up on your post. Sadly it didn't.

[Yok/0]

Surprised I didn't see this at the end of your video.


Godix failed to mention Inuyasha in that pile,you had the arsenal of footage there as well.

This isn't a debate rather "you should've used these certain clips" but rather "You mean to tell me this is all I could grab from all my sources".

this means 1 or 2 things.

1. That most if not half of the number were fillers.
2. Bleach/Naruto/Inu are practically lesiban love letters to the king of all Canon Whores, DBZ. Where The Villin pitches a baseball and it takes 3 episodes for the impact it'l cause on the protagonist's cranium.

[DriftRoot]

One thing I would like to say, which I touched on briefly in #review, but I think is worth mentioning again, is that awhile back a lot of us were deliberately moving away from focusing so much on the technical aspects of videos we reviewed because it was getting in the way of discussion about the rest of the AMV. This led to debate over how technical the .ORG is when it comes to determining an AMV's value, etc. The topic has come up recently with other videos as well, the most obvious offender being Spoil.

On the surface, last night we all did exactly what we previously said was not good - crawling in and out of an AMV's technical aspects as if that's all that mattered. But this #review session is actually a very good example of how technical things can be discussed in terms of their effect on an AMV overall, way above and beyond "I like this effect" or "that was a bad effect." This discussion was about what kind of response the technical aspects of this AMV engendered in the viewers, and it wasn't a "that was a bad effect" response - it was a feeling that something was WRONG and shouldn't have been. (This feeling takes many forms, read the #review log).

What most people seemed upset by was how the technical choices didn't match up with the editor's capabilities/knowledge. The general consensus was that the editor should have known better, so we tried to figure out why this AMV turned out the way it did. This is where it got kind of personal, for lack of a better word, but hey: if you put your work out there then other people are going to judge it. If you don't want it judged badly, then do everything possible to avoid that situation. In this case, everything possible was obviously not done and that left the door wide WIDE open for criticism. It shouldn't be surprising to people when things walk through that door.

I just called myself a thing. -_-

[Songbird21]

We do not bash. I warned you ahead of time we could be harsh, and often were. Normally we do not tell the editor ahead of time. I told you, and I invited you out of respect.

Yes. And out of respect to you I stayed away because I knew it would have caused problems.

I very clearly said in the log that I do not know you personally. None of this is meant personally.

And yet you continually made comments about my character. "She obviously didn't try" that is a character dig unless you know a person.

Nothing makes you more immune than any of the rest of us.

I never said that.

Art gets criticised, and sometimes, you don't like what you hear. That's how you get better. That's how you grow.

I'm aware of this. But as I've said before, critisism should be constructive.

We aways choose examples from editors we think are capable or show potential. You are both capable and have great potential to be even better. I didn't feel this was your best work, but the implict compliment of choosing your video at all is there. We cared, or else your video wouldn't have been chosen at all.

Thank you. I appreaciate that. In fact, if you'd said something like this at the begining of the chat I might not have reacted as much as I did.

I keep hearing about it. That doesn't change the other series I mentioned. And Bashar called it knowng your audience. Are you saying he's wrong?

Yep. And it's funny cause he should know better after being my friend for so long. I never choose series because of popularity.

Context. I don't have to know you. I know it takes a five second AVS script to correct for AR and letterboxing.

I had no idea such a script existed. My scripting knowledge is limited to what my friends write for me. In fact, until this vid I had used only the internal Vdub filters.

No one is judging your worth as a person for making such a decision. I'd have made the same decision, but I wouldn't be angry when people point out that I did so.

Again, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And I had less than a week to collect my footage from 7 different series. To a lot of people it would have been a week, but with all the other things in my life it translates to about 2 days. I worked until I was falling asleep sitting up.

And why have a review at all if you can't be picky?

It wasn't it being mentioned that resulted in my rebuttle statement. It was that it was a beaten dead horse by the time you were done talking about it.

Why have o-p-i-n-i-o-n-s?

And why discuss if you don't expect a rebuttle. Isn't that what a debate is about?

Criticising your video helps the dialogue and helps the community move forward. Aren't you at all proud to have contributed to that?

I suppose, to a degree, but it still could have been done in a less demeaning manner.

I let people see betas of Minmay 2.0 and hear that it basically just isn't funny and pretty much bores people. I move on and keep editing it. What makes you so special?

I never said I was special, but you have to understand that I'm not you. I react differently to situations because were are different people.

The bonus did this using only half an hour of source. And you expect anyone to believe you couldn't do it with two hundred times that amount of source?

First of all. See? I knew you were capable of civilized conversation. Anywho. It is much easier to make a vid with one source. Anyone knows that. And you don't even know what kinds of things I needed. I needed shows with creditless openings and endings because I wanted to show footage that isn't commonly used. One or two shows wouldn't have cut it. As it was I was scraping the bottom of the barrel for footage by the time I was near the end. And many people have commented that they loved the emotion in my vid. If you don't see it that's fine. It's just a difference in the way people percieve things.

Once it's been pointed out to you that it's a mistake your attitude is basically 'oh who cares'. Well everyone who pointed it out to you for starters.

Now this confuses me. You say I'm being defensive when I respond to things and yet you complain when I ignore something. Make up your mind, please.

If nothing else it serves as example of how little 'putting your heart' into a video really means.

The AR has nothing to do with what I put into my editing.

Uh, did you watch your video? Hell you start off with colored lensflares. It's hardly 'simplicity' or, for that matter, old school.

Lol. It is compared to the stuff that's out nowadays. DoKool is constantly trying to get me do do a heck of a lot more.

The problem isn't your program limits you but that you limit yourself.

I already explained that one in a different response so I'll leave this alone.

It's rather arrogant and rude to offhandedly dismiss people who take your work seriously enough to talk about it beyond the 'she sux' level.

If something doesn't bother me why should I say otherwise? That's not being rude. And I responded to several people by agreeing with them.

OTOH if you did this just for yourself you wouldn't have uploaded it for us to see either.

I uploaded it because I knew people from the con would want to download it and also I like to share. Sharing doesn't make it any less for myself.

As a total side note with the april fools day avatar thing going on I was kinda hoping this avatar would pop up on your post. Sadly it didn't.

*Sigh* Well, at least you made it to the end of the post before you resorted to this kind of thing.

[JaddziaDax]

Once it's been pointed out to you that it's a mistake your attitude is basically 'oh who cares'. Well everyone who pointed it out to you for starters.

Now this confuses me. You say I'm being defensive when I respond to things and yet you complain when I ignore something. Make up your mind, please.

When you brush off technical stuff that is either right or wrong (there are only two choices when it comes to Aspect Ratio - either you got it right or you got it wrong) it it only makes you seem more defensive. I believe the term is called Passive Aggressive when you actively "don't care".

I can understand being like this from an artistic point of view: "I didn't like the circles" "Yea well I did thats why I put them there", because technically neither opinio<b></b>n is right or wrong. With something like a stretched aspect ratio, it's either right or wrong. You have the wrong aspect ratio isn't an op<b></b>inion. However, how much that bothers someone might be considered an opi<b></b>nion.


Fixes through Avisynth:

LanczosResize(0,0)

(replace the 0's with width,height)

Crop(0,0,-0,-0)

(left,top,right,bottom)

learn these filters, they are your friends O:

[JaddziaDax]

bahs my attempts to get around april fools failed!

[Niotex]

This video touched my core of existence. People shouldn't bitch about "technical shortcomings, useless effects and/or rubbish concepts". As clearly nobody here knows what the fuck they are talking about. Therefor I disagree with every statement made in this review by these incompetent people whom call themselves reviewers.