GOOD
Ok, now I know what you are thinking:
"What did I do to this guy to have such a bad review for my video?"
Well, I'm really not for harsh or flaming reviews... I'll try to explain clearly what I think of this video, what in my point of view is good and what should be improved. Ready to go?
Before I could build any kind of opinion on this video I tried to watch it three or four times without prejudice of any type. I've just cleared my mind and thought "this is not a dragonball Z / linkin park video".
It worked for the first 15 seconds ^^;
But it's not your video which is _that_ bad, believe me. It's just that you incurred in the usual pitfalls of AMV making (especially with this kind of subject).
But let's start with order. Since this box is about good stuff, let's see what is well done in your video.
First of all, even if there are another ton of Vegeta tributes, I have to say that focusing on a single character for all the video has been probably a good idea. Too much times you see dbz videos full o' stuff that is going on without any apparent reason... the problem is that the series has really _too_ much to fit everything in one video (and many people simply don't realize it :p).
So here we have got a Vegeta video... uhm, Vegeta is my favourite dbz character, you know? I think that is probably the only one with some kind of thicker charaterization: he really stands up above all the others... but this is more about the series than about your video, I know ^^
In full honesty I have to say that I haven't completely disliked your editing style. The pace of the images flows well with the song, and your cuts seem to be (almost) all in place. The video is also quite packed with action, so (especially for dbz fans) it could result in an entairtaining show indeed.
To dwell a little bit more into the technical side, let's examine the points I liked more in the video:
0:10 - probably very stupid for the most part of the people, but that shot of Vegeta sitting in the train is really fitting with the music
1:36 the lens of the glasses blowing is right on the spot
1:45 the "residual images" effect looks cool in this point
2:31 the transition is quite cheesy but works good and is very well timed
2:57 the interleaved scene looks good and manages to support the mood of the song in that point
The ending is quite well timed also... and I also liked the timing when your final bumper kicks in. Hmmmm... I think that I'm done with this box. Now I'll go to lunch and I'll finish the rest later ^^
BAD
And now the bad news...
I personally don't dislike Linkin Park: they don't do my favourite type of music, this is true, but I haven't developed a deep hate towrds them as some other people in this site :p
And I have to say that some of their songs (Crawling included) have lyrics which can actually match pretty well many types of anime. My question is now: have you tried to turn those lyrics to your advantage inside this video?
As you can understand this is a rethoric question: infact the most part of the time you seem not putting attention to what the lyrics suggest, launching yourself in what I call the "crazy times" editing (basically throwing some random scenes over the music).
I am not so proud to announce you that you've fallen into the pitfall #1 of AMV making:
"This song is cool, this anime is cool: let's make a video out of them"
I know that you wanted to make more specifically a Vegeta tribute, but your idea fades away in a succession of clips (almost) uncorrelated one with another. But let's give a closer look to the video:
0:54 "There's something inside me that pulls beneath the surface". The image is completely off place with this line.
1:02 "This lack of self control I fear is never ending". Another time a random scene where you could have put millions of more fitting clips (do you want to tell me that there is nothing where Vegeta shows "lack of self control"? :p)
1:13 "My walls are closing in..." maybe we can see some kind of metaphor here, but the scene with Brolly isn't really fitting, sorry.
~1:20 "I felt this way before, so insecure". Another time an example of a bad scene selection. I haven't watched the series and I haven't watched the movies: I've only read the manga... but still I can think of one million of scenes fitting better this lyric than the one you've chosen.
I could go on like this for almost all the duration of the video and find out each single "random" scene I see... but you probably don't want to hear that, and I think I already made my point.
As you can see this video suffers greatly of a lack of planning, and let me tell you: in the end it _does_ really matter this time :p
After watching it a couple of times I went back to the video description to find out some details about the cration process you followed for this AMV. And I found out that
"I made this video in 4 hours or something..."
Oh great, that explains everything. If you make a video in four mere hours then you can't have that much planning behind it, no? :p
But with this I don't intend to criticize you in any way... I only want to make you understand that making an AMV is like making a composition. You should have a subject, and some ideas that you develop during the course of your creation which will end up in some kind of conclusion.
This video, instead, has no point at all: it's just a bunch of clips over one song (pretty well timed, I give this to you)... and this is disarming since the song gives you dozens of hooks to put some meaningful stuff.
I think that this is the biggest issue I have against this video (as most of the other dbz / LP videos). Minor issues concern editing (good but not so great in some points) and audio / video quality in general. But it's all stuff you can deal with if you are not discouraged by the (*thunder crackles*) combo used in this AMV.
GENERAL
Ok, here we go to the part I like less: the ratings. Here you will understand more _why_ I chose those number to grade your video.
Here we go:
ORIGINALITY: well, I didn't put 1 just because the editing doesn't suck and you portraited Vegeta which is one of the most interesting characters in the series. But the video doesn't really add anything new to the 136 dbz/lp videos already listed here (among which 19 are dbz / crawling videos)
VIDEO QUALITY: I've seen worse this is true. But the mixed bag of tv series / movies clips is quite annoying (the image keep switching from widescreen to fullscreen) and some of the footage doesn't look so good (download, uh? :p)
AUDIO QUALITY: I wasn't blown away that's sure. But compared to the small file size I think it's not that bad.
ACTION SYNC: the best part of the video, really. At least you can watch it without saying "Oh my god!! How could he possibly have missed THAT BEAT?!?!?"
LIP SYNC: Haven't seen any (or they are worst that I can possibly imagine :p) so the score is set to N/A
DIGITAL EFFECTS: I was tempted to set the score to N/A also, but if you did the "residual image" effect then you deserve something. Aside from that the video doesn't present anything special (basically some layering and cross fades) so the score is on the average (five).
EFFORT: Let's see what our friend Phade says about this field "1 = Followed the music + random scenes = video blunder". Hmmmm... at least the randomness of the scenes is confined to only one character, so I think that the score should not be really one. But you should put more work into your storytelling and assembling if you want to score well here.
OVERALL: My friend AbsoluteDestiny once said: "Doing dbz linkin park amvs to random clips is like trying to do a cover version of your fave song by air guitaring. You have lots of fun but to everyone else it's the worst rendition os rock n roll they've ever witnessed". I think that this sentence explains pretty much my feeling towards this video.
RE-VIEW: Just another dragonball / linkin park video. Maybe better edited, but still with nothing to pull it over the mass of other similar videos. I won't probably watch it again.
Alright, I think this is pretty much it. I hope I haven't killed your enthusiasm in AMV making with this review, but I've expressed my opinion in full honesty. Work hard on your next videos, try to find a solid concept and increase the audio visual quality: eventually you will make very good AMVs
Good luck!
So what's the general opinion here?
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