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Information

• Member: TaranT
• Studio: Studio Tarantella
• Title: Gina
• Premiered: 2004-04-09
• Categories:
  • Character Profile
  • Romance
• Song:
  • John Barry Somewhere In Time Theme
• Anime:
  • Porco Rosso
• Participation:
  • Anime Boston 2004, Anime Boston 2004 (2004-04-09)
  • Anime Weekend Atlanta EXPO AMV CONTEST, Anime Weekend Atlanta EXPO AMV CONTEST (2004-09-24)
• Comments: CD: "Somewhere In Time" Original Soundtrack (1980, re-released 1990)
  
  Keywords: romantic, sentimental, instrumental, slow pace
  
  Awards: Best Nostalgic at Anime Weekend Atlanta 10 (2004)
  
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  "Gina" is the first video I ever made way back in the winter of 2000. Although the concept was sound, the execution was only average and the video was never released. In late 2003 I rebuilt it from the ground up using region 2 footage. The concept is the same and about 80% of the scenes are the same as in the original. The entire project also benefits from 3+ years of experience in editing. In short, it looks much better and flows more smoothly from scene to scene.
  
  "Porco Rosso" is probably the only film from Hayao Miyazaki that is aimed at an audience of grown ups. And it's the only one with a romantic element in the story - meaning real romance as opposed to simple friendship which is common to all of Miyazaki's films. The feelings between Gina and Marco seem to be only a backdrop to the movie's plot, appearing as they do in only a handful of short scenes. After the film ends, however, I think it's clear that this bittersweet affair is all that matters. The pirates, the aircraft, the personal rivalry...all of that becomes background when the two of them look at each other for the last time.
  
  With this video, I tried to distill this romance from the surrounding story by focusing on one critical scene: Marco occasionally flies over Gina's island garden, and she has a bet with herself (with fate?) that one day he'll land his airplane and come to her. Every scene is chosen to contribute to this short story either as narrative or as emotional content or as both; there are no filler scenes and no time for any.
  
  The principal difficulty in the making of this AMV was trying to stretch scenes to last long enough for certain musical phrases. This led to some creative reconstruction that will hopefully be transparent to the viewer. I also used for the first time a new technique to solve the problem of stuttering video that had horizontal or vertical panning. A bit of color balancing (increase saturation, decrease gamma) brought back the color that did not survive the capturing process. And many hours were spent trying to get the crossfade transitions just right. I'm still not 100% satisfied with those.
  
  Lastly, about the music. I chose the theme from an old 1980 film called "Somewhere In Time" (Christopher Reeve & Jane Seymour starred). This movie featured scenes that were set in roughly the same time period as "Porco Rosso", the early 20th Century. The composer is John Barry who is always good for a cinematic romance theme - e.g. "Out of Africa" and "High Road To China", as well as several James Bond films.