Information
- Member: Kevin Caldwell (proxy)
- Title: Believe
- Premiered: 2000-07-01
- Categories:
-
Song:
- Franka Potente Believe
- Anime:
- Participation:
-
Comments:
Originally premiered at Anime Expo 2000.
the following is a copy of an email Kevin sent to the yahoo amv mailing list shortly after the premiere:
From: "Kevin Caldwell"
Date: Thu Jul 6, 2000 1:50 am
Subject: Re: [amv] Re: AX2K Contest Impressions
Mark Neidengard wrote:
> > Kevin Caldwell, Believe by ???, footage from Battle Athletes
The song's by Franka Potente.
> > In the words of a friend of
> > mine, this video "makes me want to watch a series I had written
> > off as crap",
Interesting, and not the first comment along those lines that I've
heard. Ironically enough, I came extremely close to not even
entering this video, since I thought (and still do) that it did a
great disservice to an anime that I felt was quite enjoyable. (Of
course, I'm talking about the TV series here; the OAV was nothing
special.)
I actually consider that the second most embarrassing thing that I've
ever created. My ultimate shame comes from the truly awful
Goldeneye/VP Miyu video. Many times I have wished for someone to
record their favorite bits of the Oprah show over that master (in SLP
of course, so it dies a slow, painful death), but the gods
continually laugh at me. Maybe it's because I don't have cable...
Joe Croasdaile wrote:
> heheh you thought this was best of show... first off I really liked
> some of the effects, but some were way over done and I thought
> detracted from the video. I would not say "flawless" because I
> thought the first ten seconds had cheesy/nasty apparant effects.
I would like any historians in the audience to make a note of this
occasion. I would also like to ask any list members with heart
trouble, who have a history of mental illness, or who are expectant
mothers to please delete this message immediately, because I'm about
to do something so shocking that I don't want the consequences on my
conscience.
Ready? Here we go:
I... agree with Joe.
As I progressed with work on "Believe", I could see it straying ever
farther from my initial vision. I felt like a prophet who forsaw his
own death in a car wreck but for some reason immediately switched
careers to become a stunt driver. That opening sequence (it's way
longer than 10 seconds) was my major miscalculation, but because of
the way the video was paced, I didn't have a quick fix for it.
I finished that thing two weeks before the convention, and I had a
choice of either trying to salvage it or to do the William Tell vid,
which would actually be fun to work on.
I think my most glaring weakness is my general inability to handle
lyrics properly. I've always tended towards songs where lyrics were
a non-issue or were good lip-sync material (or both...). I believe
that "Phantom of the Opera" is the only (good) video where I handled
extended lyrical sequences without resorting to a lip-sync.
This song ("Believe") was not a good choice for me, because not only
did it have a resonable amount of lyrics, but the words were more
spoken than sung. I tried to make the syncs more dynamic than normal
by adding motion or pasting them into the background, but I really
was disappointed in the final product.
Thus passes my one attempt at a "special effects" video...
> >Perhaps Joe can congratulate himself on this
> > apparent karmic turn of events after last AX's contest. ^_^;;
It was actually his choice of categorization last year that caused me
to think that "Believe" wouldn't stand a chance as an Action entry,
since it didn't have constant explosions or gunfire, just occasional
quick cuts. It also comitted a fatal sin in my book (for any
category, but especially Action): I think that it's BORING. I'm glad
it didn't win anything, because then I'd know that you people were
just humoring me. Heh heh.
Kevin Caldwell
Opinions (193)
- Orig
- Visual
- Sound
- Synch
- Lip
- Effects
- Effort
- Re-View
- Overall
- 9.35
- 9.06
- 9.52
- 9.64
- 9.75
- 9.56
- 9.77
- 9.01
- 9.50
Downloads
- Link Format Bitrate Codec Duration Filesize Link Check Information Comments
-
Local
MPG
1186/224
MPEG-1/MP2
4:12
41.9 MiB
Kevin Caldwell - Battle Athletes - Believe.mpg
Mpeg 1 System File [Video/Audio]
Muxrate : 1.41 Mbps
Estimated Duration: 04:12.27s
Size [352 x 240] 29.97 fps 1.15 Mbps
Audio : Mpeg 1 layer 2
224 kbps 44100 Hz
Stereo, No emphasis