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Information

• Member: CrackTheSky
• Title: Where the Acorns Fall
• Premiered: 2025-03-11
• Category:
  • Sentimental
• Song:
  • Joff Bush feat. Helena Czajka I Know a Place (The Creek Song)
• Anime:
  • My Neighbor Totoro
• Comments: I made this video for my son.
  
  It was an idea I got quite a while ago. My son is a big fan of the show Bluey, and so naturally our household has also embraced the Bluey soundtracks wholesale. By far my favorite track from any of them is "I Know a Place (The Creek Song)". The version of this song that is featured in one of the show's episodes is instrumental, but there's also this lovely rendition with lyrics on the soundtrack, and it radiates so much pristine calmness and joy that it immediately won me over the first time I heard it. It didn't take me long to marry the song to My Neighbor Totoro in my head, as my son is (or, at least, was at one point) a huge fan of that movie. There was a period of about six months between the ages of 1 and 2 where he would watch the movie pretty obsessively, often multiple times a day. I've basically got the English dub memorized. I could continue to watch it every day and not get sick of it. It's a visually gorgeous film, a truly great work of art when analyzed from other angles, and one of Miyazaki's peak moments as an artist.
  
  This video is a celebration of my son's love for both of these media, as well as a general reflection of the happiness I have felt over the past almost three years that he's been on this planet. This video contains no tension or drama, it's just a collection of lovely, pastoral scenery and expressions of youthful wonder at all that the world has to offer. I've enjoyed so much getting to witness my son show delight in all of the things most adults would consider mundane or not noteworthy at all. I cherish each and every awed gasp and excited "Wow!" at every new thing he sees and learns about. It won't last forever, but this genuine, untainted interaction with and reaction to the world is something I can't get enough of, especially these days when everything feels corrupt and bent on making you as angry and cynical as possible.
  
  This video was made for the 2024 AWA Accolades contest. The deadline was a week after my family returned from a two-week trip to Italy, but I ended up finishing this in only a couple sittings due to its simplicity and the fact that I knew the source so intimately. The title is a reference to a moment on our Italy trip when my son and his cousin were playing outside of a house we were staying at in Tuscany, underneath an oak tree. My boy said, "Ahh! The acorns are falling from the sky!" as one hit his head or fell near him, and my wife replied with, "Just like in Totoro!" "Yeah, just like Totoro!"
  
  Technical notes:
  Edited in Magix Vegas 15.0. Total editing time was probably ~5 hours. The version here is slightly different and improved from the one in the Accolades contest, as I made a number of small tweaks afterwards.
  
  Additional note:
  I realized immediately after uploading that the artist I entered (and who I put in the video's credits, no less) is wrong -- it should be Helena Czajka feat. Jazz D'Arcy. Sorry Bluey nerds!