main menu

• Members Main Page
• Search for AMVs
• Forum
• How-To Guides
• Site FAQ
• About us
• Login

Information

• Member: dokool
• Studio: Third Lens Open Productions
• Title: Calling All Alters
• Premiered: 2004-01-03
• Category:
  • Action
• Song:
  • The Crystal Method Name Of The Game
• Anime:
  • Scryed
• Participation:
  • Otakon AMV contest, Otakon AMV contest (2004-01-05)
  • Anime Boston 2004, Anime Boston 2004 (2004-04-09)
  • AnimeNext AMV Contest, AnimeNext AMV Contest (2004-06-18)
• Comments: Update: CAA had a respectable showing at AB2004, despite the sync issues. I'm sending it to two more cons presently, AnimeNext 2004 (which I'll be attending), and Otakon 2004 (which I will, sadly, not be attending). After that, probably AWA Expo and AUSA unless it wins anywhere.
  
  
  Update: Calling All Alters has made the finals of Anime Boston 2004, and will be competing in the Journeyman category.
  
  And Third Lens Open Productions starts off the new year with a bang, presenting its fifth full AMV and first of 2004, Calling All Alters.
  
  I'm gonna just say it plain and simple, this was a fun video to make. Inspired by Guyver2019's suggestion (and he actually used the combo as an outro for his s-CRY-ed vid On The Other Hand, albiet in a much, much simpler form), I decided to take Name of the Game and give it the good ole' action AMV treatment: fast scenes, sharp cutting, and great effects.
  
  I've never been good at keeping track of how many hours were spent on this, but suffice to say that this was even more intensive than my last vid, RNITTBS. Editing took place over about 2 weeks, and the project includes three After Effects renders, about 18 gigs of HuffYUV clips, and a metric assload of cuts. The complete beta premiered on Dec 31st 2003 at AlanCON (aka dji's New Years Eve party), the final version was rendered on Jan 2nd 2004, and the convention premiere will be on April 9th 2004 at Anime Boston.
  
  Why Name of the Game? One listen of the song and you'll realize that the lyrics fit perfectly with s-CRY-ed. Between "calling all freaks" and "let me see you pump up your fists," this is a s-CRY-ed vid begging to be made. Initially I was hoping to make it all-encompassing of the s-CRY-ed universe, but it ended up concentrating on Kazuma and Ryouhou, although I've found room to include a couple other characters.
  
  I'd had the opening sequence (the VU meter) in my head for a while, and it took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to make it work in AE about... two months ago. Then, two months later, looking at that test project, it took me more time than I'd care to admit to figure out what I did.
  
  The "video wall" sequence was scaled down; my original plans called for a "video tunnel" but complications involving the AE camera controls were too much of a pain, and I scaled down my idea to prevent myself from banging my head against the keyboard in utter frustration.
  
  Regarding the lip-sync: Originally I was planning on lip-syncing both "Listen all you..."'s, but the sequence for the second one fit so well that I couldn't bear to obscure it. So, Kanami lip-syncing a stream of curses will have to wait for another video. Perhaps I'll be inclined to do a special version of the video when I start making a DVD =)
  
  The "noise" during that bridge is actually a lot softer than Premiere originally exported. That's because inbetween export and compression, I ran the HuffYUV file through a smooth/sharpen filter, which obviously cleaned up some of the noise. I'm actually more satisfied with the softer noise that's lresulted.
  
  Those cuts to the scratches are hard, dammit. Fortunately, once I figured out the frame count for each different scratch "sequence," it was only a matter of making sure each repeating sequence had the same count.
  
  
  Technical Info
  Software Used: SmartRipper, BeSweet, VirtualDubAVS, Premiere Pro, After Effects 6, Audition, Photoshop (the only Adobe app in my posession that I didn't use was Encore)
  Actual AMV Length (minus bumpers): 3:32 (cut down from 4:15)
  Framerate: 23.976FPS
  Codec: DivX 5.1.1, 1500kbps
  
  
  Acknowledgements
  dji, VicBond007, Ashyukun, Will Milberry, SSJVegita0609, Koop, Rinny, Guyver2019, WilLoW, Scintilla, Nappy, and probably a few others all provided either advice, inspiration through their videos, or merely a live body to bounce a beta off of.
  
  In conclusion, I'm really happy with how this video turned out, and can't wait to see how it performs at Anime Boston 2004, although due to contest rules *cough*fascists*cough* I have to send in a version of the video with clean lyrics, which I'm hoping won't mute the effectiveness of certain scenes. Regardless, sit back, download, and enjoy the latest TLO masterpiece.