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Information

• Member: downwithpants
• Studio: Drunken Panda Productions
• Title: Tomoe in the Moonlight
• Premiered: 2004-04-05
• Categories:
  • Character Profile
  • Romance
  • Instrumental
• Song:
  • Debussy, Claude Clair de Lune
• Anime:
  • Rurouni Kenshin / Samurai X - 1st OVA (Tsuiokuhen, Trust & Betrayal)
• Comments: Viewing Notes:
  First, this video was not intended for appeal through action sequences. If you only enjoy action amvs, you will not like this one. This video is a romance video, is pretty slow, and was created for the vibe I got after watching the OVAs.
  
  Second, the main problem with this video is the sound. I amplified the sound as much I could without clipping it, to get the volume to at least a reasonable level. The problem is it is still a fuzzy sounding. If you listen with headphones you will get a lot of background fuzz. If you listen with speakers, you won't hear the background fuzz, but the tone of the music will sound a bit flat and shallow. Still, I thought it sounded better with speakers.
  
  This video has spoilers, so if you aren't familiar with the Kenshin-Tomoe storyline, don't watch this if you don't the story to be given away.
  
  Being a RK OVA vid, this video also has one scene of graphic violence (I tried to cut as much out as I could). But if blood makes you squeamish, you may want to skip over 2:40-2:45, or pretend that red stuff is tomato sauce.
  
  Editing Notes:
  Credit Queball (Mark) for providing the video source (although he sure took his time).
  
  I started working on this video in April 2003 and finished April 2004. Mainly due to the fact that Mark provided the video source visited me in the summer of 2003 but I forgot to deinterlace the first two OVAs before he left. So then you ask, why didn't he just rip it for you after he got back? Because he's a lazy-ass bum, who takes 8 months to do a 2-hour task. I j/k (about him being a bum, not about the 8 months thing though). Of course, I didn't work continuously throughout the year, but this video has gone through five drafts, and has seen well over 100 hours of editing.
  
  This video does have a bit more significance to me than some of my other videos, not only because it was by far the longest I've spent on a video, but because it also taught me a lot during that year of editing (during which I released some four videos), and because I really went for what I felt emotionally in the song, rather than flashy stuff that might appeal to the masses (which I admit I have done).
  
  In terms of the effects, the most obvious one will be the piano keys. OMG U DID PIANO KEYS WITH WMM? WTF IS WRONG WITH U?! I don't know I just experimented with mspaint and I thought it looked better with them. Other than that though, most editing was to match fades and cuts with soft and harsh tones in the piano. I spent some effort editing the audio too. It was originally very quiet (well it's supposed to be quiet), but I amplified and played around with it in Audacity so you don't have to crank up your speakers and then have two heart attacks when someone IMs you in the middle of watching (always happens to me, I swear). One effect was created by accident. Near the end of the video two scenes are interlaced and slowed down, making the video look especially choppy and blurry. But I thought it actually made the scenes dream-like and fitting at that point of the video so I kept it.
  
  Influences:
  Well first is the piano keys. I've seen it in Kwasek's A Thousand Miles, Wonka's Appetite for Dynamite, and DWChang's Evolution. Mine's mostly a hybrid of the Appetite for Dynamite (multiple bars across the screen) and Evolution Piano keys (b/w -> color) except they're shaped like piano keys, not bars. Plus there's the fact this is done in wmm which is limited to one video stream, no mattes, except for what is given in the effects.
  
  Another one I can think of is JBone's Urban Ragnarok. One of my favorite effects in that video was a strobe effect in the video against an arpeggio in the music. I thought a strobe would be too harsh in this video, so instead i used fades at arpeggios.
  
  Inspiration:
  The inspiration for this video was pretty much the sad, romantic mood I got at the end of watching the two RK OVAs: Trust and Betrayal. The music in it is really good, and has a mournful tone about it. And the storyline is of course a classic love tragedy. So I chose to use Debussy's Claire de Lune, a soft and sweet song with sad verses in the middle, not to mention one of my favorite classical pieces.
  
  Synopsis (contains spoilers):
  I would rather you not read this until you have watched the video, or if you can't download the video, read this while playing/humming Clair de Lune in the background.
  But to read the synopsis click here (linked to hide spoilers).
  
  Feedback makes me happy too.
  
  Format: WMV
  Bitrate: 1500 kbps
  Duration: 5:08
  Filesize: 46.9 MB