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Information

• Member: DeepBLiu
• Studio: Deep BLiu Productions
• Title: The Real Folk Blues
• Premiered: 2002-05-24
• Categories:
  • Drama
  • Other
  • Character Profile
  • Serious
• Song:
  • Corrs, The Everybody Hurts
• Anime:
  • Cowboy Bebop
• Participation:
  • Anime North 2002, Anime North 2002 (2002-05-24)
  • MindWarp 2002 Spring/Summer AMV Contest, MindWarp 2002 Spring/Summer AMV Contest (2002-06-21)
• Comments: *** SPOILER WARNING & LONG PRETENTIOUS BANTER WARNING ***
  
  Awards:
  
  Won BEST SENTIMENTAL VIDEO at the Mindwarp Spring/Summer 2002 Contest.
  
  Won HONOURABLE MENTION at the Anime North 2002 AMV Contest.
  
  Pretentious Banter:
  
  I was wondering what anime music video to do next one night, when I heard REM's Everybody Hurts on the radio. I really liked the sombre depressive nature of the song, and felt it would go good with a serious Bebop vid. Unfortuantely, I really wanted to do an upbeat fast action video, since I hadn't tried one of those yet. Later, I heard the Corrs' cover of the song, and felt it was quite possibly even sadder than the original (sorry REM fans :P). A few months passed by, and then a tragic event occured that affected me mildly. It wasn't a big deal, but I was really down and depressed, and that was the day I started this video. I guess emotions really help when you're editing AMV's. I think this is my best AMV to date technically and emotionally, but also my most obscure. I think only a limited audience would enjoy it.
  
  Since Cowboy Bebop puts a lot of emphasis on the past and flashbacks, I wanted to create a "flashback" video centered around the final two episodes. Pretty much, the frame was an outline of The Real Folk Blues Part I and II, and then I would add memories or thoughts the characters had from previous episodes' footage. I tried to emulate the style of flashbacks in the series, with Faye's flashback's being whitewashed and bleached, Jet's being low saturated and almost monochrome, and Spike's being sepia blue or yellow hued (for sad and happy memories respectively).
  
  Although the video ends with the overtly cliché Spike/Vicious faceoff and stairs scene, I felt that the video itself is far from the norm. For starters, this video does NOT focus on Spike-Julia-Vicious, but on Spike-Faye-Jet (and to a lesser extent, Ed). Vicious is only shown once in the video, and Julia a handful of times. Plus I feel my ending was more powerful than just the stairs scene usually is, but that's just me.
  
  Technicalities:
  
  This is probably my most technical video to date. It involved lots of meticulous editing (I wanted everything to be perfect), and the flashbacks needed to be worked on. Although I lost my original notes for the video (if I find them I'll post the actual values used for the filters), I used Brightness for Faye's memories, Saturation for Jet's memories, and Harry's Filter Col@rize for Spike's. I also utilised extensibly still images, which I felt added to the video. Lots of cross dissolves and additive dissolves were used - nothing fancy.
  
  Inspirations:
  
  I drew a lot of my comparisons and parallels from the thinking-inducing discussions at the Bebop Board (http://www.fayevalentine.net/bebopboard.shtml). I also was inspired by the following AMV's: Yesterday and Only In Dreams by Kwasek of MTT, and Flash Before Your Eyes by Uncle Milo.
  
  Things to Watch for:
  
  - I try to make parallels between the final episodes and occurences to previous episode ones
  - Spike opening his eyes after the flashback
  - The violin part at the beginning with the quick still shots
  - The flashbacks... I spent lots of time with this
  - The timing in the dogfight
  - JetxFaye implication (:P)
  - The Spike/Jet laugh scene with "Everybody Cries"... my friend who hadn't watched the series thought it was the stupidest thing (hrm)
  - The Julia/Faye split screen - although it CAN be interpreted as Spike trying to prioritize (is Faye worth staying for, or should he avenge Julia's death), but it's REALLY the thing about one eye seeing the past, and one seeing the present (it's during that part of the conversation). But to each his own, eh?
  - Parallels between Eps 26 and 6
  
  
  Special Thanks:
  
  *** Special Thanks to those who gave me feedback on my video before I released it, including my sister, EK and CAnger, and to Koggit for his gracious offering of webspace-age for my video for a while. ***
  
  If you've read through all this, thanks and sorry for longwinded banter. I hope you enjoy my AMV.