Category: Project Editor

Beyond the Shire [Shabu Showdown 2023 Week 3]

The theme for the third round of Shabu Showdown 2023 was "Spectacular Settings," where editors were given one week to edit a video focusing on the scenery or setting of a source, rather than the plot or characters.

I immediately decided to use the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies, because of all the huge sweeping establishing shots in the films. The song was a lot harder to come up with, and I reached out for suggestions, and ended up getting the excellent song I ended up using from a link provided by VioletSkies.

I was also dealing with several real life things outside the event at the time, and I was worried I wouldn't be able to finish the whole song, so I edited a short version of the video that ended with the end of the first movie, just to have something to submit in case I ran out of time. I also decided once I started the second segment to focus just on Sam and Frodo's path through the films for narrative simplicity, though that did mean giving up the initial inspiration shot for the video (the epic long helicopter shot of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli running across the landscape in pursuit of the Orc army).

In the end, it came together much better than I initially thought it would, and was given the "Epic Fantasy" coordinator's award at the end of the event.

Video - Lord of the Rings movie trilogy
Audio - Tommee Profitt x MILCK - BEYOND
Completed November 2023

YouTube Link

The Lives and Times of Dirk the Daring (Shabu Showdown 2023 Week 2)

The theme for the second round of Shabu Showdown 2023 was 20th Century Time Capsule - editors had a week to create a video with a video or audio source (and preferably both) originating between 1901 and 2000.

My original idea was really dark, with Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" to the 2000 movie Battle Royale, which I decided was a bit too much for this sort of event. I did like the idea of using the song, though, and so I started looking through my collection of discs when I remembered Dragon's Lair, which fit the song really well, and still was lighthearted enough that it felt more appropriate.

All of the footage segments were very short (usually under 60 seconds, with the deaths even shorter), so I divided them into three buckets: "successes" which I used for most of the first section of the video, "deaths" which filled most of the remainder of the video, and "skeleton bounce," which was all of the variants of the game over animation. If I remember correctly, there are 27 different versions with the same animation over different backgrounds. I ended up only using it for the final segment of the video, and synched up several of them to cut between on the beat for that final shot.

People definitely enjoyed it, and a few suggested I send it to events that accept video game and western animation videos, which I may do.

Video - Dragon's Lair
Audio - Queen - Another One Bites the Dust
Completed November 2023

YouTube Link

Visions of Disaster (Shabu Showdown 2023 Week 1)

The theme for the first round of Shabu Showdown 2023 was Owl House Covens - editors had a week to create a video illustrating one of the covens from the show Owl House. The only one that sparked an idea quickly for me was the Oracle coven, which dealt with fortune-telling, clairvoyance, divination, etc. 

I had recently been thinking about Sailor Moon, and remembered Rei (Sailor Mars) and her divinations using the sacred fire in her home temple, but it took me longer than I expected to find the footage I needed. I had forgotten how much was in the Doom Tree arc and had been looking in the S season instead. I interspersed the Sailor Moon footage with footage from a bunch of other series and movies that showed the aftermath of major natural disasters to indicate what she was seeing visions of.

For audio, I went back to my familiar well of production music and Two Steps From Hell, which worked for the video, but I decided after this round that I wouldn't use TSFH for the rest of the event, wanting to break out of that familiar rut.

Reactions to it were pretty positive, and I'm pretty happy with the result.

Video - Sailor Moon (original and R), Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Your Name, Weathering With You, Princess Mononoke, Millennium Actress, The Wind Rises, Ponyo
Audio - Two Steps From Hell - Mercy in Darkness
Completed November 2023

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

Into Infinity (Project OrgEditor 2022 Round 6)

After the previous week, I was planning to use a source I knew, but when the theme "Extraordinary Voyages" got announced, and specifically referenced Jules Verne in the challenge, my mind immediately went to another show I owned but hadn't watched yet, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. Thankfully, it was only 39 episodes to scrub instead of close to 200, but it still took a decent amount of time. I went back to the Two Steps From Hell well yet again (third time in six rounds) for the audio, because "Beyond the Horizon" fit the tone of epic exploration so well.

Overall, a solid effort that scored fairly well, and it definitely moved Nadia up my backlog to-watch list, so I can see the context of some of those wacky scenes I found while scrubbing.

Anime - Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water
Music - Two Steps From Hell - Beyond the Horizon
Completed December 2022

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

Life’s Natural 1’s (Project OrgEditor 2022 Round 5)

Round 5's theme for Project OrgEditor 2022 was "Roll For Initiative" and asked for videos demonstrating one of the Dungeons & Dragons character statistics. I decided that Luck would be my best bet, and decided to do a character profile of one of the unluckiest characters in anime, Ryouga Hibiki from Ranma ½.

This turned out to be a bit of a dumb move on my part, since although I'm familiar with the series, it's mostly been through the manga, and I haven't seen most of the TV series. Scrubbing 167 TV series episodes, 11 OVAs, and 3 movies for scenes of a secondary character in less than a week was definitely not the smartest move I've ever made.

For the song, while Hee Haw was a bit before my time, but my mother had frequently sung the "Gloom, Despair, and Agony On Me" song it made popular when I was young, so that musical phrase has stuck in my head for many years. I found a few different covers of it, and settled on the version by Starlings, TN to use.

The actual editing was pretty rushed because of how long scrubbing all the footage took, but overall, I like the result.

Anime - Ranma ½
Music - Starlings, TN - Gloom, Despair, and Agony on Me
Completed December 2022

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

Lineage of Ancient Power (Project OrgEditor 2022 Round 4)

The theme for Project OrgEditor 2022's Round 4 was "Who's that POEkémon?," and called for a video exemplifying one of the standard Pokemon types. I only had two days to edit this round, as I was travelling internationally for most of the week and only got back on the Thursday before the Sunday deadline.

I took what I felt would be the easiest type, Dragon, and went back to the well of short-duration production music in Two Steps From Hell's "Sky Titans" for the audio, and just threw together as many dragons as I could find in my collection.

For such an insane rush job, it worked surprisingly well and got a pretty good score from the judges.

Anime - Familiar of Zero, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, Pokemon: Black & White, Record of Lodoss War, Slayers, Spirited Away
Music - Two Steps From Hell - Sky Titans
Completed December 2022

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

High School Best Friends (Project OrgEditor 2022 Round 3)

Round 3's theme for Project OrgEditor 2022 was "All Grown Up" and asked us to create videos exploring growing up or coming of age.

I had watched The Muppets Take Manhattan the week before this round, and "Saying Goodbye" was stuck in my head at the time. The original Muppets version didn't quite work for the tone I was going for, but searching YouTube found me johnny0104's excellent cover of it.

My original plan was to use as many graduation sequences as I could, but as I started searching, I kept coming back to Azumanga and the relationship between Chiyo and Sasaki. Of the main cast, they always struck me as the pair that would stay in contact even after life took them in different directions.

I originally wanted to use the whole song, but ended up cutting it down due to lack of footage and time. I might revisit the idea again someday, but not soon.

Anime - Azumanga Daioh
Music - johnnyj0104 - Saying Goodbye (from The Muppets Take Manhattan)
Completed November 2022

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

To Whom the Forests Speak (Project OrgEditor 2022 Round 2)

The theme for Round 2 of Project OrgEditor 2022 was "Drawn Together" and required using a variety of types of source material (animated, CGI, live action, video games, manga/comics, etc.). I generally work best with finding a song first, so I went digging through my music collection for inspiration, eventually settling on Two Steps From Hell's "Elven Princess." The song title and lyrics in Tolkien's Elvish immediately suggested a collection of classical fantasy elves.

I deliberately structured the order to go from anime to CGI animation to live action and back as an attempt at symmetry, though I didn't have a good place to use How Not to Summon a Demon Lord in the front half, and only included it in the back half.

Overall, this is one of the videos I liked making best from this year's POE event, and came together better than I expected.

Video - Secret of Kells, Record of Lodoss War OVA, The Dragon Prince, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, How Not to Summon a Demon Lord
Audio - Two Steps From Hell - Elven Princess

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

Having the Whip Hand (Project OrgEditor 2022 Round 1)

The theme for Round 1 of Project OrgEditor 2022 was "Villains," which proved a surprisingly difficult theme to find a good source for. Digging through my shelves, I discovered that while it's a very large collection, I watch very few things that have outright villains - lots of antagonists and opponents, but not many true villains. I ended up settling on the first Nanoha movie more out of default than anything else. For the song, I'd been on a big Battle Beast kick at the time, and pulled out one of the songs I'd been listening to a lot.

The title comes from the idiom meaning having the dominant position or control over a group, which I'd seen used several times in a book a few weeks earlier, and the infamous abuse scene with Presea and Fate.

This made an okay pairing, but was hamstrung a bit by the lack of footage - I kept remembering scenes from the TV series that weren't in the movie and having to change tactics every time that happened.

Anime - Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The Movie 1st
Music - Battle Beast - Master of Illusion
Completed November 2022

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

A Whistlestop Tour (Project OrgEditor 2020 Round 4)

Round 4's theme was "The Magic School Bus," where we had to present something educational.

I grew up with Schoolhouse Rock, so as soon as the theme was announced, I knew I'd use one of their songs. I settled on Nouns  partly because it seemed like it could work as a direct narration (many of the others are a bit too specific lyrically) as well as being one of my absolute favorites.

For the video, I tried to think of anime that involved a train robbery, and the only one I could remember was the episode of Rurouni Kenshin with the ridiculous horse jump, so that was what I went with, adding the "Science Lesson" frame from Gunbuster for the explanation pieces in homage to the frame in the original video.

People got a good laugh out of it, so I'm glad it worked.

Anime - Rurouni Kenshin, Gunbuster
Audio - Schoolhouse Rock - A Noun is a Person, Place, or Thing
Completed October 2020

AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link