Dreams and Dreamseers

Anime - X TV
Song - Heart - These Dreams
Completed May 2003
Premiered June 13, 2003
AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

The inspiration for this one came when my older brother gave me his copy of the "Heart - Greatest Hits (1985-1995)" CD. What better way to visualize a song about dreams than with the four Dreamseers of X?

It took me about four months from when I had the idea to when I actually had time to sit down and edit the video, since I was in my final semester of college.

This video was unfortunately quite rushed, so as to be submitted in time for Otakon, and I think that hurt it somewhat, as the timing could have been a bit tighter and there were a number of special effects that I had planned, but ended up not using at all, because of time.

I'm particularly satisfied with Kotori's chorus and the "Could it be spring or fall" line.

Convention History:
AnimeEvolution 2003 - Finalist
Otakon 2003 - Entrant, non-Finalist

Gods and Mortals

Anime - Ah! My Goddess (OVA & Movie)
Song - Styx - Show Me the Way
Completed November 2002
Premiered January 12, 2003
AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link
YouTube Link (Remastered version)

When inspiration strikes, sometimes you don't have the resources to run with it. That was the way this video started out, as I was listening to my older brother's CD collection for something interesting while at home for the end of summer break. The idea struck halfway through the first verse, and simmered there until I could get back to my apartment at college and start in on it.

I actually had to rebuild the project twice during the month and a half I spent between classes creating this video, both times because I had ripped the movie footage in the wrong aspect ratio.

The instrumentals of this one are, hands down, the weakest part of the video. I'm still not completely happy with several of them, though the long one in the middle of the song, which shows every character in the series I'm fairly proud of.

This video is also the first video since Corbies that I extensively used digital effects, and I like to think that they worked quite well in the video.

I originally planned to debut this video at NekoCon V, which would have been my 1-year anniversary of submitting videos to cons (Rouge's Prayer at NekoCon FLASH), but somewhere between them being received and the compilation of the contest tape, it got lost, so I decided to keep it under wraps until Ohayocon two months later.

At the urging of a friend of mine who was going to AnimeEvolution, I sent this video there as well.

Convention History:
Ohayocon 3 - Winner, Best Drama
AnimeEvolution 2003 - Winner, Best Drama/Romance; Best Artistic; Judge's Best Overall

World of Alex & Luna

Anime - Lunar: Silver Star Story
Song - Phil Collins - Two Worlds
Completed July 2002
Premiered July 12, 2002
AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

When my DVD drive died partway through making a video, I was left with the urge to make a video, but without the means for all of the ideas I already had. So just for the sake of doing something, I picked up Lunar: Silver Star Story and played through it in under three days of marathon game sessions. After I finished, I suddenly wanted to make an Alex and Luna video, with a smattering of Jessica/Kyle and Nash/Mia. Since I still had a CD drive functioning, the video was readily available. The song, however, was much, much harder, taking three days of hunting, and ransacking not only my collection of CDs and MP3s, but my roommate's as well. Finally, I came across a song I'd never heard before on one of his CDs, and was struck with inspiration. In one marathon all-night videofest, I scripted and spliced together the video, finishing around seven in the morning. Looking back over it, I'm very proud of the "Raise your head up/Lift high the load" segment. One interesting thing is how the two closeups of Nash both seem to be lipsynched, though neither of them were even intended to be that way; the video actually looks like that in the game. And yes, the song is supposed to cut off like that. I faded it out about five seconds early, but it's already gradually fading at that point, I just sped it up a bit.

Convention History:
Not Entered to Conventions

Graduation

Source - Avalon webcomic
Song - Princess Rouge OST - Ushina Wareta Kako
Completed July 2002
Premiered July 19, 2002
Download Link (3.27 MB)
YouTube Link

In July 2002, Josh Philips (artist of the webcomic Avalon) had announced his immenent return from his first major haitus, and the idea I had had kicking around in my head for an Avalon-based video finally congealed. After an all-night editing and coloring fest, I posted the final result to the Forum on July 19th. I also had the privilege of personally handing Josh a CD containing all the original source files at Otakon 2002 later that summer.

Citius, Artius, Fortius

Anime - Various
Song - John Williams - 1988 Olympic Theme
Completed February 2002
Premiered February 4, 2002
AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

This was my first video that pulled from more than one source and ended up taking me nearly five months to complete, from when I first started scripting out the video to the final render. One thing that kept delaying me was finding more footage that would fit into the video. At some point, I said enough, and refused to introduce any footage that I didn't already have on hand. Once I did that, I finished a week later. ^_^ All in all, there are 39 series or movies in this video, ranging from pure sports anime like Battle Athletes to completely out-of-context clips from things like Jin-Roh. I might end up sending this to AWA or Nekocon, but only if I go (I want to be at any con I send my videos to). In the course of making this video, I probably watched over a week's worth of anime, looking for footage to use, and ended up using about a sixth of what I captured. The video grouped clips by sport, and I'm most proud of the volleyball and combat sports segments, while I'm least proud of the track segment early in the video. I really tried to limit using a lot of any one series, and this ended up using a little more Battle Athletes than I wanted, though it really worked out quite well.

Convention History:
Ohayocon 3 - Entrant
AnimeEvolution 2003 - Entrant, non-Finalist
Anime Mid-Atlantic - Finalist

To the Edge, To Heaven

Anime - Slayers, Slayers Next
Song - Ace of Base - Edge of Heaven
Completed December 2001
Premiered December 19, 2001
AnimeMusicVideos.org link

This video was started in early November 2001, about a month after Jess suggested that a serious Slayers video with a particular scene at the end would be really interesting. So I set out to do it, finding the perfect song for it only after a vast amount of hunting. I finished a month and a half later, most of that time spent watching the series again and storyboarding. I really cut the Katsucon 8 deadline closely on this one, finishing only an hour and a half before I needed to put the videotape in the mail.

Convention History:
Katsucon 8 - Entrant, non-Finalist
Otakon 2002 - Entrant, non-Finalist

Hikaru’s Quest

Anime - Magic Knight Rayearth
Song - Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Dark World Theme (Orchestral)
Completed August 2001
Premiered November 11, 2001
AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

The fact that the first season of Rayearth plays out like a stereotypical RPG is even mentioned in the series itself, so when I went looking for a song to do a Hikaru tribute to, this song fell right into my lap. The fact that this was my first all-instrumental video made it a lot more work than my others, but I think it came out quite well. This was also the last video I did during the summer of 2001, and was completed only a few days before I returned to school. At some point, I plan on doing Umi and Fuu videos to similar songs, but those videos are on the back burner for a while.

Convention History:
MindWarp 2001 Fall/Winter AMV Contest - Entrant

Corbies

Anime - Rurouni Kenshin OVA 1
Song - Steeleye Span - Corbies
Completed August 2001
Premiered November 11, 2001
AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

This video was fun to do, though the long instrumental at the end was quite difficult to find suitable video clips for. Steeleye Span is a British folk-rock group that has been around for more than 30 years and have done many really great songs that, unfortunately, are too long to make AMVs for con entry out of (7 to 15 minutes long). This video came from me wondering what would happen if Kenshin had been set in feudal Europe instead of in the end of feudal Japan. Then came the idea that Kiyosato might be the knight slain in the early verses, and the rest of the lyrics suggested video clips all by themselves. The instrumental took a lot longer, but eventually came together in mid-August 2001, as I was getting ready to go back to college. This is also the first video since Raiyuki that used digital effects other than transitions, in the sequence of the flaming swordfights, where I overlayed it with the opening shot of the moon from the series. I think it worked well, as did the rest of this video on the whole.

Convention History:
MindWarp 2001 Fall/Winter AMV Contest - Entrant

Shina the Uptown Girl

Anime - Shinesman
Song - Billy Joel - Uptown Girl
Completed August 2001
Premiered November 11, 2001
AnimeMusicVideos.org Link
YouTube Link

This was a lot funnier as an idea than it came out as a video. Only knowing about one other Shinesman AMV (Argonaut's to Dizzy by the Goo Goo Dolls), I started hunting through my rather vast collection of music for an appropriate song to use. It took me three passes through to finally pick Billy Joel's Uptown Girl, with the sequence at "And when she's walking/She's looking/So fi-yi-ine" jumping into my head. Unfortunately, other pieces of the song were very hard to pick video for, so parts of the video I'm still not completely happy with. If I get more ideas for it, I might come back to this one.

Convention History:
Katsucon 8 - Finalist

Rouge’s Prayer

Anime - Princess Rouge
Song - Bon Jovi - Livin' On a Prayer
Completed July 2001
Premiered October 26, 2001
Remastered August 2008
AnimeMusicVideos.org link
YouTube Link

Princess Rouge (AKA Legend of the Last Labyrinth) was the first DVD I ever owned, and even though it's incomplete, I really liked the story and characters. It's a shame it never got continued. I'm not sure, but I think this is the first Princess Rouge AMV ever created. This video, finished in late July 2001, is one of the fastest of my videos so far, with most of the video coming together in only one day, and the fine-tuning, effects and intro piece taking another day and a half. Still, for all its speed, I think it's my best video from that summer and was my entry at NekoCon FLASH.

Convention History:
Nekocon FLASH - Finalist