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Information

• Member: Willen
• Studio: Enable Studios
• Title: And So It Begins... (Swept Away)
• Premiered: 2006-04-15
• Categories:
  • Character Profile
  • Romance
  • Sentimental
• Song:
  • Christopher Cross Swept Away (New Remix)
• Anime:
  • Kimagure Orange Road (TV)
• Participation:
  • Kawaii-Kon, Kawaii-Kon Anime Music Video Contest (2006-04-15)
  • Anime Central, Anime Music Video Contest (2006-05-06)
  • A-Kon 17, A-Kon 17 Amateur Anime Music Video Contest (2006-06-09)
• Comments: My first AMV, with an 80's anime set to an 80's song.
  
  This AMV highlights Kyosuke's relationship with Madoka from the start to the TV series end. It is essentially a Romance/Sentimental AMV, but is also somewhat a Character Profile on Kyosuke. Although it does seem to focus a bit on Madoka towards the end, I think this is unavoidable due to the nature of the relationship. BTW, there is absolutely no Hikaru at all in this video. In fact, the ONLY other people that show up are Yukari and Kazuya.
  
  I think I've been working on this AMV in my mind for a long time. Kimagure Orange Road was one of the first anime that I watched subtitled way back in the early 90's. The AnimEigo release of the subbed OVAs spurred my brother and myself to get copies of the TV series in un-subbed VHS just to see how the rest of the story was. With my limited understanding of japanese, there were some episodes that I was sure had details I didn't get, but I enjoyed watching it greatly. My brother liked it so much that he pre-ordered the AnimEigo Laserdisc release of the TV series. If you watch the LD, you will see his name scroll up the screen in the "You made it possible (with a little help from these people)" section on the last disc of the first LD box.
  
  The song used is Christopher Cross' "Swept Away (New Remix)" from his album "The Very Best of Christopher Cross". I've always liked this song ever since I heard it on the 80's TV show "Growing Pains". The song, in it's original incarnation, was featured in the Season 3 Hawaii episodes "Aloha: Part 1" and "Aloha: Part 2" originally airing in 1987. These episodes were also notable for the debut of the beautiful Kelly Hu! Interestingly, KOR also debuted in 1987.
  
  The version shown at Kawaii-Kon in 2006 was the first, preliminary version of this AMV. So if you were there and saw it, came here and downloaded this, watched, and wondered, "this seems different somehow," it is. Unfortunately because of various computer related issues and deadline concerns, I wasn't able to finish the final version you see here in time to submit to the con. I hope you will agree that this newer version is better in about every way.
  
  (VERY) Minor spoiler warning:
  
  The AMV does use one scene that I would consider even remotely spoiler-ish. I'm referring to the final scene in the final episode of the TV series. If you've watched the series before, I hope you'll agree that since it's pretty obvious that this would be the outcome to this relationship it's not much of a spoiler.
  
  This video was surprisingly easy to make. I'm not sure if future projects will go togther as smoothly as this. The original version of this AMV was created with Windows Movie Maker 2, while the version I have available here is the one I created with Magix Movie Edit Pro 10. There are quite a few differences between the 2, especially after the second flashback portion. The sequence from that point, and until the gondola scene I was never really satisfied with. I think this version has a better feel and less scenes that require viewing the series to "get it". A lot of the changes were to help the flow and to correct timing issues.
  
  My favorite "tweaked" scene is with Kyosuke and Madoka on the bus stop bench at 1:00. I took out a fade in/out that was originally there in the first version from between 2 scenes that had an additional part between them I edited out. I think it enhanced the "Like light when the morning begins the day" line of the lyrics. A great example of an "effect" achieved by basic editing and not having any actual effects.
  
  Also, even though the majority of the AMV is lyric sync, watch out for a great deal of vocal and beat sync that just happened when I dropped the clips onto the timeline. I really like the last bit of vocal sync at the end. ^_^
  
  The original WMM2 version actually featured a bit more effects. Instead of just plain Black & White during Kyosuke's flashback sequence, the WMM2 version had an additional "Old Movie" effect. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you feel about effects), MMEP10's movie effect was a bit too much for my tastes and I didn't feel like trying to create a custom movie effect myself. I don't think B&W counts as an effect per se so I'm not checking the "Digital Effects" box. Sue me.
  
  Technical details:
  
  Programs used: Magix Movie Edit Pro 10, VirtualDubMod, BeSweet, and some others.
  
  The video is XviD encoded, DivX 5 compatible. Audio is MP3 format. I recommend either Media Player Classic (with the proper codecs installed) or VLC Player for your player needs.
  
  Awards:
  
  Best Nostalgia Vid - Kawaii Kon 2006 AMV Contest
  Best Romance - Anime Central 2006 AMV Contest