main menu

• Members Main Page
• Search for AMVs
• Forum
• How-To Guides
• Site FAQ
• About us
• Login

Information

• Member: Paul Kievits
• Title: Paradoxical sleep
• Premiered: 2006-07-01
• Categories:
  • Other
  • Serious
  • Horror
  • Instrumental
• Song:
  • Tuk John Carpenter
• Anime:
  • Spirited Away
• Participation:
  • Animecon 2006 International AMV Contest, Animecon 2006 International AMV Contest (2006-05-30)
  • Anime Weekend Atlanta 12, AWA 12 EXPOSITION CONTEST (2006-09-22)
• Comments: This video was an exercise in patience and pressure.
  
  After 2 years of absence (2004-2006) I couldn't resist anymore. My local anime convention was organizing an AMV contest and I just had to join in.
  
  So I set out to find a song/anime combination which would enable me to make something truly original, something no-one had ever seen. I mean, why make a video that's been done a trillion times before? I also decided to put away my action addiction for the time being and try a different angle. In time I switched between several video concepts, including: a severely dysfunctional video, a drama video with a hard industrial ending and a scary disturbing video. Until one fateful evening: While I was in a waiting room I picked up this music magazine and started flipping through it. I was reading the CD reviews when I saw something I found interesting. It was a CD which was described as an experimental mix of beeps and blips filled with static distortion. Most people would just have put away the magazine and gone on with their lives, but I was intrigued. I did a google search, downloaded some samples and I had my song (I cut a lot of it in the end but who cares).
  
  After I had my song I needed a solid concept and an anime to match it to. Chance had it that I had a copy of “Spirited away” lying around, and soon enough I started matching pieces of the song to the anime ... HAHAHA ... ok that was a joke I can't see someone actually visually "matching" anything to this song, but I came up with a story which seemed to fit the music nicely. The only problem is that spirited away is a rather colorful fairy-tale like anime and I needed something dark and gritty. After lots of pondering and experimenting I actually got Spirited Away to look somewhat dark and gritty and I think it fits the purpose quite nicely now.
  
  When I started reaching the end of the development process the pressure started getting insane. In the last 3 weeks I spent ALL of my free time making this video and getting it ready for the con. The night before the video had to be sent out I actually stopped at 2:30AM and basically said "Fuck it, I'm done". The thing that was helping me least of all was the fact that premiere was crashing all the time, so I think you can figure out how the last few days went :/.
  
  So what is the video actually about? Well there's a lot I can actually say about it, but I won't. Why? Well let's say that this was my attempt to make an interesting video with a lot of layering and symbolism, one you can discuss. Telling you what I literally mean with each scene would ruin the chance of a discussion and that would be too bad wouldn't it? ;). What I will give you is this: When I made this video I was very disgruntled with the way things were going in the world and in particular with the fossil fuel depletion situation (otherwise known as peak oil/gas). So I decided to make a video about that. Soon enough I found out that I didn't have all the footage I needed though. So it turned into a video about something much broader, something I did have the footage for: Greed. More precisely: Human-kind’s greedy consumption of the planet. You probably have it all figured out now, but that's all you'll get out of me, you can fill in the blanks for yourself now ;)
  
  In the end this video did consumed a lot of my life, but I am definitely satisfied with the end result, so I guess it was worth it in the end :). I hope you’ll also enjoy the video, and if you have an opinion on it or you want to discuss something about it, don't be shy. ;)
  
  I also have several people I need to thank for their help:
  * Niotex - For inspiration and plug-ins.
  * Don1 - For being the world's greatest beta tester.
  * Beowulf - For moral support :P
  * Rozard - For making me revise my ending, it's much better than before.
  
  Awards won:
  * AWA 12 - Best Horror