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Information

• Member: MeriC
• Title: AnimeNEXT 2007 AMV Contest Intro - "Death Note" 2nd OP Parody
• Premiered: 2007-07-06
• Categories:
  • Comedy
  • Parody
  • Fun
• Song:
  • Maximum The Hormone What's Up, People!?
• Anime:
  • Azumanga Daioh (TV)
  • Bleach
  • Cardcaptor Sakura
  • Cowboy Bebop
  • Death Note (TV)
  • FLCL (Fooly Cooly)
  • Fullmetal Alchemist (TV)
  • Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
  • Gunslinger Girl
  • Lupin III: Dragon of Doom
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS
  • Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, The (TV)
  • Naruto: Shippuuden (TV)
  • One Piece
  • Pokémon (TV)
  • Rurouni Kenshin (TV)
  • Sailor Moon
  • Trigun
• Participation:
  • AnimeNEXT, AnimeNEXT (2007-07-06)
• Comments: The Idea:
  
  VegettoEX (Mike) and I are the AMV Contest Coordinators at the AnimeNEXT convention. Every year, we begin the contest with a little text-based intro. For 2007, however, we decided to kick things up a notch.
  
  Mike had the idea to start the intro with the usual text ("Welcome to the AMV contest, are you excited?", yadda yadda yadda). He planned instead to "wake" the audience up with a double-whammy of loud music and crazy visuals. We would accomplish this by directly parodying the 2nd OP of the "Death Note" anime ("What's up People?!" by Maximum the Hormone, which is, quite honestly, the best anime opening theme I've seen in years).
  
  The second Mike pitched the idea, I said "I'm there!" I didn't really know if I could take on the task of re-creating the 2nd "Death Note" opening in terms of the visuals, flow, and scene choices, but by god, I was determined to try!
  
  
  Making the Video:
  
  I made the video entirely in After Effects 6.5. The very first thing (and in my mind, the hardest thing) I did was re-create the motion graphics/text portion of the "Death Note" intro. Much to my absolute shock, I managed to pull it off after just a couple of hours of work. I downloaded a few "Death Note" fonts for good measure/accuracy for the "AnimeNEXT" text flying across the scene. Once I crossed this hurdle, I knew throwing in the footage with some crazy colors would be a piece of cake.
  
  I tackled the "lightening and black boxes" section next. I tried my best to capture the look of the original video. It's not perfect, but I think it gets the general feel of it right. This section was a little bit difficult, but not as hard as the previous "moving text and graphics" section.
  
  Next up came the section I was most looking forward to working on. This was also the scene that I felt absolutely HAD to sell the video: the Pikachu as Light/Kira crazy bouncing laughing heads scene! When Mike and I storyboarded the video, we definitely knew that whatever character we chose for this scene had to be totally recognizable, but ludicrious and hilarious. The first thing that came to my mind was Pikachu. After finding a nice shot of our favorite electric mouse, the scene more or less made itself. I thought this section would be a massive undertaking, but it was actually a lot easier (and funnier) than I thought it would be.
  
  I moved on to filling in the actual footage once I completed the three main "difficult" sections. Mike and I came up with a list of characters/scenes that would go over well with the AnimeNEXT audience, but would also match the "roles" in the original opening. We found characters with guns to match the "action" section near the end, and mascot/cute/popular characters during the quick shots/monsters section in the beginning. To match the psychadelic colors of the original opening, I throw some color filters and crazy noise on top of the footage. Without a doubt, the hardest character to "cast" was the spinning-in-a-chair person (in the original opening, it's L spinning in a chair).
  
  
  Summary:
  
  I'm just gonna come right out and say it; I LOVE this video, and am very proud of it (and I rarely think that about my own videos). As I worked on it, I kept thinking to myself "I can't believe I'm making this! I'm having WAY too much fun!". I had a complete blast working on this video, and I think it went over very well at AnimeNEXT itself. I can't believe I was able to pull off a parody of the 2nd Death Note opening, but with a little effort, it all came together.
  
  I should note that for a few days, I did consider making a full-length version of the parody. However, I had other projects that needed to be worked on, and I simply don't think the video could have sustained itself for the duration of the song. Quit while I'm ahead, that's what I say (or maybe "short but sweet" is more appropriate in this case).
  
  I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed making it!