main menu

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

Information

• Member: Emong
• Title: Gothic Poetry
• Premiered: 2007-10-18
• Categories:
  • Character Profile
  • Serious
  • Horror
  • Romance
• Song:
  • Emilie Autumn Opheliac
• Anime:
  • Le Portrait de Petit Cossette
• Comments: Announcement Thread|YouTube (for previewing, duh!)
  
  Intro
  The idea for this came quite soon when I had first heard the song. I knew I should edit a video using Opheliac someday. The problem was to find a proper anime series I could use. I thought it would be hard because Emilie Autumn's songs aren't really all that convenient for AMVs.. However, I remembered the Le Portrait de Petit Cossette AMVs I had in my AMV collections and pretty soon I looked up the series and watched it, hoping the story-line would fit with the song.. It was perfect. Not just good. Perfect. Everything just went so well. The lyrics matched amazingly well and the mood couldn't have been more appropriate. It made me wondering if Emilie Autumn really wrote the song just for the anime sake xD Thus, the idea for "Gothic Poetry" was invented. Now I just had to edit it..
  
  The Story (Spoilers)
  This is more or less re-telling of the anime. I didn't have a fancy abstract concept to work on like I did when I was editing my previous video. I don't think it was needed, because the lyrics were so self-explanatory. I DID, however, have a certain ankle to look at the original story from, and that is how Cossette felt about Eiri before falling in love with him. If you look at the choruses or the lyrics as a whole, it's like Cossette's monologue to Eiri. She tortures him and uses him and still he loves her blindly and will tolerate extreme pain for her. That's the main concept I had. To capture this aspect of the story.
  
  This is only half the truth though, as everyone who has seen the series should know. There is certain progression in the story. I wanted it to come to a some sort of a conclusion in the end, and that I did by slowly shifting the story to Eiri's perspective, how he overcame Marcelo's acts and the portrait for the sake of his love for Cossette and himself. The final clip represents (or at least is trying to represent) Eiri's "win" over Marcelo (and over Cossette, too) and Cossette's final sacrifice for Eiri, as she fell in love with him in the end and spared his life but with a high price. Thus, it shows Cossette restrained and trapped in her own loneliness (That's how I interpret the story) Those are the outlines of my concept. What's inside, however, is more complex.
  
  The clip selection is made with mood sync in mind. I wanted the most intense scenes to go with the intense parts of the song and so on. That's why the torture scenes are on whenever there's a chorus and surreal drama for the melodic parts, etc. There's also progression in the clip selection that goes with the progression of the song. The third verse would be the best example, I think ("Studies show: intelligent girls are more depressed" etc..) The mood of the song changes so I wanted the mood (and the story) of the clip selection to change as well. The third verse is actually a turning point for Eiri, where he realized the Cossette he was with was actually only a portrait of her. (The ones who have seen the series will know) I also dropped in details to take notice of, such as the clip with a bloody hand with a blue background. If you look at the clips right before that clip, you'll see why I put it there :) Anyway, I'm always in for complex stories in AMVs and this is no exception.
  
  At first the title of this video was meant to be "Opheliac", named after the song. But then I figured it didn't really tell anything about the video so I came up with a better title, "Gothic Poetry". It's pretty self-explanatory, I think, and something of a mood I wanted this video to have. I hope you get what I mean? ;) It's also something of an adjective describing the story and the song, especially the lyrics.. But, this section is going way too long already. In the name of open interpreting, I'll just leave it here.
  
  Sync & Effects
  This video is heavily beat-synced 0.0 I mean it. I think I synced to most beats, if not all of them.. There are mainly three layers of sync: harpshicord, bass and the noisy beats (where I put clips to "break" and used heavy glow and B&W) I swear the hardest thing about this video was to keep this complex sync structure together. It nearly killed me. Especially syncing to the harpshicord keys >_> I also used a lot of still-frames and - because I'm a fade-out whore - about 99% of the clips has a fade-out (without a fade-in) So, it can be quite flashy sometimes ;)
  
  And what comes to the effects, I went for repeatative again, because I prefer them that way. But I know I will get some negative-ish comments about that.. Anyway, the triangular "masks" I used are supposed to represent glass shards (and everyone who has seen the series knows why) Notice: they're supposed symbolize them, not to actually look like them (that wouldn't have been too convenient..) I used them mainly for the harpshicord keys in different shapes and stuff. It was "fun" to shape things with them, I suppose, but took so much time >_>
  
  Technical Notes
  I used downloaded fansubbed footage, but there are no subtitles on this video. Mostly I used the zoom technique to cut them out of the image. I had some troubles with getting the footage to look like. I'm still not a pro at filtering but there's some filtering on this video and certainly hope I did that at least decently.. Anyway, the H264 encoded version is on LOCAL download. I will add the XviD version sooner or later (unless if I run into difficulties like the last time..) The mp4 version looks nice on my end but it's still no DVD-footage..
  
  Final Comments
  I wanted to go one or two steps further from my previous video when I was editing this one. I think it turned out better, and hopefully less cheesy :D I was a bit too harsh on myself when I first saw the completed version of this video, but now I'm quite happy with it ^_^ Worth the effort I put on it~ And, about the making process, editing certainly wasn't "fun" because it was just too damn slow-paced and I never seemed to get anywhere with this. Especially because most of the time went to copy-pasting effects and repeating stuff >_> However, it's the end result that matters to me, and I really hope you'll like it ^_^ So, enjoy, please?
  
  Special Thanks
  Miss Sakura-san
  CrackTheSky
  =DarKNesS= for tips, thoughts and beta-testing ^_^
  
  AnimeMusicVideos.org
  
  Emilie Autumn - Opheliac
  
  I’m your Opheliac
  I’ve been so disillusioned
  I know you’d take me back
  But still I feign confusion
  I couldn’t be your friend
  My world was too unstable
  You might have seen the end
  But you were never able
  To keep me breathing
  As the water rises up again
  Before I slip away
  
  You know the games I play
  And the words I say
  When I want my own way
  You know the lies I tell
  When you’ve gone through hell
  And I say I can’t stay
  You know how hard it can be
  To keep believing in me
  When everything and everyone
  Becomes my enemy and when
  There’s nothing more you can do
  I’m gonna blame it on you
  It’s not the way I want to be
  I only hope that in the end you will see
  It’s the Opheliac in me
  
  I’m your Opheliac
  My stockings prove my virtue
  I’m open to attack
  But I don’t want to hurt you
  Whether I sink or swim
  Thats no concern of yours now
  How could you possibly think
  You had the power to know how
  To keep me breathing
  As the water rises up again
  Before I slip away
  
  You know the games I play
  And the words I say
  When I want my own way
  You know the lies I tell
  When you’ve gone through hell
  And I say I can’t stay
  You know how hard it can be
  To keep believing in me
  When everything and everyone
  Becomes my enemy and when
  There’s nothing more you can do
  I’m gonna blame it on you
  It’s not the way I want to be
  I only hope that in the end you will see
  It’s the Opheliac in me
  
  Studies show:
  Intelligent girls are more depressed
  Because they know
  What the world is really like
  Don’t think for a beat it makes it better
  When you sit her down and tell her
  Everything is gonna be alright
  She knows in society she either is
  A devil or an angel with no in-between
  She speaks in the third person
  So she can forget that she’s me
  
  Doubt thou the stars are fire
  Doubt thou the sun doth move
  Doubt truth to be a liar
  But never doubt
  Doubt thou the stars are fire
  Doubt thou the sun doth move
  Doubt truth to be a liar
  But never doubt I love
  
  You know the games I play
  And the words I say
  When I want my own way
  You know the lies I tell
  When you’ve gone through hell
  And I say I can’t stay
  You know how hard it can be
  To keep believing in me
  When everything and everyone
  Becomes my enemy and when
  There’s nothing more you can do
  I’m gonna blame it on you
  It’s not the way I want to be
  I only hope that in the end you will see
  
  But never doubt
  
  You know the games I play
  And the words I say
  When I want my own way
  You know the lies I tell
  When you’ve gone through hell
  And I say I can’t stay
  You know how hard it can be
  To keep believing in me
  When everything and everyone
  Becomes my enemy and when
  There’s nothing more you can do
  I’m gonna blame it on you
  It’s not the way I want to be
  I only hope that in the end you will see
  
  (from Emilie Autumn's official website "The Asylum")