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Information

• Member: dwchang
• Studio: Ninja Gaijin
• Title: Here Comes the Sun
• Premiered: 2004-05-15
• Categories:
  • Fun
  • Sentimental
• Song:
  • The Beatles Here Comes the Sun
• Anime:
  • Grave of the Fireflies
  • Kiki's Delivery Service
  • Laputa, Castle in the Sky
  • My Neighbor Totoro
  • Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
  • On Your Mark
  • Porco Rosso
  • Princess Mononoke
  • Spirited Away
  • Whisper of the Heart
• Participation:
  • animecentral AMV Contest, animecentral AMV Contest (2004-05-14)
  • Animethon 11 AMV Contest, Animethon 11 AMV Contest (2004-07-17)
  • Anime Weekend Atlanta **PRO** AMV Contest, Anime Weekend Atlanta **PRO** AMV Contest (2004-09-24)
• Comments: After the pain and frustration of making I Just Can't Wait to be King, I decided to start on my Anime Central 2004 entry and went with an idea I've had for over a year. I just wanted to do something fun and self-indulgent and this video is the result.
  
  The concept of this video is quite simple. Take some of my favorite anime movies of all time, take one of my favorite Beatle's songs of all time and put them together to make a sentimental and (slightly) upbeat video that will make people smile :). Pretty simple eh?
  
  As I'm sure many of you are thinking, the idea of a sentimental, various Ghibli video is far from original. Kusoyaro's Self-Titled and Vlad G Pohnert's Memories Dance are both phenomenal videos with the same concept. So It's been done before and done well (in Hsien's instance, with songs from the same album), why beat a dead horse?
  
  Because this is a hobby and I wanna have fun, that's why :-). As I said before, I've had this video idea for over a year. I couldn't listen to "Here Comes the Sun" off of the Beatle's "Abbey Road" album (my favorite album of all time) without seeing scenes to this video. It built up for a good year and I finally decided to tackle it for Anime Central. In reality, there is quite a bit more on my motivations behind this video, but I'll get to that near the end.
  
  Oh yeah this video is also the first AMV where I had to go buy R2's for source (something I swore I'd never do just for an AMV). Sure I could go with the HK DVDs, but Ghibli R2's are beautiful. They're already anamorphic and have an absurd bitrate. I figured it'd be best to maintain the quality throughout all nine sources instead of degrading it with HKs.
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  Comments on particular scenes:
  First light guitar sequence:
  -I wanted to start the video off by having various characters waking up. To me, the sound of this light guitar sounds like the start of a new day (or in this case, the start of the video). This makes sense to me since the song is called "Here Comes the Sun" and well...the Sun rises in the morning when we start to wake-up (OK well I don't wake-up then, but you get the idea).
  
  Second light guitar sequence:
  -Perhaps this sequence doesn't really tie well with the first, but I just wanted to go with parallelism (also note the above scene also has parallelism). I won't at all claim that I'm original in doing this. Vlad G Pohnert's Memories Dance has a similar concept with parallelism across Ghibli films, but hopefully I have some things different. Also, to be honest, it's pretty difficult to make a various Ghibli video WITHOUT parallelism. Most Ghibli films exhibit this parallelism throughout all their films and it only seems fitting to emphasize it.
  
  First short chorus - "Here Comes the Sun..."
  -We're now truly introducing the video and the concepts within it. The sync with the sun rising is a "duh" moment, but one thing I found out while making this video is that shots of the sun, undisturbed, are hard to come by. Yeah it sounds absurd, but it's true. I had to really save my "sun shots" and use them effectively. I used one here with the sun rising from "Whispers of the Heart." It's a beautiful scene, so might as well use it at the beginning.
  
  Guitar Sequence prior to First Verse:
  -More parallelism. This time either someone picking up someone or someone picking up and twirling. If the footage existed, I'd like to have continued the twirling scenes, but they don't exist. Hopefully you'll forgive me :). Also, the Nausicaa twirl scene is easily one of my favorite scenes in the movie.
  
  First Verse:
  -Fairly typical lyric syncs and sync points. You can thank Kusoyaro for some of that since originally I had some inconsistent sync points and it somewhat disturbed the flow of the video. I guess you can't tell till later, but basically what I'm getting at is using similar sync points throughout the video (i.e. same points in the second verse as the first, same for choruses, etc.). I think that the mind gets used to certain sync points and it's only natural to expect syncs "here" and "there." I personally like having consistency throughout the video and thus constrained myself to such criteria.
  
  One other thing of note is that I'm using "Grave of the Fireflies." This anime is a very sad anime, but I wanted to use it anyway. I tried my best to highlight only the happy moments within the film since they still make me smile. The film may be sad, but the two children did have happy moments in their lives and there's nothing wrong with remembering them. This particular scene is when they are re-united.
  
  First Chorus:
  -OMG fan whoring. Famous Ghibli scenes used. I am so going to AMV-editing hell :P.
  
  Guitar Sequence prior to Second Verse:
  -I used "floating" as the parallelism there. Well I guess the first two make it fairly apparent, but hopefully the other three scenes aren't too much of a stretch.
  
  Chihiro to drumroll:
  -I am still hesistant about this sync. One thing I should make note of here is that you'll notice throughout the entire video that I don't sync to every drumbeat or to any drumrolls within the guitar sequences. This was done intentionally since I think fast strobes within this type of video really disturbs the flow and nature of the video. Syncing to beats is nice and all, but it's not always needed. I think a lot of people need to realize that (OK time to stop ranting...) In any case back to the scene.
  
  This sync is somewhat humorous, but at the same time, I'm unsure how people will see it since she ultimately steps on that goop/bug/thing. I wanted to try my best to not have any violence within the video and although it's not a "violent scene," I still wish there was something else to sync to. Something that would go well with a drumroll and not be semi-violent/gross. Perhaps I'm wrong and over-reacting (probable).
  
  Second Verse:
  -More typical lyric sync and sync points. Smiling scenes for the smiling part and somewhat dramatic scenes for "It seems like years since it's been here." GENIUS!
  
  Second Chorus:
  -Nothing impressive here except me using some of my favorite scenes. In particular, I love the scene in On Your Mark where the Angel's wings come out. It's just a beautiful scene, so I had to try and sync it to that guitar part.
  
  You'll also notice the lack of "true sun" shots here. Notice how I had to use a shot of the sun obscured by trees? Hopefully that validates my previous statement. I also forgot to mention that on most "It's alright" syncs, I chose something like a person giving a "thumbs up" or nodding. It made sense to me *shrug*.
  
  Guitar Sequence after Second Chorus:
  -I used "hugs" and "embraces" for this parallelism. Nothing spectacular or genius about it, but well...I like these scenes so screw you :P.
  
  "Sun, sun, sun, here it comes"
  -This is one of my favorite sequences in the entire video and also one of the easiest to complete. I just took my favorite three or four scenes from six of the sources and sync them to each "sun" lyric. I use my only *gasp* effect by flashing (very light white flash) to black & white. Yes, I do realize how unoriginal this is, but well...I like it and think it works.
  
  You'll also notice I again don't sync to the drumbeat or claps and that is intentional. I think such strobes or sudden syncs would really disturb the mood and flow of the video.
  
  Instrumental prior to Third Verse:
  -As noted above, I intentionally didn't sync to those claps. I had something in mind at one point, but after trying it, decided otherwise. I decided to just go with the flow of the music here. In particular, the sound of the guitar seems "upward" in tone/notes and thus I had the three syncs go "higher and higher." Basically we start with the Angel beginning to fly then Kiki flying higher and then finally the plane up in the clouds. Hopefully that "higher and higher" thing makes sense.
  
  Third Verse:
  -More typical lyric syncs and happy scenes.
  
  Third Chorus:
  -Notice no actual sun shots? Yeah refer to the above statement where I said "true sun" shots are fairly rare and well...I'm saving the last one for the end :).
  
  Guitar Sequence after Third Chorus:
  -I went with "piggybacks" for this parallelism. Yeah yeah, the last sync isn't a piggyback or anything remotely close, but I like that last Kiki going off the building sync :P.
  
  Fourth Chorus:
  -The last "Here Comes the Sun" sync has been planned from the start. It's from "Whispers of the Heart" and is a BEAUTIFUL scene. As I said earlier, I've been saving my "true sun" shots and this is why :).
  
  Guitar Sequence after Fourth Chorus:
  -Went with falling for this parallelism.
  
  Guitar Sequence after the above:
  -Went with the most obvious parallelism for the final one...flight. I AM TEH GENIUS!
  
  Final Guitar Sequence:
  -The last part is just some of the characters waving "goodbye." As cheesy as it sounds, I wanted to try and make it seem like they were now saying goodbye to you, the viewer. The last shot of Nausicaa waving has been in my head since the very start. Nausicaa is probably my favorite Ghibli film and it seemed appropriate to end it with her waving goodbye.
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  Final Thoughts:
  I guess I have a confession to make in that making this video for Anime Central was intentional. One could easily say this is my first "sell out" video and I wouldn't be able to debate otherwise. In fact, I'll outright admit it here. This is the first video I've made where the fans/audience were taken into account during the creation. I know I tell others that I do this for no one but myself, so I guess I lied just this once :P. Let me try and explain:
  
  Anime Central is my home convention and has been for many years. The con and the fans are special to me. They've supported me at various panels, during AMV Iron Chef and generally made me have a good time for those three days every year. I wanted to make a video that would in turn make the people in the audience smile...even if for only three minutes during the entire convention. I wanted to sort of give this video as a "gift" to the con-goers. That no matter how crappy of a day they were having at the con, I could try and get them to smile for at least three minutes :). I guess that's a lofty goal, but it's the reality of it. That was one of my motivations when making the video and I'm sorry if some of you find that unacceptable.
  
  The second (perhaps equally important) motivation was the (obvious) self-indulgent one. Ya know, the normal one for any of my videos :P. I just wanted to make a video with some of my favorite movies of all time and highlight some of my favorite scenes. This video doesn't really have anything complicated about it. I just chose my favorite scenes in the nine sources and voila...music video. There's no real structure, story, meaning or thought behind it. In fact, this is probably one of the most simple and easiest videos I've made in a long time (strange given how much I'm writing about >_>). It was a welcome experience given the pain of the previous video and really helped me re-realize why I do this...it's fun :).
  
  As you can probably tell, I actually like this video (unlike some of my other videos). I guess I get a reputation for being a bit harsh on myself and disliking my work, but I'll outright say that I actually like this video and I think I did a good job with it. My Otakon'04 video isn't out yet, but since it's technically done, I'd say this video would rank 3rd (below Glory of Love and my Otakon'04 entry) out of my own videos. Not that anyone cares, but it's a bit surprising to me and well...this is my video profile :P.
  
  In any case, I imagine 99% of you didn't read this, but to the 1% who did read and watch, thanks! I hope the video got a smile out of you and I hope you enjoyed it.
  
  Take care!
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  Hours Spent: ~80
  
  Equipment and Software used:
  -My Dual 2 Ghz Athlon Computer
  -Adobe Premiere 6.5
  -Adobe Photoshop 6.0
  
  Thanks to:
  -Rozard - Beta-testing whore.
  -Kusoyaro - Beta-testing whore. Was responsible for many changes that made it into the final version.
  -Vlad G Pohnert - For capturing a high quality version of On Your Mark off of his LD for me to edit with.
  
  Awards/Recognition:
  Anime Weekend Atlanta (AWA) 10 Pro Contest
  -Best Sentimental