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Information

• Member: Scott A Melzer
• Studio: NoN.D.E.
• Title: Live And Let Die
• Premiered: 1998-02-28
• Category:
  • Action
• Song:
  • Paul McCartney & Wings Live and Let Die
• Anime:
  • DragonBall Z
• Participation:
  • Katsucon 4, Katsucon 4 (1998-02-27)
  • Otakon, Otakon (1998-08-07)
• Comments: My fifth video (another two-vcr deal) was the first one that was made for a con other than Otakon. This was for Katsucon 4, in 1998. I'd decided at the last minute to go to the con (well, last minute for the AMV deadline, that is). That was a friday. The AMV deadline was postmarked the following monday. I'd had an idea for a DBZ video a little while earlier while I was driving in the car. I'll admit that I was very hesitant in doing a DBZ video. Most of the ones I'd seen, frankly, were terrible. Just random fight footage to some hard song.
  
  I wasn't convinced that this one would be better, but it was the only idea that I had that I thought could be done in a few days.
  
  I got my friend Matt Johnson to work on it with me. Matt has a near photographic memory, which was invaluable as I'd tell him what kind of scene we wanted, and he'd tell me where it was on a tape. We worked all day Saturday. He went home around 1:00am, and I kept working. I did the TERRIBLE "Summoning Shenlon" bridge scene. Ugh. Then the Play VCR broke.
  
  I panicked. The deadline was the next day. I cried, pulled my hair, screamed, etc. I also know a little about VCR repair, but I couldn't get it to budge. I ran out to the local electronics mega-store and bought a new VCR and got back to work. Matt didn't even know anything was missing. I didn't sleep much that weekend, but I got a video done. As it usually takes me at least a month to do a video, I was very surprised that we got something done so quickly. Part of that was having to chuck my perfectionism out the door. We had a rule that if we didn't get a scene properly timed in three takes, TOO BAD. We just didn't have the time. As a result, we burned through it. Granted, it still took about 30 hours to make (which for some people is a long time, but for me it's short) and I'm REALLY not happy with a lot of the timing (why couldn't we get Trunks to grab his sword & sheathe to the beat????).
  
  The showing at Katsucon was awful. They didn't have a compilation tape. They just played the submission tapes. I was a good boy and put 30 seconds of black before the video. I'd also included "Shiny Happy People" from Otakon a few months back. When nothing popped up for a little while, they fast forwarded until they saw images. Unfortunately, this means that they skipped the first 30 seconds of the video. I was pretty upset. They did the same thing with SHP. Both times, the video played starting from the action parts. *sob*
  
  The video itself is nostalgic. The idea is that Goku was simply a child, having fun. Then life comes along and he is forced to fight. At first, the villains are winning. The bridge is where this starts to turn around (I guess summoning Shenlon did the trick?) and then the heroes beat the villains. At the end, though, Goku is still just a little kid. I tried to work as much as I could with timing and variety, as I was terrified that the video would simply look like it took just two days to do. Aparently people liked it, because it grabbed 1st place at Otakon's "Action" category later that year, when I decided that it was okay to enter it, since it got shafted at Katsucon earlier. I'm glad I did.
  
  I swore that I'd never do another Dragonball Z video after that one. Like most of my promises to myself, I never listen.