main menu

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

Information

• Member: Illia Sadri
• Studio: Starving Artist Anime
• Title: Life Before Your Eyes
• Premiered: 2005-09-10
• Categories:
  • Action
  • Drama
  • Character Profile
  • Serious
  • Dance
  • Instrumental
• Song:
  • Re-venge Matsuri Japan
• Anime:
  • Final Fantasy 8 (VIII)
• Participation:
  • Anime Weekend Atlanta 11, AWA 2005 AMV *PRO* CONTEST (2005-09-23)
  • Archon 29 AMV Contest, Archon 29 AMV Contest (2005-09-29)
• Comments: Hoo boy, I get to go nuts explaining this one since I am writing the details of the video well in advance and where it is fresh enough not to irritate me.
  
  
  To anybody questioning the music and footage choice.... Yes I know it is an unexpected combination. Frankly that is the point of the video because I was so sick of seeing Final Fantasy VIII videos that all use the same footage and sappy romance ballads.
  
  
  The Boring Details of How it Came to be and the tech stuff
  
  The project began in late May of 2005, following Anime Central. I had been dry for more than half a year save a Fruits Basket video compiled almost entiely on Mothers' Day. My videos (at least those finished) up to this point had been dramas and I wanted to toy around with some effects and to make an action video.
  
  And to be honest for the most part the video isn't so much effects but layers upon layers and some basic masking. At one point in the final segment of the song which can best be described as organized chaos there were 17 layers in premiere being used with various crop levels and opacities. Now that I think about it not all of them really show that much and perhaps it may have made things easier on myself to have not done that.
  
  The trickiest part is the mask used. The scene I needed was a dark background and you could not see the borders of the object very clearly at all. On top of this there was shadowing and such which made it rather difficult to blend it in with the very light scene it was fading into. I did use a little bit of feathering to make it less noticable and it is truly the one part of the video I wish if I knew how I would revamp ever so slightly. However it was a learning experience with the effects.
  
  My favorite part of this video was easily the opening. It really was putting together scenes and everything fell into place pretty much perfectly. There was little frame by frame tweaking and the flow I think did set up the mood appropriately.
  
  Took several breaks from it due to registering for school and such and came back to it to barely finish it in time for Anime Weekend Atlanta's Pro Contest. Literally I was rendering in the final hours before leaving a day before the deadline to visit family in Chicago. So the version on the org is a slightly adjusted version to hammer out the slight issues I found in the first render.
  
  
  The Video and Explanation
  
  This was designed to be the anti-FF8 video. It is so heavily dominated with romance and sap using the same few scenes over and over. Frankly I hate the game mostly due to Squall. Well what more fun can I have (and justify having paid full price for the game years ago) than to kill him off.
  
  Well, the parade scene was perfect for that. And also considering I was using a fast paced Dance Dance Revolution Song it also made things work. It starts off with just the parade and the first segment of it plays into chasing down the sorceress admist this. It is almost two seperate events despite they are happening at once. Honestly I think the largest flaw in this video is it tries to cram way too much in a very short timespan.
  
  Then the flutes come in and you get the actual confrontation. Not much to say on that as it is pretty self explanitory that shords of ice going through your throat usually sucks. Throught this I have several scenes playing out before it kicks into the fast paced tribal sequence. The masking that starts it was the first time I attempted something like this although I do wish I could do more with it . Unfortunately the scene is very dark and between the light and shadows of the footage, it was impossible to entirely make it mesh with the light scene of the field. Kind of a shame. But with about 45 min of afootage (refused to use wither the ballroom scene nor the opening cinemtic) you don't get a lot of choices for these things.
  
  This idea that carries up until the end of the video is the old cliche that when you die your life flashes before your eyes. There are points where you can;t make out everything which is kinda the idea. The music alone lends to this hazy fast paced motion and thus the clips aren't meant to settle in but rather be a very incoherent stream of visions. The portion up to where the girl comes out actually I really liked a lot as the flow I felt was great. Then the song gets even more chaotic.
  
  Towards the end though the video kinda pulls back to reality. The parade is still happening without an eyelash being batted and the girl is in shock. Particlarly with the final scene where it is almost in Squall's perspective, almost like a last vision before the last boom with the eye.
  
  
  A little pretentious? Yeah. Just a tad. Blame it on the Drama roots. I am looking at this again after a bit and must admit that I think I tried to do too much with this video over a min and a half. But with my primary goal of creating a Final Fantasy VIII video that was somewhat different from the norm and also something a little familiar and different from what is typically done with Dance Dance Revolution, I do feel that I did my job efficiently. Once I get my first fangirl raving on why i had to do that topoor Squall then the job will truly be complete.
  
  Major thanks to Brad (AtomX ) for his advice in conducting the encoding and also helping me out when my cat gota hold of a disk and I needed scenes. It would not have looked quite as nice without his advice (despite how simple it really was, he had to do the bulk of the trial and error) It's the nicest I think is possible right now with the original mpeg1 resolution used on psx era video games.
  
  Nominated for Best Dance and Best Instrumental/Nonlyrical AWA Pro 2005