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Information

• Members: MeriC, VegettoEX
• Studio: Temple O' Trunks
• Title: I Walk Alone
• Premiered: 2005-08-19
• Categories:
  • Drama
  • Character Profile
  • Serious
• Song:
  • Green Day Boulevard of Broken Dreams
• Anime:
  • Cowboy Bebop
  • DragonBall Z
  • DragonBall Z: TV Special 2 (The History of Trunks)
  • FLCL (Fooly Cooly)
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion
  • Rurouni Kenshin / Samurai X - 1st OVA (Tsuiokuhen, Trust & Betrayal)
  • Trigun
• Participation:
  • Otakon 2005 AMV Screenings/Contest, Otakon 2005 AMV Screenings/Contest (2005-08-19)
  • Anime Weekend Atlanta 11, AWA 2005 AMV *EXPOSITION* (2005-09-23)
• Comments: I WALK ALONE:
  * 2nd Place in Otakon's Drama/Serious category
  * Joseph Campbell Memorial Character Profile Award at AWA 11 2005 Expo Contest
  
  CONCEPT:
  Driving back from Denino's (the super-mega-awesome pizza place on Staten Island) sometime in the Fall or Winter of 2004, we were listening to Green Day's American Idiot album, when the idea hit Meri -- grand scale shounen angst. The song in and of itself is pretty basic and straightforward -- it simply oozes angst. Wanting to slap some dramatic scenes of our favorite shounen heroes on top of this song was pretty much a given. The two of us love Green Day, love their new album, and also love the song. When Meri pitched the idea to Mike, it was more or less an easy sell.
  
  Oddly enough, the one line that made Meri want to make the video specifically was "I'm walking down the line that divides me somewhere in my mind." In her head, Meri pictured some effects to go from this lyric, and there was no turning back from there.
  
  THE STORY:
  Initially, we wanted to include LOTS of characters, so many in fact that the list of desired characters to feature filled up a whole list written on a page. At first we thought it would be neat to feature one character *per line*. However, after realizing what a ridiculous amount of effort this would take in terms of hard drive usage and looking for footage, we opted to narrow it down to just a few select people (this worked out better in the end, since we were able to maintain focus by limiting the video to a few series). At the time of actually sitting down to edit the video, we had seven sources ripped across three computers; we ended up having to cut out a show because the odd number of series we were working with was throwing us off (we intended to feature Yota from "Video Girl Ai," but he got the axe). Once we had our six working shows all finalized and ripped on our various computers, we got started with the editing.
  
  The video structure (we hope) is fairly simple and easy to understand. The flow of the video is as follows: in the beginning, we can see that these men are clearly messed up. As the video progresses, we learn more about the characters' history... without showing the complete big picture. After much angst and anger, the video ends with showing *exactly* what pushed all of these people over the edge (ie: the major events in these characters' lives that make them so damned messed up). That's more or less the progression of the story in this video, and we hope we were able to get this across easily enough. :) It was neat to tell a non-linear story, for once.
  
  The first verse and chorus of the video features our older male characters (Spike, Vash, Kenshin), while the second verse highlights the young boys (Shinji, Naota, Trunks). Despite segregating our characters in to two distinct groups, the overlying theme is still present; all of these angsty shounen characters have experienced loss, loneliness, and anger.
  
  The introduction of the video shows some establishing outdoor/street shots from all of the series that we used. Pretty straightforward setup right there. The narrative shifts its focus to Spike, then to Vash, and then to Kenshin. Once the three have been introduced, we used a split screen effect to show some comparative shots of the three characters together; 1) "My shadow...": being the force that moves each of the three characters (in the case of Spike and Vash, their "companion" characters from the past, while Kenshin's "companion" character is literally a "reflection" of himself), 2) "My shallow heart...": the characters with a woman, 3) "Sometimes I wish someone out there would find me...": Sitting alone, looking depressed. Since we're suckers for comparison shots between series, using split scenes seemed like the best way to get this point across.
  
  Originally, we had more elaborate visuals taking place during the chorus. However, a week before the Otakon AMV due date, we confided in each other that in actuality, we both hated how the choruses looked. We quickly toned down the effects, and made things easier to see and understand. The split screen chorus is the result of this change. It's nothing terribly over-the-top, and doesn't look all that fancy, but it gets the point across better than what we had originally planned, and that's probably the most important aspect to pay attention to.
  
  The second half of the video is set up in the same structure as the first, only now we change our focus to the three younger characters.
  
  After all six characters are introduced, we used the instrumental section to show the rage and anger and violence that possesses each of this people (think of it as this; they spent the whole beginning of the video angsting like crazy, and now they are venting their frustrations!). From this point on, we show a little bit more of each characters' back-story. The ending is a compilation of all of the big moments in the characters' lives.
  
  
  MAKING THE VIDEO:
  We used Adobe Premiere, PhotoShop and After Effects to create the video. Mike did the majority of the video editing, while Meri covered the graphics and visual effects. All of the effects were done in After Effects, while the ending still shot was created in PhotoShop.
  
  Interestingly enough, the majority of time spent on this video was used looking for footage, ripping the DVDs, and cleaning up the scenes (this alone took maybe over a month). The actual creation of this video took place over the span of two months.
  
  
  CONCLUSION:
  This video was pretty fun to make, although it may be a while before we try tackling another various source video...! We genuinely love all of the shows and characters (not to mention the music), and it was an amazing experience to use them all together in one fangasm of shounen angsty love.
  
  
  VIDEO EASTER EGGS:
  There's a wide variety of editing "tricks" done in this video, to the point where you'll only notice what's different if you REALLY know the source footage. While even we don't remember all of them, we did want to share just a couple with you.
  
  Spike places the rose on the ground -- This touching moment wasn't touching at all in the original footage... because Spike *picks up* a rose off the ground, not places it there. OK, so this isn't much of a "trick" beyond playing the footage backwards, but it's amazing how different it hits you when Spike leaves the rose behind, instead.
  
  Naota on the bridge -- A very creepy scene as the cars buzz by on the guitar "twangs" (for lack of a better phrase), which would have been much less effective had we kept Mamimi in the shot. In the original footage, Mamimi is hanging out on the edge of the bridge. A little bit of Meri in After Effects can do wonders for removing a character!
  
  The song, itself -- The beginning of the song has been faded up. As it appears on the album, it directly flows in from the previous song ("Holiday"). We purchased the import CD single in hopes that it would have a "clean" opening (such as simply starting with the lyrics, instead of the "waka-waka-waka" guitar part). Not being able to sample the track on the CD single proved to be our final strike, since even the CD single has the song exactly as it appears on the album! No radio edit exists to purchase, or so it would seem. Drats. Further complicating things, we definitely wanted to censor the one occurrence of the word "fuck" for playback at the convention. With no radio edit, what were we to do?! Amazingly, the mash-up "Boulevard of Broken Songs" seems to have the censored radio version (WTF? Where did they get it?!), and allowing us a giant sigh of relief, that particular part of the mash-up has no part of Oasis' "Wonderwall" to be heard. Huzzah! The version you can download, however, uses the uncensored version.
  
  
  LYRICS:
  I walk a lonely road,
  The only one that I have ever known.
  Don't know were it goes,
  But it's home to me, and I walk alone.
  I walk this empty street
  on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams...
  where the city sleeps,
  and I'm the only one, and I walk alone.
  I walk alone, I walk alone.
  I walk alone, and I walk a-
  
  My shadow's the only one that walks beside me.
  My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating.
  Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me.
  'Til then I walk alone.
  
  Ah-ah... Ah-ah...
  Ah-ah... Aaah-ah.
  Ah-ah... Ah-ah...
  Ah-ah... Aaah-ah.
  
  I'm walking down the line
  that divides me somewhere in my mind,
  on the border line of the edge
  and where I walk alone.
  Read between the lines
  What's fucked up and everything's all right.
  Check my vital signs to know I'm still alive
  and I walk alone.
  I walk alone, I walk alone.
  I walk alone, I walk a-
  
  My shadow's the only one that walks beside me.
  My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating.
  Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me.
  'Til then I walk alone.
  
  Ah-ah... Ah-ah...
  Ah-ah... Aaah-ah.
  Ah-ah... Ah-ah...
  I walk alone, and I walk a-...
  
  I walk this empty street
  on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams...
  where the city sleeps,
  and I'm the only one and I walk a-
  
  My shadow's the only one that walks beside me.
  My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating.
  Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me.
  'Til then I walk alone...