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Information

• Member: machina21
• Studio: Dakrewkideye Studios
• Title: Spin On,Simon
• Premiered: 2009-07-03
• Categories:
  • Action
  • Character Profile
• Song:
  • Peter Gabriel Big Time
• Anime:
  • Azumanga Daioh (TV)
  • Cowboy Bebop
  • Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, The (TV)
  • Ouran High School Host Club (TV)
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann (TV)
• Participation:
  • Anime Expo® 2009, Anime Expo® 2009 AMV Contest (2009-07-03)
  • Animethon 16, AMV Contest (2009-08-08)
  • AnimeFest 2009, Animefest Fan Video Contest (2009-09-04)
  • Anime Weekend Atlanta 15, AWA 15 - Exposition Contest (2009-09-18)
• Comments: 2 months of actual production work went into "Spin on, Simon". Although the idea for this AMV goes all the way back to AX08. I had seen Nighthawk's "Be A Man" AMV and was immediately inspired.
  
  The decision to use "Big Time" was immediate, I was listening to random 80's songs in my collection and when "Big Time" started playing, the light bulb went off. Honestly, some of the lyrics "fit" Simon in a way, especially the first verse. Talking about being from a "small town" living with people who "think so small and use small words" and "praying to a big god" and such things like that. It seemed like a good idea and I went with it.
  
  I never expected "Spin on" to become as complicated (at least, complicated for me) as It is. I hadn't used After Effects since 2005 and prior to making this AMV, I just simply bought a book talking about basic functions of what the program could do. Needless to say, learned a lot in two months. I also didn't expect to use as many programs as I would end up using:
  
  After Effects CS3
  Premiere CS3
  Photoshop CS2
  Particle Illusion 3.0
  VirtualDubMod
  DVD Decrypter
  
  The most important programs,(well, its not really a program, but a photoshop plug-in) were LunarCell, SolarCell and Glitterato. All three were used to make the planets,sun,stars and nebula used toward the end. Needless to say, if I had not found out about these plugins, this AMV would have taken much longer to complete, if it all.
  
  Another unexpected twist was paying $100 for stock footage for the “Party” sequence. Six random people were used and duplicated about 20 times to make a “crowd”. This “crowd” was then duplicated about 15 more times to complete a sequence that is little over 3 seconds long...
  
  $100 bucks for three seconds. Three motion blurred seconds at that..Yea, I feel a little ripped off about that part.
  
  This would also be my first experience with masking in After Effects. Some of the earlier masks (Especially one in particular) are very,very bad. But as the project moved along, I think I got a better or at least I could handle the damn pen tool better
  
  Story?
  
  Im not too sure about that. A character profile of Simon perhaps. Although, the best thing I could think to describe the story for this AMV is a line from the mouth of Peter Gabriel himself:
  
  "This is a story about a little man with big ambitions"
  
  I think that's pretty fitting No?
  
  That aside, this has been the most elaborate(maybe "elaborate" is too strong of word?) creative endeavor have done since a final project way back in collage. However, in the future there will be improvements, especially to the "Party" sequence and other places where the concepts could be and should be executed better. With that said, I hope it can be a worthy addition to "the org".
  
  Enjoy.