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Information

• Member: VegettoEX
• Title: Despondency
• Premiered: 2003-05-16
• Categories:
  • Drama
  • Character Profile
  • Serious
• Song:
  • Midtown Frayed Ends
• Anime:
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion
• Participation:
  • PortConMaine AMV Contest, PortConMaine AMV Contest (2003-06-13)
• Comments: de·spon·den·cy
  n. Depression of spirits from loss of hope, confidence, or courage; dejection.
  
  If there was ever a video that I did just for me, this is it.
  
  This video is also pretty much a fluke. Meri and I had her computer over at my house over spring break 2003 to work on a special project (for which all of EVA was ripped in its entirety). I had this video idea picking at me for well over a year (which takes me long before I was even halfway adept at editing AMVs), and just hadn't had a chance to do it. When were we ever going to do an EVA video? We didn't ever have room for it. Meri had actually just purchased a new 120 GB hard drive, so with multiple series ripped on the hard drive, we had plenty of opportunities to go in different directions with projects.
  
  So here was EVA, all ripped and AVIed for me, sitting in my dining room. For the (very) few hours each day that Meri wasn't around, I got to work. Two video projects were going at once, essentially: our collaborative project, and this on my own time.
  
  This video is the result of a mere five hours of work over the course of three days. It's approximately 1:40 long. I didn't edit linearly at all for this particular video; there were certain lines in the lyrics that had already been playing in my head for a year, so these were done well ahead of most of the video. With these done, I more or less worked at filling in the gaps between these chunks of video.
  
  The point of the video is pretty simple, and relatively overdone in other videos: Shinji's a hypocrite. On the outside, he can put up a decent front from time to time, but deep down, he's a complete waste of a soul. No hopes, no aspirations... no courage. "You'll surround yourself with / everyone who says what you need to feel / all right." The people around Shinji aren't fooled; they know who he is and how he feels deep down.
  
  The editing pattern was pretty simple, but kept up with the pace of the song. All dissolve cuts are on important guitar strums, lots of metaphorical lyric matching, and even some action timing (what little action there is; such as Asuka running away at the beginning, Shinji's eye blink at the end, etc).
  
  There's actually a fair amount of footage manipulation in the video. For example, early on when Asuka sees Shinji from down the hallway, she bends over and screams at him a bit, then runs off; I got rid of the yelling, and just had her run off. There's lot of lip-flaps covered up (Toji, Keisuke, etc). I tried to avoid as much of the scene-change jitters as I could in the original footage, and to just keep it looking as best as it possibly could.
  
  The only "effect" you could say was used is at 1:18-1:20. The swirl is slowed down with a ghosting filter added to it. I did this because I absolutely love how the swirl flowed with that part of the music, but it was just SLIGHTLY too short to use. I slowed it down, and added the ghosting to make it "flow" more, visually. I really like how it looks.
  
  While it's a simple video, I think it's actually somewhat powerful at certain points. The vocals are easily understood, which I think is also a big help to the video. I'm glad to finally do Midtown some justice, after making such a terrible DBZ video to "Just Rock 'n Roll" in the past :D.
  
  This is also the first video I've ever had the pleasure of personally handing it to a member of the band whose song I used (wow, what a complex sentence). Midtown's from New Brunswick, NJ (which is where I go to school at Rutgers University; the guys in Midtown got together at Rutgers a couple years before I started attending). Midtown came back this year to play "SpringFest" (a festival at school where there's carnival games and bands). Rob (the drummer) was hanging out afterwards talking to fans, so I gave him a CD with the video on it. It was extremely exciting, especially since Rob genuinely seemed interested in it.
  
  This video was sent to Anime Central 2003. I have no idea if it was in the contest, or was even played. I sent it only because it seemed like a waste to let the video sit around just for me, even if I did indeed make it just for myself. I've also handed it off to Scott Melzer for PortCon Maine 2003, because it's just really convenient :D.
  
  I don't expect people to really get into the video, since the song is really just an acoustic guitar with vocals, and it's a character profile of someone who's been profiled to death. However, I'm really happy with how it came out. I think it flows beautifully, and I watch it on a regular basis.
  
  
  *** EQUIPMENT USED ***
  
  Video was digitally ripped from DVD source, IVTC-ed, edited with MotionJPEG files, exported from original VOB sources to HuffyUV AVI format.
  
  "Neon Genesis Evangelion" TV DVD Boxset
  HP Pavilion (1.5 gHz, 256 MB RAM, 45 + 120 GB hard drive)
  VirtualDub 1.4.10
  DVD Decrypter
  DVD2AVI
  AVIsynth
  Adobe Premiere 5.1
  TMPGEnc
  
  
  *** TECHNICAL INFO ***
  
  - 900+ MB -- Master AVI encoded 720x480, 23.976 fps, 44 kHz stereo sound, HuffyUV
  - 25.8 MB - MPEG encoded 352x240, 23.976 fps, 2000 kbps 2-pass VBR (300 min, 3000 max), 192 kbps (44 kHz) stereo sound