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Information

• Member: machina21
• Studio: Dakrewkideye Studios
• Title: Love Revolution
• Premiered: 2012-10-20
• Categories:
  • Drama
  • Other
  • Romance
• Song:
  • OLIVIA inspi' REIRA (TRAPNEST) Wish
• Anime:
  • Revolutionary Girl Utena (TV)
  • Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie (Adolescence Of Utena)
• Comments: This AMV is brought to you by Cowstian Dior, bringing you the best in luxury bovine accessories...
  
  
  The inspiration of "Love Revolution" is owed to one person, fellow editor and friend Sephiroth. Often, Sephiroth and I would talk over AIM or Facebook and usually he would show me old AMVs, many of which are not available in the catalog for download. Its always interesting to check out older work in any medium, just to see how things have changed over time. Eventually Sephiroth would show me some of his own video. The one video that stood out was his "Gravity of Utena" AMV that he did a few years ago. Now, at the time I wasn't too familiar with "Revolutionary Girl Utena", maybe the most I had ever known of it was as an example used to explain Aspect Ratios in one of the old versions of the A/V Guide. But anyone who watches the show will usually make note of how it looks, especially the movie. I was no different in this in this case as I was blown away at the design sense displayed in the show and it piqued my interest.
  
  About two weeks later when I was browsing the front page for Anime News Network. I saw an article showing the packaging used for the new Remastered Utena box-sets that Nozomi/RightStuf were releasing. I immediately thought of Sephiroth's video and decided to take a look. Once again, I was immediately drawn to the elegant and mysterious design of the packaging featuring selectively colored pieces of the character's clothing, patterns making up parts of the hair and skin given a deep black,like a shadow. I still hadn't seen the show so I wasn't aware that this was an effect used throughout Utena and was sort of a trademark. Seeing these pictures sparked an interest in the show and I immediate did some basic research into Utena and decided also I would try to watch the it sometime in the near future.
  
  The choice of music came from watching the anime "NANA". At the time I had an idea to do an AMV for "Paradise Kiss" and because both shows share the same author/art style/animation studio, i'd figured I watch and see if I could find anything useful to use. At first I didn't think I would watch too many episodes of an obvious drama-fest show, but as usual, I was wrong and soon found myself watching several episodes each day. At around episode 20 or so the opening theme changed to the song "Wish" by Olivia Lufkin. As soon as I heard it, it became an ear worm and I couldn't get it out of my mind. One afternoon as I was listening to it for the umpteenth time, for whatever reason I started thinking of some of some scenes I saw from Utena and then it hit me : "Why don't I do an AMV using this song and Utena and also do it in the weird art style that I saw for the box-sets?". The idea was too good to pass up and immediately became a priority.
  
  The next few months were spent trying to figure out how to achieve the look I wanted and at about August of 2011, I had come up with a process that seemed satisfactory and wanted to start production but I had to wait until all the DVD's were released here in the States.
  (Sephiroth offered me a copy if his imported remastered box sets and all I had to do to just meet him at Anime Expo, but since went into "random recluse" mode at the last minute, I ended up not going and basically setting myself back several months and pissing off my friend, sorry Sephiroth)
  
  Some preliminary editing was done in November but I was not able to actually start production until January 2012. For the next few months I would edit for about 8-10 hours every day because I (foolishly) thought I could complete the AMV in time for Anime Expo that same year. I was able to finish it in time but it was a godawful,shitty looking mess. I think from now on i'll focus less on trying to meet con deadlines and just try to make videos that don't look terrible.
  
  With the AX deadline passing, I decided to spend the next few weeks trying to improve the video and make it somewhat presentable. Initially I wanted to release the video around the date of Anime Expo, but in the middle of June, the hard drive containing all of the project files began to fail and a good number of the files used to make the AMV became corrupted, most notably the AE project file. I thought I would have to redo the project all over again,but somehow I was able to recover 2/3 of the project files and had to spend the next three months trying to put the video back together. Fortunately, most of the video is actually image sequences and not something done inside of AE only, then I would I have been screwed. (Lesson learned: Back-up your stuff, or else).
  
  So finally after having reconstruct the video again and making some improvements the video is "done". "Done" as in this is as probably as good as I can make it at my current skill level. There are parts that are cringe inducing (I can't stand that dancing sequence sometimes) But I was able to achieve some things that I set out to do (Completing an AMV for the first time in two years being one of them). I hope you enjoy "Love Revolution" and try not to gouge your eyes out watching it, its won't last too long, I promise.
  
  
  Special tanks to:
  
  Sephiroth, Driftroot, and everyone else who I begged to watch this video. (And who stopped by to give some advice and a small kick in the ass so I can try the make the video better)
  
  Also, check out the site "Empty Movement", especially their picture gallery,which is full of Utena goodness. It was an invaluable resource while creating this video.