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Information

• Member: CrackTheSky
• Title: Retrace
• Premiered: 2019-08-17
• Categories:
  • Drama
  • Character Profile
  • Serious
  • Sentimental
• Song:
  • Sleeping At Last Nine
• Anime:
  • From the New World (TV)
• Comments: Unlike my last two videos, this one had virtually no forethought going into it -- I never really intended to make a Shin Sekai Yori video, and hadn't even heard this song until a day or two before I started actually editing. I needed something to put together to enter into NDK's contest and was in a more melancholic mood, so rather than doing the upbeat/fun schtick that I usually default to for my NDK videos, I opted for heavy drama. SSY was one of the few anime I've seen in the past several years that I felt would work in this style, so I started clipping scenes and searching for the right song, both at the same time. I don't recommend this approach as in the past I've found that it's easy to compromise on your vision, but it worked out for me here.
  
  Most, if not all, SSY videos I've seen tend to be pretty desolate, bleak, and horror-tinged. I wanted to do something slightly different without taking the scenes out of the anime's all-encompassing context of loss and loneliness, and make something with a bit more of a positive vibe near the end. Arranging this video was quite an experience, as I hadn't fully intended on creating any sort of narrative structure. Pretty much from the moment I started putting clips on the timeline though, I found myself trying to create themes and motifs that would run throughout the whole thing and create some semblance of chronology. I really wanted to emphasize the close relationships and friendships that Saki has throughout the series, and how those relationships morph and change (and end) as she grows older. I also wanted to explore her relationship with Shun specifically, and the specific plot point of her altered memories later in the series. In the end, it all came together and I'm satisfied. It communicates the exact feelings of sadness and joy and -- importantly -- acceptance and moving forward that I intended when I set out.
  
  The actual editing here required some adjustment -- I haven't really made something with this exact style of editing since Ascend in 2007 (please believe me when I say that I'm not name-dropping that video so you'll watch it -- please don't, it's not very good -- but stylistically the music is similar and the editing is too). Still, it was fun and a nice change of pace from what I've been used to over the past five or so years, and it was good to get back into proper, traditional, simple drama.
  
  Also, I can't talk about this video without mentioning my favorite SSY video, EnQuatre's Paradise Lost, which is probably the best video out there in terms of conveying the persistant feelings you get while you watch the series. I wanted to differentiate mine from his (I was pretty worried that I would set out to make essentially the exact same video as EnQuatre), and I think I succeeded, but be sure to give his a look too because it's, like, really good.
  
  Technical notes
  Edited in Sony Vegas 15.0 -- I finally upgraded from 8.0 which I've been using for over 10 years! Feels good to finally have an actual legitimate copy of Vegas, and this version has some downright nifty little features that I can't unsee as "missing" if I were to go back to 8.0. Total time was probably 15-20 hours over the course of about a week of editing.