What was THAT?!?

[Death Mage]

It starts with sound. Then letters appear. Words. An explaination of things to come. Then a light appears, which fades into more letters. These are hollow, not like those before. Those letters themselves are soon replaced with the image of a face. More words, this time as part of the noise.

The background for the face changes to water, with a building further back. Then it all changes. A grassy meadow, with mountians off in the distance. There is something odd moving above the grass. The image changes again. The odd device now much higher, over the clouds. In the bottem left a blue, winged creature is seen.

This fades to an image of somebody clad in white and red, then again into a waterfall of sorts. It seems to be in a man-made structure. There are large figures on either side of the image. Then the odd, floating device is back, moving straight at a building. A circular part of the building is moving. The image shifts again, this time to a winged figure and the image pans down.

Now there are streaks of blue and people falling down. A shift, and more people falling. Then more blue and a blue-winged creature floating up. Soon we see a figure dressed in black with an orange circle around him, followed by breaking glass. A suitable word is heard in the noise. Now, the person clad in white and red again, and someone else entering. Then, just the person in white and red, swinging. Another version of that appears.

More grass. First one person, then two. One person falls, and we are taken to another image. In the back is a large building, or many, with a strange floating object approaching them. Then a quick flash of grass and a person, then a horseman in front of what looks to be the sun. A ring of clouds with a circular patch of trees inside, as something orange moves toward it. The noise reaches a peak as the orange collides into the trees, causing an explosion.

A building is blown apart, then more, and more. Back to the trees on fire. Then the horseman riding away on the clouds as the explosion effects them as well. Then a face, like the first. Then a city on fire, an eye looking down. The face again. Now a boat, with large waves and lots of rain. Two people on board. Now a tree, with three boats in front of it. An explosion on open water, again with the noise getting louder as it happens. Something explodes from the water, moves up, then back down across it.

A face, then a large creature, with a person in front of it. The creature's mouth glows, another face, this one blue, then the creature moves his head. An explosion runs down on of the ships. The image changes a few times during this. Another face appears. A flying creature over a city. Fire. Buildings explode, with the noise getting louder again. The noise is connected to the image, but not. A flash of a face, then a building with wings. Streaks of blue light, something trying to get away from the light, and the light conversion. More loud noise. Then the building with wings alone.

This is not all of the image. There is still more. But this should be MORE than enough for you to tell me what exactually I am looking at, if you know it.

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* These senseless ramblings brought to you by Insanity™. If you just can't figure the dang thing out, it must be Insanity™.
* -.. --- / -. --- - / .-. . .- -.. / - .... .. ... .-.-.-
* Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start
* Boogity-boogity
* Confused? You won't be after this episode of Soap!
* Save the Sand!
* ?8'D Elvis Lives!
* Always remember the heroes of September 11, 2001.
* I've given up trying to make sense. From now on, you're on your own.
* I'm Darth Vader! W00T!

[Chuck]

Sounds like a video game.

[Jen Aside]

A night with my ex-boyfriend!

Or... INCREDIBLE CRISIS!

Or... not.

[Agamemnon]

Tell me old chap, who supplies you with the potent ganja?

[Death Mage]

Sheish, and to think I was planning an even less detailed version of this... Come on, with the details I supplied you should easilly be able to get this if you've seen it. Don't tell me nobody here has seen it...

[Handsome Dan]

Is this a specific movie or something?

[Death Mage]

Yes, it's quite specific.

[Quailman]

I would guess that it's a music video, but I never watch MTV.

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The first time I walked into a trophy shop I said to myself, "e;Whoa, this guy is good!"e;

[ctrlaltdel]

sounds like me just before finishing the term project... still awake and yet dreaming... ink, paper, glue, crayons, computer printouts, radio playing some junk, balsa wood chips all around, cardboard, leftover candy, more pencils, a broken olfa knife, etc. etc...

[Death Mage]

Two people have given close answers. They just need to put their heads togther.

[This message has been edited by Death Mage (edited 01-15-2002 04:07 PM).]

[quercitron]

Yeah, the ganja combined with the term paper...

[Gavzee]

Is it one of the Sims vid games

[Death Mage]

Keep trying.

[Handsome Dan]

Is this a movie or a video game?

[Neo]

Is it something you saw on the news?

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I know you're real proud of this world you've built, the way it works, all the nice little rules and such, but I've got some bad news. I've decided to make a few changes.

[Death Mage]

It was this

------------------
* These senseless ramblings brought to you by Insanity™. If you just can't figure the dang thing out, it must be Insanity™.
* -.. --- / -. --- - / .-. . .- -.. / - .... .. ... .-.-.-
* Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start
* Boogity-boogity
* Confused? You won't be after this episode of Soap!
* Save the Sand!
* ?8'D Elvis Lives!
* Always remember the heroes of September 11, 2001.
* I've given up trying to make sense. From now on, you're on your own.
* I'm Darth Vader! W00T!
* [Video games] don't make me violent, and I'll kill anyone who says they do! - Calvin & Hobbes, slightly edited.

[Jen Aside]

Finally downloaded, and I must say, that's one of the worst choices for a fan-made "music video" I've ever heard... I had to mute it shortly into the clip, it was THAT jarring a contrast between the two.

Although, now I want to play the game

[Jen Aside]

I guess I should also explain that, being a Computer Graphics major (and, supposedly, a quasi-expert on the subject), I don't find that clip to be that revolutionary in terms of much of anything. Whee, grab the FMV from the game, slap the clips together while playing a random song in the background... it's really of very mediocre effort, since said fans haven't had to direct action to put a story together (that's already done) or do much other work besides the simple clipping edits... perhaps you could count "matching action to the music," but even then, this clip only seemed to match up in a few places, when I did listen to the music.

Not that I can currently do much better, since I don't have a means of grabbing FMV in the first place (and there's NO MPEG editors ANYWHERE), but I'd at least use the official music and try to throw in more digital effects than "My name's So-and-so, and I did this clip!"... fan-made things don't tend to impress me unless there's actually some visual effort put into it, such as (convincingly) counterfeiting Beanie Babies, or making "sprite comics" like 8-Bit Theater...

Damn it, all these fanboys need to try harder!

*end of needless criticism*

[Death Mage]

There are some very good fan made music videos out there, mostly for anime but some for video games. The Linkin Park - FF9 one is quite good compared to many. The images on screen fit, both with the theme and the beat. And they do go fairly well togther.

Of course, for a much better one, look for a FF8 video to Stabbing Westward's Television. That one is one of the best I've seen.

It's a lot harder than you think to not only try to find a song that matches various clips (I've seen ones that seem to have been thrown togther completely at random, with a song that doesn't at all fit the theme), and then to find the right clips for the song.

Making something that's 100% original is challenging, taking something and remaking it entirely is very limiting, and is challenging to do well.

And in the end, don't knock it until you've actually put one togther. I'm also still hunting for a good video editor, MovieXone is a POS...

[This message has been edited by Death Mage (edited 02-02-2002 04:26 AM).]

[Jen Aside]

I have put one together. It was a cheap commercial for football, done to Big Pig's "I Can't Break Away." I also did a "horror movie" promo involving clips from Tales from the Far Side. Frankly, I was embarrassed that I couldn't put more "visual" effort into them in the time I had (both were class projects).

Considering that, the bulk of fan videos I see are decreasingly impressive to me, purely because there is no evidence of the fan work besides the fact that the video is put with different audio. Some have done better jobs "matching beats" than this one, and others haven't, but they're still just taking a song (often one that totally conflicts with the video) and throws the clips into a sequence.

The best fan video I've seen (lately--there may be others that've been purged from memory due to irrelevance) is a Sailor Moon/Jerry Springer parody, set to "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Jerry Springer," because the clips and editing work very well together. Most of the clips match up to the lyrics, as well, which I had a hard time seeing in the Linkin Park clip or in others I've seen.

Or, I just hated the song, and that alone ruined any merit the clip might've had, for exactly the same reason I won't like Final Fantasy X (what I've heard of the soundtrack sounds so non-fantasy that I'm absolutely convinced that Square's totally selling the game on name alone).

I've also seen my friends' homemade 20-minute movie, which took a significant amount of visible effort, in that they wrote a script, storyboarded the action, bought costumes, filmed multiple takes, choreographed fight scenes and a car chase(!), added numerous visual effects and sounds, and generally produced a film entirely from scratch. For the Linkin Park clip, ALL of the video besides the bland infographics were pre-made and pre-directed but simply reordered with not a lot, if any, transitions or other extras to show that there was anyone besides Square involved.

So if I have a hard time appreciating some fan works... maybe I just have a hard time seeing the "work."

(Or, it's like a Pokémon paint job on a Hummer--it's a great paint job, but it destroys the whole meaning behind the hummer )

[Jen Aside]

Mind you, if you like it, then you like it, and if I'm missing out, then I'm missing out--my loss... but I personally find it hard to enjoy many fan works, especially, these days, and that's my explanation of why.

[Coyote]

Ai yi yi! That is truly the Hummer from Hell! Talk about getting Poke'd in the eye! The sad thing is, the driver/artist probably feels proud to be driving that monstrosity around.

Actually, I did kinda like the FF9 Video, though I think it definately had more to do with the video clips than any matchup between video and audio. And yes, it made me want to tey the game out!

Let's not save the vitriol strictly for the Fan Artists though....I've seen plenty of Professionally produced music videos where song and video weren't really matched up too well.

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I have Nothing to add.

[mathgrant]

What, you don't like Pokemon???

[Jen Aside]

I haven't watched many professional videos, either, but usually they are the ones putting together the storyboarding and directing the action and so on, so they (should) have a better understanding of the process.

But yes, even pros can suck, too

I like Pokémon... (well, the Mews, anyway) but it's like liking steak and liking ice cream, yet they would taste horrible put together (steak ice cream? eew!)

[Coyote]

Well, it's not steak, but this comes pretty close.

[Death Mage]

Eh. It is a matter of taste. Like I said, some videos are better than other. The Linkin Park/FF9 one is, IMHO, a fairly good one. But yes, less work is required, espically for game ones.

Trying to make a 5 minute video when given 13 hours of scenes.. now THAT is a tough job. Espically trying to match things as closely as possable.

And as for the Pokemon Hummer.. yes, that is a total waste. There is one type of car that "deserves" a Pokemon theme.

------------------
* These senseless ramblings brought to you by Insanity™. If you just can't figure the dang thing out, it must be Insanity™.
* -.. --- / -. --- - / .-. . .- -.. / - .... .. ... .-.-.-
* Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start
* Boogity-boogity
* Confused? You won't be after this episode of Soap!
* Save the Sand!
* ?8'D Elvis Lives!
* Always remember the heroes of September 11, 2001.
* I've given up trying to make sense. From now on, you're on your own.
* I'm Darth Vader! W00T!
* [Video games] don't make me violent, and I'll kill anyone who says they do! - Calvin & Hobbes, slightly edited.

[Jen Aside]

I still think you're missing the fundamental point of my argument. How MUCH you start with doesn't matter--it's what you do with it.

Let's take Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within as an example. Take the best parts of it and a few samples of dialogue, plus some graphics here and there, and you have a trailer for the movie. Of course, the purpose of a trailer is to entice people into watching the movie, and so the movie is watched. After having seen the movie, why would anyone want to watch another, different trailer of the same movie?

Alternately, say a three-minute trailer is made of the movie. Then that exact trailer is shortened to thirty seconds, after the three-minute trailer is made very popular. Why would anyone want to watch the shortened trailer instead of the full trailer or the complete movie itself?

Basically, I fail to see the intent behind the clip, besides toying around with the FMV. There should be more purpose behind a fan movie than simply showing off the FMV, unless that IS the point--but then, if I wanted to watch the FMV, then I would want to watch the unadultered version. If the clip, for instance, showcased only fight scenes, or only romantic scenes, then that would also be a specific purpose, but the clip seemed directionless except for, "I have Adobe Premiere and I know how to put pre-made video together!"

For an example of good... uh... manipulation to achieve a specific goal (which is... a cheap porn joke), check out Metal Pr0n Solid 2. Sadly, it consists entirely of actual game footage.

(If that link doesn't work... which it might not... try here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22metal+pr0n+solid%22 )

[Death Mage]

Perhaps you have a point. You're looking for some hidden meaning? You want to know WHY this project exists? Perhaps there is no deep connection in the two, no central theme. To you, that may be a problem.

To me, I think it exists simply to exist, and that it is quite cool. *shrug* If I'm still missing the point, then perhaps I will never see it.

[ctrlaltdel]

theres tons of points as to why make a shorter movie trailer from a well known thirty seconds long one.

its business. commercials are hell of an expensive deal, and to be wieved in prime time - even more so. so after making the trailer known, a company can run a much shorter version of it with the same effect for a lot less money. the people will still recall the longer version in seing just a few seconds clip.

not sure im talking about same thing as you tho, idk what kind of clip you are talking about, but generally speaking - theres a reason why and a good one. for the cash-holder that is.

[Jen Aside]

But I'm talking about if a FAN makes a shortened version, not the company. I know the analogy is hard to grasp, but then again, maybe the subject's better just dropped.