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Information

• Member: StudioKZ
• Studio: Studio KZ
• Title: In my Hands
• Premiered: 2001-08-10
• Categories:
  • Drama
  • Serious
• Song:
  • Fuel Hemmorage (in my hands)
• Anime:
  • Rurouni Kenshin / Samurai X - 1st OVA (Tsuiokuhen, Trust & Betrayal)
• Participation:
  • Otakon 2001, Otakon 2001 (2001-08-10)
  • Anime Weekend Atlanta 7, Anime Weekend Atlanta 7 (2001-09-21)
• Comments: Watching the end of the first episode of the Kenshin OAVs, I was reminded of this song, so after about four months and a change of Hardware, I decided to pick up the OAVs on DVD as well as the Fuel CD and started work.
  
  My new hardware was the same P3-500, this time with 2 7200 RPM ATA/66 drives, 256M of memory, my TNT2 Ultra 32meg video card and a Pinnacle Systems DV500, with Premiere 5.1c(realtime). Alot of the headaches I had using the Matrox G200 were gone, but the space left room for new headaches(not nearly as many though). After spending a few days on the learning process for this new card, I finally started putting and piecing the video together.
  
  This song just seemed like a Natural match to the Anime for me, the chemistry between the singer and his subject seemed to match very well with the chemistry between Kenshin and Tomoe and I tried to show that in the video. The primary focus was intended to be Tomoe herself and how Kenshin ruined her life from the moment he entered it by killing her Fiancee until the moment he kills her and then how that event changed his life. It was a see-saw, for every act of violence in the video (all four action scenes, none of which lasted more than ten seconds, except maybe his killing her), there is a shocked, dismayed or apathetic reaction from her, until she finally has her own revenge on him. *I* think this video was closer to telling an actual story than any I've seen, down to the repeated and deliberate use of sequences(long shot, medium shot, close up), all of which matched either the music tempo or the lyrics themselves. One thing about my video is that you can watch it without any sound and still get a pretty good idea of what's going on, the music only adds to the video itself. (For that, I blame the school I was in at the time and the several projects that I was working on at the same time that I worked on this video.) There aren't too many videos out there that you can say that about.
  
  
  The opening shows their introduction to one another, when Kenshin kills the assassin and splatters his blood on Tomoe and the song was supposed to progress from there. Unfortunately for me, I didn't have time before the Otakon Deadline to complete the intro of the video. Another problem that plagued me was that in my original editing, I had used a Radio cut of the song, which borrows a feedback loop like noise from another song on Fuel's CD. Unfortunately, when I got the CD itself and captured the song and put it on there, that feedback was not present. Not really having the time to clean it up, I left the silence in on the Otakon tape. I wasn't especially happy with the final product, but it was viewed as being different enough from the other Kenshin vids submitted that it was the only Kenshin video in the contest.
  
  I had intended to clean it up and submit a better version for AWA's Pro contest. Now having made a deal with Quu to hand him the tape of the video at Otakon, I set about reworking it during the two weeks prior to the con. I cut the 45 second intro(which, imho really killed the popularity of this video... I mean you have 30 seconds to hook the audience, and I bored them for 45... come on now). Anyways, I cut the 45 second intro down to 20, subtitled the footage appropriately and worked the feedback loop back into the video. Then I set about cleaning up the last minute or so of the video, softening some of the edits and changing the order of a few and changing the speed of a few so that they matched the beats a bit more. So I get ready to export it. And while I'm rendering what is the ultimate version of this video on the thursday night before Otakon, my 20GB Media drive decides it's lived for a year and a half and doesn't need to work like this anymore. My computer crashed. I didn't know why. I rebooted and all of a sudden the drive motor starts spinning, grinding and sputtering like one of those old floppy drives from an Apple IIc. ... FSCK!!! Three months worth of Video work ... gone. Toast... bye bye birdy. Waaaaaaaaugh!
  
  I still have the drive itself... I imagine atleast some of the data is recoverable (I lost two AWA Pro projects. ;.;), but it's probably going to cost more than it's worth to recover. (My other project was a Bebop video set to the original Morricone Ecstasy of Gold and The Trio(the tune played during the three-way standoff at the end of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. That was one of my favorite CDs, but I haven't been able to listen to it since)
  
  Fortunately and thankfully, Duane and Matt were sympathetic to my plight and allowed Quu to grab the tape that I had sent them of the video, so I atleast got to enter one video into the Pro contest.
  Also Fortunately (and happily ^_^) the judges at the Otakon Contest recognized what I was attempting to do with this video and subsequently awarded it an Honorable Mention. Unfortunately, under the eyes of the 'Professionals' making the nominations for the contest, it didn't make it very far.
  
  I've had mixed reactions, from people telling me how sad the video is and how much it really melds with the series to people saying it's a blood bath and a typical Kenshin vid (I have to blink at this, are they talking about *MY* video?). The Audience Reaction that I received at Otakon was kind of curious as well. After the video ended(and it didn't end abruptly) there was this hushed silence... Very curious indeed... It lasted for quite a few seconds and then everybody erupted into applause. Now, while I was going for Heart Wrenching, this is always an interesting reaction to receive, but also a confusing one. I know a number of people 'got' it, and a number of people love it. I also know that the reaction wasn't the same as some of the 'less popular'(over all) videos of the contest got, but I'm still left wondering.