Video Information

Information

  • Members: VegettoEX, MeriC
  • Title: Redemption
  • Premiered: 2003-02-14
  • Categories:
  • Song:
    • Darling Violetta "Angel" Main Title
  • Anime:
  • Comments: *** IDEA BEHIND THE VIDEO ***

    Fans of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (and "Angel," obviously) will know how tortured of a soul Angel is. Back in his days of Angelus, he ruthlessly murdered without any consideration for anyone other than himself, leaving a trail of death and destruction behind. When he killed the wrong person (namely, a gypsy), he had a curse placed upon him: his soul was restored. From that day forth, he remained a vampire with a soul, now conscious of everything he had done, feeling such an incredible deal of remorse. At first he nearly gave up on himself, but in time, he began to walk down the path of redemption; by saving others, he would atone for the deaths he had caused in his past.

    Fans of "Rurouni Kenshin" will know how tortured of a soul Kenshin is. Back in his days as the "Hitokiri Battousai," he meticulously and effeciently murdered for his government, not thinking about the consequences for those he killed. When he killed the wrong person (Tomoe), he finally began to clearly see exactly what it is he was doing and causing in the world around him. With the coming of the Meiji Restoration, Kenshin gave up his ways, and completely abandoned his role as the "Hitokiri Battousai." Feeling such an incredible deal of remorse for those he killed in the past, Kenshin began to walk down the path of redemption; by saving others, he would atone for the deaths he had caused in his past.

    No, there's no correlation at all. :P


    *** PRODUCTION NOTES ***

    It was the end of November 2002. Anime Weekend Atlanta had been two months ago. We were coming off of a huge drama video and a DDR track; while completely rejuvinated to work on more thanks to such innovation in the ones seen at AWA, we were pretty darn tired of working on videos. We had tons of ideas, but none were really solid enough, quite yet, to jump into at the time.

    The "Angel" main title theme was something we both wanted to use, but couldn't agree on an idea for. One day during our "Japanese Culture & Society" class, Mike threw down some ideas on paper, passed it to Meri, and demanded it be done.

    1. Bring computer to my house for Thanksgiving break
    2. Don't delete the Kenshin VOBs yet
    3. We're doing the "Angel" main title theme video
    4. We're using "Kenshin"
    5. We're sending it to Katsucon

    A plan had been formed! With an full idea, an impending deadline (approximately one month), and a full weekend to dedicate to getting some work in, we set to work throwing the video together.

    The first part of the video is somewhat a parody of the actual "Angel" opening: lots of supporting characters looking as if they're in pain and need help. Sets the mood pretty well and just fits.

    Then Kenshin kicks the door open. If you're an "Angel" fan, you're probably laughing your ass off at this. If you're not... well, that's what "Angel" does in the opening to the show: he kicks a door open. It's stupid, it's funny, it fits.

    THIS was probably the HARDEST part of the video. Mike was doing most of the work, and demanded that he find a shot of Kenshin kicking the door open. We were currently working with all of the Kyoto arc, and random episodes from the first season. There was a shot from episode two in which Kenshin kicks open a door, but not only did we NOT have this scene ripped, but it wasn't quite what we were going for.

    After at least an hour or two of extreme yelling, cursing, and throwing things... the scene was found. The video could continue.

    At the end of the first day, the video was actually about sixty percent complete (then again, the song's only a minute long!).

    The second day consisted of finishing the video, which really didn't prove to be too much of an issue, and general clean-up. After two days, a full one-minute anime music video was complete. Not bad, eh?

    MPEG-2 encoded, shipped off to Katsucon, all was happy.

    Until sometime in late January, when we watched the video and noticed something we didn't notice for the last month: early in the video, there's a cut to Kenshin kneeling on the ground, then it cuts to his sword being knocked up by Chou's attack.. and then it cuts back to the exact same scene of Kenshin kneeling down.

    HOW DID WE NOT NOTICE THIS?!

    We figured we might as well go ahead and just fix it for the online distro of the video, and for archival purposes (though we did keep the old one). One very minor issue of timing was bugging Mike (where Kenshin and Soujiro's swords clash). Well, it turns out it wasn't timed because there wasn't enough FOOTAGE for it to look naturally timed, so that small little section was completely re-done, as well. So, while the version played at Katsucon has this "error" and scene change, the two versions ended up being very similar.

    In terms of technical stuff, it's pretty straight-forward. Lots of simple beat matching, little bit of parodying the original "Angel" opening, few white flashes, few speed adjustments, little bit of image masking to cover up lip-flaps, little bit of multi-layering with zooms... OK, so maybe it's not ALL simple, but there was nothing too insane :D

    It's an action video without too much of a plot, other than the general theme from Kenshin (being redemption.. get it?) which fits in somewhat as a parody of the audio source material.


    *** EQUIPMENT USED ***

    "Rurouni Kenshin" TV Series DVDs (at least 15 volumes)
    HP Pavillion (1.5 gHz, 128 MB RAM, 80 GB hard drive)
    VirtualDub 1.4.10
    DVD Decrypter
    DVD2AVI
    AVIsynth
    Adobe Premiere 5.1
    TMPGEnc


    *** TECHNICAL INFO ***

    - 630 MB -- Master AVI encoded 720x480, 29.97 fps, 44 kHz stereo sound, HuffyUV
    - 15.2 MB - MPEG encoded 352x240, 29.97 fps, 2000 kbps 2-pass VBR (300 min, 3000 max), 192 kbps (44 kHz) stereo sound

Opinions (15)

  • Orig
  • Visual
  • Sound
  • Synch
  • Lip
  • Effects
  • Effort
  • Re-View
  • Overall
  • 9.09
  • 9.55
  • 9.73
  • 9.36
  • 9.27
  • 9.18
  • 9.09
  • 9.09

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