Full Metal Alchemist Music Video - Skillet Hero

[JustinEverest]

Its been a long time now that ive been wanting to make an anime music video. But i was never really able to find either the right video or just all that content to use. And my main focus on the video editing side, i prefer to work with game cg footage. So i finished the Music Video that i put together using Adobe Premiere CS4, and now i just want to see what people think of it:)

Heads up!!! There are defiantly clips of spoilers in this video. So unless you have not seen the series and the Full Metal Alchemist movie, id recommend not to see it. But if you don't care, id be more then happy for you to watch this video.

The video contains clips from Episodes 21 through 51 plus the movie as well.

http://www.justineverest.com

Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/6235799

Music:

Band: Skillet

Song: Hero

Album: Awake

So i hope you all enjoy and leave some feedback and tell me what you think. Thanks

[-Reda-]

This video was "okay" at best, but there were a few interesting things going on in this. First lets cover where I feel like you could improve.

Distribution:
I'm not sure if you're new around here or what, but for future videos the preferred distribution codecs and containers are as follows:
-AVI (Xvid Codec)
-MP4 (H264 Codec)

Those are just the most widely accepted here at this time because both offer great compression at some of the best quality. A WMV file like the one you have can usually be a pretty big turn off for potential downloaders, because they'll assume you edited your music video in Windows Movie Maker which isn't exactly the best software for this hobby. It usually puts out pretty poor results. So if at all possible, avoid that format specifically. I also can't say how many AMVs I've seen in a .divx container, that's a pretty rare commodity. Again, AVI and MP4 will probably offer you some of the best bang for your buck, in terms of file size versus video quality.

Production Value:
Quality-wise and even editing-wise there were a few short-comings with this video. Your editing pace didn't really seem to match that of the song and so it felt a little slower; for an FMA action video you definitely have enough scenes in your pocket to make some pretty quick cuts with plenty of footage to spare. I also noticed (at least in the Vimeo version) that your aspect ratio was wrong. Full Metal Alchemist TV is a full screen aspect ratio, but you had it set to wide screen and it looked like the top and bottom of your footage was cropped off. Occasionally you can get away with it, but in this video it was pretty noticeable. It also wouldn't be a bad idea to play around with some effects; they're not a requirement, but being that your source is starting to show its age at this point, effects can be a breath of fresh air to an older source, especially one with so many AMVs already. It can help make your video more distinct.

What I liked:
Intentional or just an unintended result of your cropping, what I noticed a lot of was characters in this video. Their faces were all over this video and it was really interesting to see just those scenes of the characters. So often in a series characters come and go quickly, yet in this video it allowed the viewer to get a better look at most of them isolated; it was like all of those "aw, characters" moments condensed into one video, which was actually enjoyable to see. I also must say that this combination worked pretty well too on your part, so thats at least a 7/10 for your overall concept. Nothing too complicated but definitely able to see the connection. Overall not terrible, I'm surprised this thread hasn't received more responses yet.

7.0/10.0

[Panky]

Parts of your editing that I think were wrong:
1) There were many, many, stray parts of clips. I mean the part when a scene is about to change and you can notice that change, but it's not intended and just appears for less than a second, which distracts and doesn't look good.
2) The song was way faster than the editing was. There are parts that were just the opposite (ie. 1.18 - 1.25) could have used less scenes changes.
3) I noticed that in a part of the video there were black clips instead of flashes (I mean synching with the drums), many.
4) Like said in the other post, the quality/size issue. People don't usually download WMV files that are 90MB. I have watched it from the streaming site. You could consider using a different encoder.
5) The ending felt too slow for the general pacing of the song.

Unlike Reda, I think it would have been better focusing in 1 character instead of picking all of them. But that's just my point of view.
You can get better, I'm sure.

[JustinEverest]

This video was "okay" at best, but there were a few interesting things going on in this. First lets cover where I feel like you could improve.

Distribution:
I'm not sure if you're new around here or what, but for future videos the preferred distribution codecs and containers are as follows:
-AVI (Xvid Codec)
-MP4 (H264 Codec)

Those are just the most widely accepted here at this time because both offer great compression at some of the best quality. A WMV file like the one you have can usually be a pretty big turn off for potential downloaders, because they'll assume you edited your music video in Windows Movie Maker which isn't exactly the best software for this hobby. It usually puts out pretty poor results. So if at all possible, avoid that format specifically. I also can't say how many AMVs I've seen in a .divx container, that's a pretty rare commodity. Again, AVI and MP4 will probably offer you some of the best bang for your buck, in terms of file size versus video quality.


7.0/10.0

Yea i was not really sure which to go with. I really kinda just wanted to get it up and get peoples feedback with it. And yes, I'm very new to these forums. And it seems there's a different pace in the anime music videos then for instance some other videos Ive done. Which you can see here ( http://justineverest.com/?cat=1&paged=4 ) Id recommend Epic War Zone as one of my best editing.

This was my first Anime Music Video which i hope to continue and make more. So all the feedback that im receiving from everyone is really going to improve the next video i plan to do.

So are there any resolutions that are required or preferred?

And about the Vimeo and the other videos, i had a 720 by 480 and a 1280 by 720 version. And the 720 version was on vimeo, which had less cut out.

But anyways thanks for the feedback:)

[-Reda-]

So are there any resolutions that are required or preferred?

And about the Vimeo and the other videos, i had a 720 by 480 and a 1280 by 720 version. And the 720 version was on vimeo, which had less cut out.

But anyways thanks for the feedback:)

It really depends on the aspect ratio of your source material. Also, as a general rule, don't upscale footage as it only adds to the file size and doesn't offer much benefit. Standard DVD quality resolutions I've seen on here are usually either 848 x 480 (if your source is a 16:9 aspect ratio, aka widescreen) or 640 x 480 (if your source is a 4:3 aspect ratio, aka fullscreen). I'm assuming you can tell the difference between fullscreen and widescreen and I don't need to go into more detail there. Bluray footage tends to be released in some variation of 720p (1280 x 720).

If you want to learn some more "technical" skills, I would highly recommend going through this guide here: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech3/. It's an incredibly long read, but it's come a long way over the years and I think it will really help you out. You can also download the AMVapp from that page, which is a collection of the tools mentioned throughout the guide that help make these technical adjustments easier.