OMG! Its Finally here! I give thee... Ayumix 2 - Release!

[x_rex30]

But, overall things like this happened for a long time now before the op system changed.

I know... it's just fun to point out. It reminds me of all the movies reviewed on rottentomatoes. Most of the reviews given to a movie are from the people who worked on it. OK, I made that up about that place, but if it was like that I'd stop going there to find trusty reviews.

[MycathatesyouAMV]

Must Geeeeet

[JenCM18]

Sailor Moon (and others):the light flashes are actually off beat, on the plus side you are showing that scenes can be held for a while in dance tracks without effects... on the down side you alternate between useless flashing, pointless scenes, this track is just dissapointing, there's such a glaring difference between the sources oh and there's interlacing Confused

I had to laugh at this.

I like video effects I really don't know why some people hate them. To me I think it's sometimes boring to not have some effect in a video. If it goes with the song then who cares but yea crazy effects makes your attention stray from the video. If I knew how to use after effects I would of done something else with my track. I think effects add more creativity to a video and shows how more technical someone can be. I couldn't think of anything else to use. I guess I could of the left the colorful flashes out but oh well it's not like I can change it now can i.

I didn't see a difference between sources. They all looked colorful to me. It's hard to make the footage match each other seriously. Various videos tend to be like that.

[Prodigi]

Okay. I downloaded a couple of days ago. I watched about 4 minutes. I closed. Didn't really catch me. But I figured I'd still give it a full watch and leave some decent comments considering the time and effort put into it, etc etc. I play no favorites with this because I deliberately have no idea who did what.



Intro - Camera movement is a little too rapid, particularly before the first actual 'beat' of the song. Also the names flash by too fast. When they kept going by so fast (and some were paused on somewhat), I thought it might be an RoS2 style, where you can kind of see them all, but the camera moves around and focuses on each one individually, but that didn't come

Last Exile - Starts pretty solid. Good beat, good atmos, and it seems coherent. Then the lyrics start. I lose the sense of coherency. The effects seem to be unnecessary, particularly the masks/rotos, in fact they didn't seem to mix well with everything else at all, and I found I had to really focus to try and pick the beats that it was happening on. For such a prominent style/effect the beats you synch to should be the most prominent. Also, the tiny border at the top and bottom is something I've seen done a few times now, but in this case I didn't feel it suit the style at all. Same goes with the general PI stuff happening at the bottom border. Fireworks were interesting, but once again I didn't feel the PI melded all too well [assuming it was PI]. Once the lyrics leave and it goes back to just instruments and you adopt the earlier style I get into it a little more, and my only real issue is your chosen beats to synch on, but thats personal preference for how I edit more than anything else.

Shuagana no Shana - More PI I assume? It seemed a little unnecessary and distracting, and at the very least I felt it should have been incorporated a little better rather than just overlayed/transparency over the top. And I wasn't a huge fan of the AYUMIX coming across either. I've seen this done in a few videos and MEPs, and have even done it myself, but it really stood out against your track, and didn't suit it at all. The 'rapid' strobing the the synth(?) beat seemed... I dunno, just a little too fast. When the lyrics kick in again I feel the mood and atmosphere pick up, which I liked, and the masks were pretty awesome too. Wrryyyy radial blur?

Heat Guy J - The RGB offset. Unnecessary. If you had used the RGB in combination with the black fade in/out and scan lines it would have been more effective, rather than just keeping it on. The AYUMIX on the windows was a little too obvious, but kudos for incorporating it into the footage more. The RGB offset then changes to be on then off [an improvement imo], but the chosen beat kind of puts me off.

Kingdom Hearts - Oh god. What's up with the boxes? It's the equivalent of using a piano key mask. If you had done some form of masking or something, incorporating extra stuff into the boxes, it might have been interesting, but just having it like it was.... it was quite bland. What's up with this segment anyway? It felt totally disconnected from the song and everything else in the project.

Full Moon Wo Sagashite - Lip synch was a little 'eh'. There was no real mouth movement except for 3 set choices (closed, half open, open), which meant the movement was quite jumpy. Moar dots? Didn't like them. Some of it worked for me, some of it didn't. 3:47-3:50 is an example of what I liked.

Gadguard - I don't know what to think of the cube. I liked the idea, and the movement was pretty smooth, it just looked like some of the masked iamges didn't fit quite as comfortable as they could on the sides of the cube (like the borders of the image were changing distance in relation to the edge of the face - which leads me to believe you rendered the cube and then later added the images onto the faces? - Unless this was intentional). Love most of the internal synch. Good use of shake too. I've seen a lot of crappy uses of it, but the movement worked well. Still a bit "eh" about the Ayumix logo on the side of the cube though.

Blackcat - Despite not really liking the whole flying pieces of.... whatever, I still felt pretty good about this track at it's beginning. Seemed kinda off to the song, but still. Then, however, I get a whole bunch of still images, and like.... I don't know? It felt like you were trying to tell a story in it, but I couldn't follow. 6:06 - picks up again, not liking all the overlays/masks tho, but shit happens. DID NOT LIKE TRANSITION.

Lucky Star/Haruhi - Liked the opening few beats. Seemed promising, but then kinda "eh"ed me, and I was expecting disappointment. But then about 5 seconds later it seems to pick up again. Roto/mask works fairly well, and the shine is pretty nice. Also, the overall motion and movement of the track fit well with the song, and this is probably the first track that has really hit the song for me. Except around 7:00-7:13. Didn't feel it really matched, but the same ideas then used after that did, with the subtle change in music.

BUST ANGLE - I like when people drop the brightness and up the contrast giving that kind of grungy black and white feel, and it worked in some places in this track, but in others it was off putting. I felt like you had applied the same settings on the brightness/contrast filter on all the clips like that, rather than adjusting for each individually. I like the synch quite a lot. Pretty good atmosphere. Doesn't necessarily match the song how I'd expect, but works in it's own way. Some of the later masking (black and white high contrast images on colour images) is quite off-putting. The gun mask however at the very end was quite awesome. Kudos.

Touka Gettan - The rays/lines on the 'psychadelic' background at the start of the track were too sharp, and I felt you could have run a low gaussian blur over it too make it less glaring, and make it more subtle. I quite liked the overall synch, but once again I didn't feel any real connection between visual and audio. Some of the masking seemed like masking for the sake of masking, rather than actually serving a purpose (particularly when I couldn't find a discernible beat or recurring audio theme in the song to keep doing it). Not really liking the motion screens and stuff. I like motion, I'm just not a huge fan of when the edges of the image are exposed, plus I wasn't too excited about the background.

CCS - I liked the opening 5-10 seconds. Then I realised I was just seeing the same thing over and over again, just with different cards, different costumes, and different episodes ;_; I really felt the source matched well with the song, and thought it could have been quite spectacular, but it just seemed like the same thing repeated. The flashing side border was a little annoying too. Not necessarily the flashing, but that there didn't seem to be anything else happening there, or no real obvious image to be seen. Plus I feel like it slows down as it progresses, while the music keeps the same pace. It probably doesn't, but it seems that way.

Multiple Anime - Some of the things I liked. A lot I didn't. The opening clip irritated me somewhat with all the moving rectangles. The lines (kinda like a rainbow?) were a little 'ehhhh', but then the 'tyre track' masked image looked neat. The squares on the right worked pretty well, particularly when you use it to transition across into another clip. Did not like dots at top and bottom border. Pausing it and looking at them it reminds me of that old optical illusion where you have to find the black dot amongst the white or whatever. However, when the dots stop moving and it's just red and white, with the girl moving across, that's fine. Squares are back, but less enjoyable. Lines seem kinda pointless. The ink blot (?) transitioning seemed a little wierd. Moar dots. Didn't really like them, neither the scribbles nor the centre circle. The comic/cartoon/manga style transitions with the image and the dot backgrounds worked well. I liked the visuals, I liked the movement, I liked the atmosphere. The colours worked well. Once it finishes however, you have a pretty prominent 'hand clap' beat that you don't really use, and it seems to leave something lacking. The reuse of the mange style transitions/masking isnt so good this time. Moar dots.

Sailor Moon and others - The flashing white on the sides. First of all was slightly annoying. However. What annoyed me more is that either the flashes were off beat, or on the second lot you were missing another prominent beat that happened before the double beat. I felt really little connection between the sources and what I was hearing. I liked the synch that kicks in around 11:53. Buuut, to counter that the annoying flashing border is back, except this time it's colored. Needed to be way more subtle, or at least blurred a lot more. Most of the actiony synch is pretty nice tho. I'm tempted to see if there's lyric synch later. It seems so, and if I could find out this were true I'm sure i'd appreciate that area more, but at the moment it still seems to not really mix well with the audio at all.

Kannon - The shake after the pans is too strong. Also, I'm not a huge fan of transitioning like that. Synch seems pretty nice. The background beat that is intensifying slowly builds up, but you don't really represent this visually until halfway through the buildup, when you suddenly throw in some masking that catches the viewer off guard (13:48). The transition before the 'dancy' sequence, where the girl sweeps her arm was quite well done. The zoom/coloured silhouette is kinda overdone these days. Sorry. Some nice motion. Not a fan of all the transitions, but its a pretty smooth ride. The brightening of the image on the beat is kinda annoying tho. Did not like the end at ALL. You kinda of keep this upbeat tempo, then suddenly drop off in the last 10 or so seconds, still having the same upbeat slightly rapid music with these long continuous shots, with no real transition between the two styles.

Credits - I like the screen and reflection on the right. Reminds me of iTunes video library. The girl was kind of unnecessarily distracting. Credits flash by fast, but better than keeping them up there forever I guess. To be honest the girl annoyed me in general. She's there at the start. She's there at the end. I don't see how she tied in at all. Maybe that's just me.



There. Thought i'd post my comments after someone bust a nut trying to tell me how wrong I was when i replied to their "ZOMG AYUMIX 2 IS MOST ANTICIPATED AND BEST AMV OF ALL YEAR ZOMG" just saying that I felt let-down by it, and felt it somewhat overrated. If I wanted to be 'elitist' and just put the project down, I wouldn't have wasted the last 60+ minutes (I started just before 11, its now 12:20) leaving comments on it while watching it through once more.

My thoughts.

[JaddziaDax]

i figured the particle illusion i used with the masks was better than the the text i originally had there :3 (text was cheesy imho - and I'm not leaving that file up for more than a few hours...) I was originally going to change the text to say something else, then I decided to scrap the whole text idea.

I know borders have been done before, I like borders :3

[DayWalker B.]

Well, the music here was not really my cup of tea... I didn't like some effects, especially in the first few tracks, they looked a little iffy. But I can certainly see the efforts put into this project. Some segments could've had better quality it seems... my favorite tracks would be probably Batto!'s and Kisanzi's, but overall this just wasn't really my thing. However, editing-wise this turned out pretty good. 3.8/5

[Warheart]

Callan, the time it took you to write that review could've been major editing time. None the less I have to agree in almost all points.

[*yumegari*]

I guess it's high time for me to put my 2 yens here...

I see the most ppl here are focusing on technical/graphics stuff. I leave it to you guys cause u better know what u're talking about. I wanna talk about something else. I have a strange feeling that the reason for Ayumix 2 being judged so harsh lies somewhere else than in editing/editors itself. In my opinion, it lies within the music. I have a strange feeling that this project had not succeded (as it supposed to succed, i am fully aware of enormous expectations, i was expecting much from it myself) at the very beginning, at the creation of the song mix. I don't wanna say u screwed up Deshi, but i think u didn't pay enough/effort/time to choose carefully the right songs. Or u didn't have source, i really dunno...

Let me analyze the tracks in Ayumix 2. I am not gonna do it in details, just a short general brief on the whole.
Unfortunately, i found only 3 good tracks in the MEP. While i don't have much reservations for graphics, music side disappoints me bad. The best songs u used here are (in my opinion): "We Wish - Ramon Zenker mix", "Blue Bird - Harderground remix" and "Naturally - Wippenberg remix" which totally rocks for me (i haven't heard it till now and i'm really glad u used it here). But speaking about the rest of the tracks... Deshi, i really wanna believe u had limited CD source cause i dont have any idea why u picked them. "Fairyland" slows the MEP so badly after really nice opening "We Wish" intro, that it's very hard to stay focus at what u're watching cause suddenly u remember of plenty of other things to do then watch this MEP (okay, i'm exaggerating ;P). It's hard for me to justify the reason for using it after so good opening. Next comes "Blue Bird remix". This and "Naturally mix" is the most hawt part of the MEP, i truly admit it. Both music and editing are more than great for me. These segments really represent what Ayumix should be. But hey, we have another few minutes after that! Few minutes of thinking: hey, cool effects, but where's Ayu? Except Ayu logo i couldn't see her much. I couldn't feel her much. The rest of tracks made me rather depressed than joyful :/ After "Naturally", we got another boom-beat part, this time "Connected by Talla". ZOMG @_@ I was so happy when i saw u used this song, but after i watched the video i suddenly started to ask myself: "hey, where was "Connected"? So i rewind to where credits indicate. And i just fell of the chair... How could u use simple beat instead of using the part of the song when Ayu is actually singing? "Connected" is one of the best songs of Ayu, it has an unique climate, placing the off-vocal part is a heresy for me. Which reminds, me, it's time to get into the main issue. Deshi, don't u think there are too many off-vocal parts in your MEP? Please look at it from the viewer's side. Usually the off-vocal part is used as a contrast in the song, to give the listener a moment of breath before the final climax, or just to prevent the feeling of boredom in the song. But u used the off-vocal tracks (or half-off-vocal tracks, where there is advantage of the beat over the lyrics part) TOO OFTEN. I should count the minutes but i wonder if there's a point in doing so. These off-vocal moments happen too often and just slow the whole MEP down, which reflects on the general impression... For God's sake, it is AYUMIX, not superbeat contest... It is where the vocal talents of Ayumi should appear not just beat parts created by various DJ's just to fill the time given on the remix CD... On the other hand, the editors made what they can to fit in the music...

What i stated above is my main objection. Well, u could now ask what were u supposed to place instead of the tracks i mentioned. I recall u wrote in some of the earlier post that Ayu doesn't have enough material to use. Deshi, she has more than that. She has made material for Ayumix 3,4 and maybe 5. And it's still outstanding. I'm not gonna be a hypocrite, below i'll give some examples of the songs (remixes actually cause we talk about remixes in this project) to prove that u could have made a better song mix. I prefer to put up solutions than criticise mindlessly. Here they are:

Hanabi - Lange Remix
Connected - Ferry Corsten/System F Remix (this 1 u should use, this 1 !!!!!! ;>)
Kanariya - Hiroshi's Nite Clubbing Mix
Far Away - Rank 1 Remix
Surreal - Dub's Floor Mix
Dearest - Jonathan Peters Radio Mix
Naturally - Astraly Mix (but u used another great 1 so it's just a reminder, maybe in the next project)
Endless Sorrow - Original Mix (not a standard beat remix but still rocks)
Evolution - UFO Remix
M- Above and Beyond Remix
Independent - Daylight Mix OR D-Nation Remix (both good and worthy to check)
Unite! - Airwave Mix
Never Ever - Dub's Uncategorized Mix (if u planned to use this song, u should rather choose this 1...)

There are few other which i didn't have time to search for remixes but the original songs are just wonderful and not always require a remix:

Whatever
Appears
And Then
Monochrome
Immature


I hope u take even a little time to check some of them. Believe me, Ayu HAS more than enough of the adequate, cool, hawt footage for another Mixes. Even if u don't like them all, most of these songs are from the top shelf, many #1 in japanese chartboards. There IS a great material for another Ayu project, u just gotta take more time and find it...

As many of u i had really high expectations from the second Ayumix and unfortunately, after all this waiting and stalking the forums i hate to admit but i am disappointed... a little more than a little... It's true there is no sense in comparing this to original Ayumix, but also the truth is that Ayumix 1 was far more balanced between graphics/music, than the second. What really (mainly) creates Review(a)bility of every single AMV is the song, isn't it? I noticed it not so long ago, i rather watch old AMVs without any special effects cause i like the song... not cause someone put there thousands of colorful flashes or not... the song mainly makes me return to it over and over again. And if i decide to reject any AMV after watching it, it's in 90% cause of the song cause i know i won't play it again anymore. I think you guys do the same. That's why i try to show why the proper choice of tracks is so important, especially in MEP when u can't afford to get ppl bored. Okay, first time it looks awesome, second time it looks good, but what about third and fourth time..?

Speaking as Ayu fan, cause i presume u made this project for the people like me (;P), i observe Deshi and the team concentrated more on the graphics side and putting their all strength and Force and abilities into the effects show, but i wish they would rather focus on expressing emotions included in music of Ayu... emotions of sadness, joy, hope... that's what is really missing for me in this project.

Ending this post i wanna add this whole thing wasn't supposed to be hostile against anyone. As i mentioned earlier i prefer constructive criticism. And u know Deshi... i really hope u will at least THINK about making Ayumix 3. I honestly encourage u to do that. This whole post was meant to show u the possible mistakes (in my opinion) which made me disappointed with this 1, but i also see good things, i totally respect the effort and time and pushing-the-limits of all of u guys. What i would like to see is a brilliant Ayumix 3, carefully thought-over Ayumix that blinds the 1st and the 2nd. Ayumix without the pressure but made of pure fun, cause fun is what we draw from music of Ayu, don't we? So please, don't drop it yet. Dunno how about u, but for me, leaving after achieving the highest top is far more worthy than leaving with the feeling that u actually could have done better... don't u think..?


=================== THE END xD==================

Oh one more thing, i don't get ppl who say they didn't like this MEP cause of japanese music. ZOMG it's AYUMIX, u were expecting Metallica here???? @_@


And 1 more more thing ;P
Deshi, u didn't write "Thanks for watching" in the end ;P Was it subconscious or u just forgot or u did it on purpose? ;P

[BasharOfTheAges]

After watching through the whole project again, I was impressed a bit here and there, but got the distinct feeling that the majority of the tracks were attempts at making a non-dance non-action track to juxtapose with all the other ones. This works when other people are actually making the dance and action segments, but when half the video is trying to be that one stand-out segment, it goes from a unique aspect to a trend that undermines the expected and leaves the whole thing feeling a bit flat.

[Yok/0]

What if this project was done without the effects?
(Your editing was dry and needed some PizAZZ and flash)

What if this project was done without Ayumi?
(English music by white boys suck everyone knows that except for black canadian music..thats the shit,eh.)

What if this project was done without the fast but instead slow camera angles in the intro?
(IT'S TOO SLOW YOU SCHMUCK!)

What if this project was done without the bubbled eyed cute girls?
(IT NEEDS MORE PENIS!)

I wish for Ayumix to redo this video in the way these people see it -_-...and lets see what ulead/vegas alone styled editing gets at with comments. Overall some of you at this case are still trying to find a air hole to squeeze through just to complain. Reminds me of the joke my Grandpa told me of the Jew who complained. -_-.