AMV Salad 5: Happy Meal (Nekocon 14, here we come!)

[SammySamaProductions]

Working on the beta today as I wait for the remaining scores to come from independent AMA AMV contest preliminary screenings.
They'd better not ask me to take the department over.
June is SUCH a bad month for me.

but you'd do such a wonderful job! ^_^

[Squancho]

Hmmm...maybe the Excalibur scene could be done without dialogue.
Just dramatic music?
OH WAIT!...Black*Star has to put the sword back into the stone so Kid can try to pull it out!
Gael, you gave me that episode of Soul Eater.
I'll get to work on that...

[Gaelstrom]

Keep in mind, I wasn't being literal that the sword in the stone is the only idea, but it may actually work, so yeah, if you think it'll work, try it, but don't do it just because I said the sword in the stone as a reference. Ask yourself if it actually is funny, like the "What does this button do" and the slots. Don't make something explode for the sake of making it explode, it has to have meaning when it explodes, otherwise there's no point in the clip.

[SammySamaProductions]

okay came up with a rather amusing explosion but...under the PG-13 guidelines can I get away with partial nudity? (quick but shot) or should I just go ahead an sensor that out? and or replace the scene. I looked up PG-13 from the MPAA and it does list nudity under it's may contain and it's not bad but wanted to clear it first before rendering if I had to drop the idea or replace the clip. I suppose I could always post it here though right?

EDIT: Okay so it's not as bad as I thought it was but it is a bit suggestive. I'll post it here once it finishes and let you guys decide.

[SammySamaProductions]

Okay...this is my second attempt at "subtle"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4VOp0jTX9M

[Gaelstrom]

Okay...this is my second attempt at "subtle"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4VOp0jTX9M

Heh, better, but it seems like every single one of your clips is 8 seconds long. What I mean by having the Tenchi-type one is that that one was a setup that had a payoff. That's why I called your earlier ones the "obvious" ones, because there's nothing but a solid, straightforward explosion joke. In this case, you'd have the scene building up. In the tenchi clip, Ryoko is taunting Tenchi, everyone's reacting, everyone's focussed, and then you pull the punchline on people in a way they don't quite expect.

But think carefully about this for a moment, you have some contrasts there that remove chunks of the humor. First, he's very calm and collected, not smug or drooling which would elicit a desire to see him get some repercussions, so we don't even get the impression he cares enough to keep looking. Second, you blow up a bunch of cute girls ^^ That actually subconsciously removes humor for me, because you created victims, rather than him being a victim of himself. This is actually one of those instances where you'd really want a calculated explosion, such as a window explosion. Because with this huge one, you don't know who or what blew up. So my first thought was "Why'd he blow up the girls?" His cold demeanor makes it seem like he just firebombed a public bath, and while that concept is ridiculous, the clip itself is rather dark instead of funny.

Think of your others. The character going "OOooooh, what does this button do!?" is like famous last words, so subconsciously the audience goes along with them bringing it on themselves. Plus it's Deedee, isn't it? ^^ Deedee deserves an explosion. And the slots one is a complete ironic contrast in that he hit the jackpot, and it's like the Casino said "Oh yeah? Well fuck you!" *BOOOOOM!!!* You turned the explosions into reaction characters rather than an event, like the explosion is consciously trying to screw with the character. That's what this one feels like it lacks.

Off the top of my head, instead of "Do you want to continue," in this case, an example of something that would work potentially stronger for his type of character is the screen comes up for a moment showing the girls, you cut back to him for a reaction, stoic or otherwise, then back to the screen, then it stops and says something like "Unauthorized peeping!" and set a 5-second countdown, just enough to see a couple seconds, then cut to him to go "Aww, shhhh-BOOOOOOOM!!" You can even use the click, because you've set up the bomb subconsciously with a countdown. In this case, his reaction getting cut off by the explosion is the explosion humor.

But good job ^^ I love seeing your submissions.

[SammySamaProductions]

Okay...this is my second attempt at "subtle"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4VOp0jTX9M

Heh, better, but it seems like every single one of your clips is 8 seconds long. What I mean by having the Tenchi-type one is that that one was a setup that had a payoff. That's why I called your earlier ones the "obvious" ones, because there's nothing but a solid, straightforward explosion joke. In this case, you'd have the scene building up. In the tenchi clip, Ryoko is taunting Tenchi, everyone's reacting, everyone's focussed, and then you pull the punchline on people in a way they don't quite expect.

But think carefully about this for a moment, you have some contrasts there that remove chunks of the humor. First, he's very calm and collected, not smug or drooling which would elicit a desire to see him get some repercussions, so we don't even get the impression he cares enough to keep looking. Second, you blow up a bunch of cute girls ^^ That actually subconsciously removes humor for me, because you created victims, rather than him being a victim of himself. This is actually one of those instances where you'd really want a calculated explosion, such as a window explosion. Because with this huge one, you don't know who or what blew up. So my first thought was "Why'd he blow up the girls?" His cold demeanor makes it seem like he just firebombed a public bath, and while that concept is ridiculous, the clip itself is rather dark instead of funny.

Think of your others. The character going "OOooooh, what does this button do!?" is like famous last words, so subconsciously the audience goes along with them bringing it on themselves. Plus it's Deedee, isn't it? ^^ Deedee deserves an explosion. And the slots one is a complete ironic contrast in that he hit the jackpot, and it's like the Casino said "Oh yeah? Well fuck you!" *BOOOOOM!!!* You turned the explosions into reaction characters rather than an event, like the explosion is consciously trying to screw with the character. That's what this one feels like it lacks.

Off the top of my head, instead of "Do you want to continue," in this case, an example of something that would work potentially stronger for his type of character is the screen comes up for a moment showing the girls, you cut back to him for a reaction, stoic or otherwise, then back to the screen, then it stops and says something like "Unauthorized peeping!" and set a 5-second countdown, just enough to see a couple seconds, then cut to him to go "Aww, shhhh-BOOOOOOOM!!" You can even use the click, because you've set up the bomb subconsciously with a countdown. In this case, his reaction getting cut off by the explosion is the explosion humor.

But good job ^^ I love seeing your submissions.

I was trying to find an "Aww Shhh" audio clip clear enough to use for another idea but couldn't find one. But now I see what you mean by building up to it...which the original idea I had I may be able to get away with...let's find out. I'll modify it a bit and then post it once it renders. I try not to make them 8 seconds but then I don't want them to be too long...we'll see if this one's more on track give me a few ....

[Gaelstrom]

Well with "Aww sh-" the best part is you can assemble it. The 'Sh' sound doesn't have much variation among humans, so since you're cutting it off, you can actually take a 'sh' from anywhere, like I actually did at the end of the Sony Stupid Piece of Shit. The final line I actually took the 'SH-BEEP' from the youtube "The Balls Are Inert" because I liked that bleep the best, and it had a longer 'shh' so it added to the humor of him insinuating a longer, drawn-out 'shit' at the end. So you can find a ton of people going "Ah crap" or something and just take the 'ah' part and assemble in a 'Shhhh' from anywhere else relatively easily. So if you have any source you can think of doing "Aaah" in some way, go ahead and use that, if you have trouble, I can quickly assemble it together for you as long as the "Aah" portion is clear enough and doesn't drift into another word. If that's the case you could do it yourself in your editing software usually as long as you're not using something basic like movie maker.

EDIT:

Speaking of which, here's the Gundam one:
davidkrein.net/GundamFail.rar

[Squancho]

I've run into an issue.
There's no way I'm gonna be able to avoid certain editors' clips from being placed next to each other because a few turned in a bunch and the rest just a few.
To this end I'm gonna do the following.
Rather than formatting the end credits with the editors' names attached to each clip, I'm proposing I lead off with listing the editors' names and then running down the clip information in order of appearance.
Otherwise, at some point, you're gonna see a string of clips by the same editor.
I'm positive this is gonna be the case anyway once we get to the part where we adjust the timeline for flow and consistency.
I could also swear I had more clips in the AMVS5 folder than I'm seeing but may be just me..?
Anyway,...back to work.

[Gaelstrom]

I've run into an issue.
There's no way I'm gonna be able to avoid certain editors' clips from being placed next to each other because a few turned in a bunch and the rest just a few.
To this end I'm gonna do the following.
Rather than formatting the end credits with the editors' names attached to each clip, I'm proposing I lead off with listing the editors' names and then running down the clip information in order of appearance.
Otherwise, at some point, you're gonna see a string of clips by the same editor.
I'm positive this is gonna be the case anyway once we get to the part where we adjust the timeline for flow and consistency.
I could also swear I had more clips in the AMVS5 folder than I'm seeing but may be just me..?
Anyway,...back to work.

Two editors next to one another was never really an issue I don't think, it's two of the same anime or similar concept next to one another that is the issue. And even that is kind of minor. We all know moonbunnychan has cranked out a bunch this year ^^ But it seems a couple of hers will be cut, more if she doesn't have time to fix a few up. I'm trying to get in at least another couple by the end of this week, and if you'll permit me, there's one I'd like to do desperately that will take until after the AMA to do. It's a slightly longer one though, like 45 seconds. If we're cutting enough and enough stuff isn't replacing it, it may work, but it'll still be quite close.

Other thing is no, don't list our names first. First it'll just make the credits longer, which we don't want, plus nobody'll be able to tell who did what, which is the point of credits in the first place. But we do need to be quite careful about credit length. Plus we may need to have at least two credit-worthy clips to mix things up.

Really we may not need any clips this year for the credits as long as we have guys walking away from explosions. I know of the one you mentioned in Cowboy Bebop, but we definitely need a few more. I'd say at least 5 to nail the point home as well as give time for our tags, but the more the better. Perhaps scouring some intros may help.