The Quickening - Videos

[Kinematics]

Round G-2

Another set of excellent videos.


[animAe] Test Subject

Errant lip flap at start, Misato. Other instances seemed to generally match up with intent, via subtitles.

Excellent beat sync.

Solid thematic development.

Very clean video. No significant banding in dark scenes or gradiant areas that I'd expect to see some in. Pretty nicely smoothed out. Might have improved slightly with a lower CRF.

Good motion on transitions (pans and zooms), making scenes flow well from one to the next.

Bit too dark around 1:21

Knife thrust action at 1:14 was lost


[Mally] Magical Girls of Angels

Very good beat sync, though not as sharp as animAe's.

Thematically loose. Didn't seem to have quite as solid a central focus.

Very clean video. Most of the video wasn't the sort to generate easily visible artifacts, anyway.

Most transitions naturally blended with the intended motion (as opposed to induced transition effects such as animAe's), but it seemed there still a fair few that were somewhat more abrupt than they needed to be.

Weakest aspect: central theme wasn't much stronger than a simple fight AMV


[SagexAMV] Madoka Guardian

Had the best story focus of the group. Maintained that focus all the way through.

Very smooth and well-placed transitions. Good use of zooms for impact. Never felt like there was a miss-step; was one continuous, smooth flow.

Noticeable banding (relatively speaking; barely worth commenting on for a lesser video). Still very good video quality, though.


[siny] The Encounter

Minor banding. Otherwise, pretty good video.

Synced on off-beat rather than on-beat, which helped give it a softer feel. Generally maintained pretty well (didn't notice anything out of sync, but it's also harder to tell with this sort of rhythm).

Used a lot of fade out/fade in, which made me feel like I was having to strain to keep my eyes focused on it. Greatest annoyance.

Color filters were nicely used. Helped keep a consistent feel from scene to scene.

Slight audio oddity around 1:48

While it had a continuous story, it felt like it wasn't quite holding its focus; rather, that a lot of generic/fight scenes filled in rather than everything fully contributing to the theme.

Weakest aspect: need every single scene chosen to be actively contributing to the overall theme.



Top picks:
[SagexAMV] Madoka Guardian
[animAe] Test Subject


This is another set where I expect judge scores to be near-tied. I listed a 1 and 2 above, but I can't say that either one was, overall, actually better than the other, and the other two are only very small steps below those two.

[Otohiko]

This is another set where I expect judge scores to be near-tied. I listed a 1 and 2 above, but I can't say that either one was, overall, actually better than the other, and the other two are only very small steps below those two.

Yup

Had some trouble voting in this round as well. I would also rank all the videos in this group very close to each other.

[animAe]

[animAe] Test Subject

Errant lip flap at start, Misato. Other instances seemed to generally match up with intent, via subtitles.

Heheh, I was hoping someone would notice this! A few minutes near the deadline, I noticed the video I sent to Yue came out with a weird blocky encode, so I quickly fixed the blockiness, resent it in, then fell asleep not noticing that I unmuted all my muted layers on accident T^T But yes, that Misato clip was not supposed to be there Lesson learned to actually watch the video before submitting!

Spoiler :

Damnit Misato Dx

[xDreww]

[animAe] Test Subject

Errant lip flap at start, Misato. Other instances seemed to generally match up with intent, via subtitles.

Heheh, I was hoping someone would notice this! A few minutes near the deadline, I noticed the video I sent to Yue came out with a weird blocky encode, so I quickly fixed the blockiness, resent it in, then fell asleep not noticing that I unmuted all my muted layers on accident T^T But yes, that Misato clip was not supposed to be there Lesson learned to actually watch the video before submitting!

Spoiler :

Damnit Misato Dx
Quoted Image converted to link:
http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy19 ... misato.png

NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!! TORLOLOL

[Mally]

Fingers crossed. COME ON RESULTS!!!

[Nya-chan Production]

[animAe] Test Subject

Errant lip flap at start, Misato. Other instances seemed to generally match up with intent, via subtitles.

Heheh, I was hoping someone would notice this! A few minutes near the deadline, I noticed the video I sent to Yue came out with a weird blocky encode, so I quickly fixed the blockiness, resent it in, then fell asleep not noticing that I unmuted all my muted layers on accident T^T But yes, that Misato clip was not supposed to be there Lesson learned to actually watch the video before submitting!

Spoiler :

Damnit Misato Dx
Quoted Image converted to link:
http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy19 ... misato.png

Ahahahahaha!
Well amusing! ;D
Happens even to the best of editors :> No worries, this explains it nicely~ \o/

[Radical_Yue]

Group H videos are up.

[Kinematics]

Round H-2

Not judged, but I still wanted to put together my thoughts. Very difficult to judge execution, as the song itself is so wispy and ephemeral. Putting together video that would actually hold it together is obviously quite difficult in the time allotted.


[irriadin] Inner Depths

Clipped out a good chunk of the start of the song, but done cleanly; I can't pick out where it happened from just listening.

Good match of video in general. Minimal modern tech and soft mood of the anime complemented the song well.

Switching from iris effect to full screen (0:06) was jarring. Expected at least a fast opening or zoom out.

First couple zoom transitions (0:25, 0:33) felt odd.

The ramp-up at 2:10 felt a bit slow, or possibly disjointed from the transition to running down the stairs.

The dive at 2:33 was perfect.

Iris closing at end was well done.


A lot of 'could have been done better' moments, and felt rather unfocused overall, but at the same time, felt... nice. Overall theme has middling strength; it certainly had the right settings for the mood of the song, but felt like it was passing over a lot of what it could have used.


[VivifxAMV] Utopian

Cut out almost the entire instrumental intro section. Can hear the blend (fairly obvious, given that it happens in the first few seconds), but done smoothly; not distracting.

Lots of fast cuts during the starting period that felt too fast for the music, but not as fast as the drum beat, so left in a sort of herky-jerky limbo.

Instrumental period from 0:37 - 0:50, character expressions felt wrong for this period of the song. Song is on the upbeat, while characters are showing pain and fear.

Primary chorus (0:50 - 1:20), just perfect. Video beautifully matched the mood of the song.

Surprised there were no scenes of Madoka's parents in the interlude or later periods, as things like Madoka's talk with her mom over drinks in the moonlight seemed like they'd fit well there.

Mami & Madoka on the bridge at 2:02 -- way too dark.


Overall, felt like its intended theme showed through the best of the three. Main problem was early-middle and late-middle composition. Early-middle felt like the characters weren't quite right, while late-middle felt a bit too simple and predictable.


[xDreww] No Robots Go

The consistent softening effects worked very well to match the tone.

Theme was a bit weak for the length used. Felt like it would have done better with 90-120 seconds instead of 160.

Probably should have cut out the interlude (1:30 - 1:42), as the music really didn't work well with the overall feeling.

Overall, matched the basic premise of the song (and points for the source used), but never really went anywhere with it.


Probably the best of the three for overall technical. Motion, color and feel were always consistently smooth, never felt out of place. Just weak on the thematic side.




Side note: Been rewatching some stuff recently, and finding a lot of the ugly banding I recognize from the videos. I somewhat expected it (ie: the flaws being due to the source, not the editing/encoding), but it's still disheartening to see on blu-ray discs. Been getting spoiled by the 10-bit fansub encodes from the last year.

[Radical_Yue]

I LIVE! And there is a new rar of semifinal videos!

[Kinematics]

Semifinal Group ABCD

Going to ignore most video artifacts, as I assume they're pretty much all coming from the source material at this point.


[Centurione] Don't Stop Me Now

Nice use of Apollon for the instruments. A couple selections ran counter to my expectations (eg: low notes while he's at the high end of the piano), but sync was excellent, and discrepancies easily ignored.

Pretty much everything up to ~0:42 (where she jumps from the diving platform) was decently solid.

Crashing into the storage locker seemed to come out of nowhere. Ill placed.

Stopping of the bicycle after crashing into the railway bar felt disjointed.

Entire unbraked run on the bike, while somewhat matching the lyrics, really didn't match the mood.

Trash can lid on her head at 0:57 was reused later in the video (1:25).

Not sure how the lyrics match up at all during this section (0:55 - 1:00).

Crashing her head into the post at 1:30 for the start of the 'rocketship' lyrics?

Other than the bit at ~1:46, there seems to be less and less coherency from here on.

Too much running.

The riff at 2:11-2:13 was good.

Honestly, while the primary video source was TGWLTT, it felt like a fairly weak choice paired with Apollon. Pretty much every Apollon segment helped bring out the energy of the song, but it's explicitly background, and needs the forground series to pull the video along, and that was only somewhat the case for TGWLTT. There were a number of segments that played well to the lyrics, but there was too much that felt like rather generic footage that didn't really contribute much.


[HaydenST] Having A Good Time

Amusing and unusual source.

Unfortunately, just about every clip felt like it could have been better used somewhere else in the song, interspersed with bits that almost worked. Makes it difficult to do scene-by-scene comments, so I'm just going to say, "A lot of stuff felt wrong."

The 1:30 ~ 2:00 period, with limited lyrics followed by mostly instrumentals, did pretty well.

Lip sync felt out of place. It wasn't bad, exactly, it's just that it was so sporadic that you get used to a non-lip sync approach to viewing, and then suddenly some random bit is tossed in there, and feels way out of place.


[LopezAMV] The Adam Bomb and Other Tales of Intrigue

Intro was weak, with no characters at all, despite the lyrics focusing on the 'I' (singer) of the song. The lyrics then move to non-personal references, but the video starts introducing characters. Probably intentional, since the video wasn't focusing on any particular characters (more of general lyric match), but it still felt wrong.

Most the rest past the intro, for the lyric portion, was amusing and decently matched; pretty much what was expected from initially hearing the song.

Loved the slips at 1:19, going through the different characters running.

Instrumental section was rather random. With no lyrics to match, it didn't seem to have anything else to really drive it. Sort of the opposite problem of Hayden's.

Ending was really weak.


[riccardocasu] Don't Stop Me Now

While the anime is well-used, the scene selections and general footage focus felt much fresher. Enjoyed it from that perspective.

Intro was somewhat weak. The facial expressions just don't quite seem to jive with the the lyrics.

However everything from the world on Karen's shoulders up to the fight with Karen worked really well.

Flames at 0:57 seemed like they were introduced too late. Running and hand push at 0:55-0:56 didn't really bridge well the bits between him in the sky and the portion on fire.

Cut from closeup of Koyomi after the flames, to the sudden pullback on the bike, was well done.

Uphill biking at 1:02 felt a bit random.

Karen's run at 1:28 (right after punching Koyomi) was way too rushed. Don't remember if it was like that in the original (probably was), but it felt out of sync with the rest of the movement.

Transition from the slam at 1:32 to Koyomi flying through the air at the freeway was disjointed.

Felt like there could have been a better transition scene before Karen leapt at him at the end.




Top Picks:
[riccardocasu] Don't Stop Me Now

Hayden's assessment of motivation for this group is probably not that far off.

Want to put Centurione's in there for the Apollon sections, but the TGWLTT parts really brought it down.
Lopez's is fun on the lyric portion, but falls down on the instrumental.
Hayden's is good on the instrumental, but kinda shambles about on the lyrics.