Anime Boston - Con Rundown

RichLather · Post by **RichLather** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 2:25 pm

Note to self: competently edited videos set to Blue Gender are pretty likely to slip under most folks' radar. Use more popular stuff next time.

Kai Stromler · Post by **Kai Stromler** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 2:34 pm

I stole a ballot from the second screening. I have it and was going to post the full ballot with commentary, but it was so long typing the goddamn post that my connection timed out, and I lost the thing when I tried to preview. It will be up eventually.

Other con stuff:
Meeting people was definitely cool. I'm in awe of Tom's Lain tat almost as much as his videos.
Thirty eight thousand holy crap. That's insane. If we're not filling the Hynes in five years it'll be solely the con staff's fault. Of course, this was the first major anime convention in New England ever, even though it's such a huge market, so high success wouldn't have been surprising....but not on this scale.
'Berto should have packed along a few CDs. He had the Grave of the Fireflies video with good video fidelity in the Novice finals, which was damn impressive for a first outing.
Yeah, the panel was a little disorganized, but we didn't hardly plan it at all with regards to taking questions, doing demos, etc, and we were pressed for time, so it was kind of inevitable.

Anyone who didn't nab a Shin Hats CD and wants one should PM or email me, I've got plenty left. Otherwise I'll pass 'em out at PortCon Maine if I end up going. Also someone took the bonus CD but did not claim their prize -- if they're reading this they have until the end of the month to email or PM me with the serial number from that CD, or they forfeit.

Rich: I read that more as a new-school/old-school conflict. I was gonna write more on that with the ballot post, but like I said the connection died.

--K

RichLather · Post by **RichLather** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 6:18 pm

Old school/new school conflict? I can't wait to see the elaboration on that.

Both the source video and the song are a year or two old. I was listening to the Bad Religion song on the way to ACen last year, and that's when I got the Blue Gender DVD too.

Kai Stromler · Post by **Kai Stromler** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 8:25 pm

Correction to last post: that should be thirty-eight HUNDRED, not thousand. I'm just an idiot.

And now, without further ado, the Big Goddamned AniBo Ballot Post:

Warning: this post is excessively long and may contain harsh criticism of AMVs that you either made, or thought were kinda good. These are only Kai's opinions, and they pertain only to the video and not to the creator unless specifically indicated. And anyways, Kai is just some death metal psychopath, so you don't really have to take him seriously.

1. Rurouni Kenshin OAV - Crawling In The Dark
by: Seth T. Hay
video: Rurouni Kenshin OAV
music: Crawling In The Dark [Hoobastank]

This video won Best Novice, even though it needed intro texting to set itself up, which isn't often a good sign. It wasn't my choice in this caption, but it was very well put together and both technically and stylistically sound.
This creator had a surprisingly good DBZ/Disturbed video in the overflow, which would have both made the finals cut and been a serious contender for Best Action if he'd cut the song before the last two "movements". If it had ended at that point, I would have been like "Damn, that video ruled!", but when it kept going, everyone in the showing was like, "ugh, when is this getting over". The motion and lip synch were top-notch throughout, and the plotting, at least for the first "movement", was definitely superior to the vid he had in the finals.

2. Zoro's Promise
by: Grover [Cousin and I Productions]
video: One Piece
music: In The End [Linkin Park]

This was the better of the two One Piece vids in the contest, almost solely in terms of focus and plotting. Unfortunately, the video looked pretty washed-out colorwise, and the music was Linkin Park, which definitely worked against it. This one was pretty decent, but hampered as described.

3. Final Fantasy Heroes
by: Jonathan Howard
video: Final Fantasy VII
music: Hero of the Day [Metallica]

This guy had two FF videos in the finals, and they were both pretty uneven. There were some parts in this video that were very good, and even a few plain jawdropping, but most of it was plagued with desperately slow cutting. Yes, the barn blew up on the riff-hit. That doesn't mean you have to show it still burning for the next five seconds.

4. Life @ War
by: E-Productions
video: Grave of the Fireflies
music: Hey Man Nice Shot [Filter]

There's nothing wrong with using anti-conventional anime/music combinations. I do it all the time, probably more often than I should. But to have success at an audience-judged contest, the video has to be absolutely perfect to break the barriers that most people have about what kinds of music certain anime goes with. This video did not do that. The video fidelity was pretty bad and seriously pixel-blocked, and the theme wasn't consistent or consistently represented through the video. There were some hyper-accelerated parts that were pretty cool, but there was little videography to sustain the video all the way through, and a bunch of hits were plain lost to slow cutting. It may have been a good idea, but it just wasn't well-executed enough.

5. Evangelion - Excalibur
by: Cecille Chiffre
video: Neon Genesis Evangelion
music: Excalibur [Bassic], The Four Seasons [Vivaldi]

This video was primarily cool for its innovative and well-done audio remix, especially accompanied as it was by extremely precise cutting. Beyond that, though, it was just another random-destruction-drama Eva video, with a few places showing why the remastered version is so desperately needed.

6. Don't Walk Away
by: Tom The Fish
video: FLCL
music: Rough Boys [Pete Townshend]

This was a good, fast, funny video made to Tom's usual exacting standards. Unfortunately it was completely overshadowed by his other vid, but it's still well worth watching.

7. The Blossom's Lament
by: Lady Brick
video: Sailor Moon R: The Movie
music: Iris [Goo Goo Dolls]

I hate Sailor Moon. And I really despise modern Goo Goo Dolls (sellout bastards). But I liked this video. It was just a good, old-fashioned shoujo drama vid, everything that an old-school AMV should be. The video fidelity was a little kicked, and the plotting was pretty much your basic do-the-movie-in-five-minutes, but it never came off as lame or trite. The motion synch and cutting were quite good throughout.

8. Rocket Man
by: David Appelman
video: Outlaw Star
music: Rocket Man [Elton John]

Even if the concept got a little thin (how many clips can you show a spaceship just flying around in, really) after a while, this video hung together very well as a whole. If I knew Outlaw Star at all, I might have liked it better, but with AMV you're really not supposed to assume that the audience is bringing any knowledge of your video source to the table anyways. As it was, it was a pretty good drama video, if one of many (maybe *too* many) in this contest.

9. Dreams
by: Maverick [Cousin and I Productions]
video: One Piece
music: The Goonies Theme [Dave Grusin]

Yes. The Interminable One Piece Video. Actually, if you could get over the length factor, and the substantial repetition of clips from "Zoro's Promise" (not like the multiple Eva and Trigun videos in the finals didn't have a lot of clips in common either), this was actually a decent video. The creator did a good job in terms of motion synch, and following the transitions and changes in feel through the various movements. That "various movements" thing, though, is the kicker. The song clearly could have been edited to just include the first movement without much loss of overall feel, and the video would have been a Luffy focus and not had the repetition problems that the video actually submitted did. A few HK-DVD logos just made the beat-up video fidelity look that much more sketchy.

10. Ueber Depressing Video
by: mckeed
video: She, The Ultimate Weapon
music: I Believe [Blessid Union of Souls]

This won Best Drama, in spite of the closing text, which was unnecessary and made a significant minority of the audience laugh every time the video was shown. The Japanese audio bits were definitely essential. However, I just couldn't get into it. There were a few clips that didn't seem to make sense, or fit the concept, plus the usual issues with picture fidelity in digisubs (or in this case digiraws -- and that damn well better not become, like, a real word), and for me at least, the blocky, abstract visual stylistics of SaiKano seemed to be fighting the elegant, smooth feel of the music.
This video will be really cool if/when it gets remade from DVD source. This'll fix the color matting endemic to SaiKano encodes, and give a chance to disinclude the closing text. The shot of the ocean just surging up at Shuji in the last real cut in the video is an excellent visual to just end and fade to black on as is.

11. What If...
by: Maverick [Cousin and I Productions]
video: Cowboy Bebop
music: Somewhere Out There [Our Lady Peace]

I think that this was an attempt to cut Cowboy Bebop so that Spike and Faye ended up together, but the videography was so average, and the intent was unclear in places, and the fidelity was nothing special, so I have a very hard time remembering anything about the video at all. Just another drama vid.

12. Dream, Setsuko, Dream
by: Alberto Gonzalez
video: Grave of the Fireflies
music: Dream [Firehouse]

Every contest has somebody's stunning debut. This was AniBo's, right here. 'Berto is just starting out, but this video was still beautifully plotted, start to finish, and in impeccable fidelity. The only real issue was a lot of unsynched mouth motion, but when you're working from a single movie you sometimes have to take what you can get, and the final vid was still incredible. Start hunting for this one now, people.
The overall audience at AniBo was pretty young, so I don't know how many people were as pleasantly surprised as I was that a video with a Firehouse song was any good.

13. Final Fantasy Rhapsody
by: Jonathan Howard
video: Final Fantasy IX
music: Bohemian Rhapsody [Queen]

This was the better of this guy's two FF videos, mostly because it actually managed to hold together thematically and resolve pretty well. However, it was still held back by slow cutting and drastically slowed-down footage. These videos were passable; I hope some other FF videos are better than this standard, because there are so darn many of them.

14. Fight!
by: Tom The Fish
video: Hello Kitty
music: Mortal Kombat [Mortal Kombat OST]

Best Comedy, Best In Show. What more to say? Howsabout MORTAL KOMBAT! Just the idea of this juxtaposition would probably have been enough to win the hearts of the audience, but all the creators in attendance definitely appreciated the hard work that Tom put in to making a video this good out of what was obviously a drastic lack of suitable source. A few mouths might have been taped shut with AE or something after the characters finished their lines, but the reuses and loopings are concealed very well, and the video just kicks ass.

15. Father's Pawn
by: Neelick
video: Neon Genesis Evangelion
music: Chop Suey [System of a Down]

There's got to be a good version of this anime/song combo out there somewhere. This one was pretty well put together, but the video fidelity was complete crap, and being as it was an Eva Chop Suey video, it didn't stand a chance.
Maybe Neelick will remake this one once the Eva remaster series is out so we have a shot at a decent version of the combination.....or maybe someone else will remake theirs. Same diff.

16. Push It Kenshin
by: Love + Peace Productions
video: Rurouni Kenshin
music: Push It [Garbage]

I voted this video for Best Action, which it eventually won, with a lot of unease and doubt, because it's not really an action video, but more of an aggressive instead of weepy drama. It had the most action and most good points of any of the semi-action videos in the finals, and it's definitely very well put together (the combo of Kenshin's sweep into Saito's cerebellum over the synth break right at the end absolutely kills), so it's definitely deserving of the award.
There was a real lack of real action videos in this contest, even more than comedy. There were a bunch in the overflow, most of them pretty bad, but also Seth Hay's almost-great-before-it-killed-itself DBZ vid, my disqualified-for-gore Jin-Roh outing, and a fun Fatal Fury video using a song by the Kelly Family (mad respect to the Germanophile who put that one up) that really should have made the final cut. The lip and action synch were all on target, and the video hung together right to the end.

17. Fine Again
by: DOkool
video: Neon Genesis Evangelion; End of Evangelion
music: Fine Again [Seether]

This was a good video, but it definitely had an uphill battle for a few reasons. First, it was the eleventh pure drama video in the first 17, so it's quite possible that the audience was getting a little tired of drama. It should be pointed out that nothing from here to the end won more than experience class awards. Also, the contrast between the competently mastered End of Eva clips and the jumped-on-with-golf-cleats look of the TV series may have made an excellent case for the necessity of the Eva restoration project, but it can't have helped the video too much. It's still a good video, and worth tracking down, though.

18. Arjuna's Book of Days
by: *Lithe-Fider*
video: Earth Girl Arjuna
music: Book of Days [Enya]

At first I thought that the blurred, vaseline-lens look of this video was a really cool effect. Then it didn't stop, and I realized that the video probably had just been made with poor fidelity. The Japanese credits in a couple shots detracted from the video, and probably should have put it under the sanctions applied to videos with obvious subs. Another good idea that could have been instantiated a lot better than it was.

19. Searching
by: Grover [Cousin and I Productions]
video: Trigun
music: Superman [Five for Fighting]

This was probably the best of the four (!!) Cousin and I videos in the finals, though as a video (and Yet Another Drama Video) it's only a little above average. There's some really shameless lyric synch towards the start that made me think we had another MJ on our hands for a while (what the hell would that be, anyways? mexicanjunior junior?), but (un?)fortunately this trend was not sustained. Decent, but scratchy video fidelity as appears to be usual for this studio.

20. Anime Girls: Becoz' I Love You
by: Kayla Brink
video: various
music: Becoz' I Love You [Hitomi]

This video was amazing. It had everything: horrible pixellation, enough Japanese credits to make some in the audience suspect it was constructed entirely from downloaded OPs and EDs, and even a brief shot with an onscreen TV/VCR-type clock overlay. There were definitely worse videos in the overflow (the dreadful Drowning Pool/Eva and Britney Spears/DBZ ones come to mind), but there were a bunch of better ones as well. It's ok to fudge the numbers a little to make a more diverse contest, but just being the only dance video and the only video with jpop among the entries shouldn't have gotten this into the finals.

21. Oishii
by: Skyebox
video: Maho Tsukai Tai
music: Tasty [Ball In The House]

This video had a lot going for it. It was a slightly ecchi comedy video in a contest full of morbid drama, and the music was nothing like anything that the audience had yet heard. However, it was held back by lower video fidelity (looked like source was from older VHS captured at a smallish resolution)....and the fact that it had to compete against Tom. At some other contest, it might have had a chance at the comedy title.

22. I, Koshi Rikdo, do hereby give my permission to make Excel Saga into an anime music video
by: NeilPeartnoy
video: Excel Saga
music: Higher Ground [Red Hot Chili Peppers]

Greg (the creator) said it best on the panel: "At least it's timed well." The timing is impeccable, but the concept isn't always there, and there are a lot of unsynched moving mouths to distract. The video improves on rewatch, but his Lain video that was in the overflow is still better. Of course, since that was drama and this is comedy, the rest of the contest kind of dictated which made the finals.

23. Phemt
by: Maria Battaglia
video: Berserk
music: Bare Island [Hans Zimmer]

This video rocked me flat when it was on AWA Pro last fall. Nothing's changed. The setup and combination is perfectly nightmarish, and the videography fits the music like a glove. For now at least, this video pretty much app-kills "End of Berserk". If you haven't seen this for some reason, you're missing out.
Drama videos in Journeyman so far: 1/1

24. leave me cold
by: Kai Stromler
video: Black Jack
music: Five Finger Crawl [Danzig]

My video, so I can't really comment objectively, though it was about the bottom of the five videos in this experience caption. I definitely need to get a decent VCR from someplace that doesn't end in -mart, though; the audio levels were absolutely all over the place.
Drama videos in Journeyman so far: 2/2

25. You're Not Alone
by: James Hartwell
video: Now and Then, Here and There
music: Alone Down There [Modest Mouse]

At the "Behind the AMVs" panel, Pat (the contest coordinator) referred to this video as "the shootout in the kindergarden" due to the clips of kids shooting at one another, and made remarks as to how so much of Journeyman was so disturbing (viz these first three, plus the disqualified-for-gore ones Steve Pope and I had in overflow). I didn't find this too disturbing, just a damn good drama video. The grayscaled parts were really essential, and managed and integrated quite well.
Drama videos in Journeyman so far: 3/3

26. Missing
by: Maria Battaglia
video: Hoshi no Koe
music: Missing [Mami Ishizuka]

This was a very nice combination of light, soft video and a spare, beautiful instrumental piano track, for a nice romantic-tragic effect as opposed to the more twisted and dark stylings of the better part of the rest of the experience caption. This should have worked in its favor, but just wasn't enough in any case.
Drama videos in Journeyman so far: 4/4

27. The Pain of Memory (remaster)
by: Steve Pope
video: Trigun
music: When I Grow Up [Garbage]

Steve was robbed. This was a good video, and probably would have won this caption even if all the other videos didn't end in evil and/or despair (which this did not), but his Eels/Hakkenden video in the overflow was better by miles and would have won Best Drama in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, it included a brief cut of the back of a severed head. And so into the overflow....even though like my Jin-Roh video it was in obvious violation of the rules about "family-friendly" source and technically shouldn't have been shown at all. Moral victory for us!
Drama videos in Journeyman so far: 5/5

Tom really should have been in Journeyman as well, so this experience level wasn't as monolithic as it appears. However, it's a good way of showing how drama-dominated this contest was: 19 of 29 videos in the finals were pure drama, and most of the "action" videos in the finals had a major rather than minor dramatic component.

28. Yuji's Defense
by: RichLather
video: Blue Gender
music: The Defense [Bad Religion]

29. Mirage
by: TaranT
video: Serial Experiments: Lain
music: Mirage of Hope [Hemstock & Jennings] (some remix)

These were the only two Masters entries, and there couldn't be a more perfect contrast of the old-school and new-school styles, with some slightly unsettling indications for the future. In the red corner we have a video looking captured, even though it's from DVD (probably went to analog between Rich's house and the convention), using a title animated by hand. Its music track is vocal rock (ok, punk/hardcore, but I'm trying to be general here), and it is heavily focused on plot and pixel changes created by the original animators. In the blue corner we have a video ripped from DVDs of a show made without a single painted cel. The music track is non-vocal techno, and the emphasis is on feeling, atmosphere, and pixel changes created by the video editor. From a creator's perspective, one can see that these two videos were created with approximately equal effort and equal competence. Picking which is better, for anyone with experience and insight, is deadly tough. So you have a great old-school video up against a great new-school video, and for whatever reason, the audience picks the new-school video.

I like old-school stuff, and given all the great work that's been done with them, it'd be a shame to let those old-school kind of styles just fade out. But audiences like shiny things, and familiar things. TaranT's video was great, and there's no knock to be made against it, but its victory here shouldn't be the signal for the final die-off of old-school AMV or anything.

What's even weirder is that the two sources used in these two videos are from the same year, 1999. Just goes to show variety across the anime industry, which a few people still tend to think of as monolithic, and especially the effect that an AMV creator can have on a final product.

Other highlights from the overflow:
There was a Lain video that I didn't catch any information about focusing on the spiky nanomech-drug thing that was really cool, and also two more good ones that I haven't mentioned above, both comedy. One was Hand Maid May to a really bizarre song from Veggie Tales that would definitely have gotten into the finals, and maybe given Tom a fight if the creator had made it with the readily available DVD source instead of Internet encodes. Most of it was just Nanbara weirdness, but a lot of the lip synch (and there was a LOT of it) was done very well, and there was a ton of really surprising lyric synch as well. The other was a treatment of MXPX's cover of Aqua's "Barbie Girl" using Eva that was probably pushed down because the video quality was flat horrible, like third-gen-EP-fansub-level. However, this is a punk band doing an irreverent, balls-out cover of a crappy disco song. You can *do* lo-fi video on something like that and have it read as intentional (which it probably wasn't), and besides, the lipsynch was good and the overall video was pretty hilarious.

Unrelated: more people need more interesting titles. In this contest we have "Best. Title. Evar." (#22), but also more than a few that really suck. You can't get much less imaginative than #1.

--K

dokool · Post by **dokool** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 8:45 pm

Kai Stromler wrote:
15. Father's Pawn
by: Neelick
video: Neon Genesis Evangelion
music: Chop Suey [System of a Down]
There's got to be a good version of this anime/song combo out there somewhere. This one was pretty well put together, but the video fidelity was complete crap, and being as it was an Eva Chop Suey video, it didn't stand a chance.
Maybe Neelick will remake this one once the Eva remaster series is out so we have a shot at a decent version of the combination.....or maybe someone else will remake theirs. Same diff.

Yes, there IS a good version of this anime/song combo out there: Final Genesis by Ikasu. He doesn't get enough props for this one.

Kai Stromler wrote:
17. Fine Again
by: DOKool
video: Neon Genesis Evangelion; End of Evangelion
music: Fine Again [Seether]
This was a good video, but it definitely had an uphill battle for a few reasons. First, it was the eleventh pure drama video in the first 17, so it's quite possible that the audience was getting a little tired of drama. It should be pointed out that nothing from here to the end won more than experience class awards. Also, the contrast between the competently mastered End of Eva clips and the jumped-on-with-golf-cleats look of the TV series may have made an excellent case for the necessity of the Eva restoration project, but it can't have helped the video too much. It's still a good video, and worth tracking down, though.

[/quote]

When I saw my position on the ballot, I nearly cried, not just because I was 17th, but because I was a mere two videos AFTER another Evangelion vid. As far as the audience "getting a little tired of drama", Fine Again recieved 7 Drama votes (all from me and family/friends) and 8 Action votes (and I have no idea where the hell they came from). Yes, the video quality of the Eva TV series definately worked against me, which is why it will be quite refreshing to see my next vid. Thanks for the thumbs-up, though.

Oh, and in a stunning turn of events, Third Lens Open Productions <i>will</i> be making an attempt to send something to Otakon this year. Be afraid. Be <u>very</u> afraid.

-DOKool

RichLather · Post by **RichLather** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 10:04 pm

In the red corner we have a video looking captured, even though it's from DVD (probably went to analog between Rich's house and the convention), using a title animated by hand.

True dat. My journal reflected the pain and suffering needed to output this from the PC to tape. From now on, though, any con that accepts MiniDV as a tape format will get that instead of VHS. Otherwise I'll prob'ly go with MPEG-1 or XviD if they don't mind getting the codec togo with it. And you had me on "title animated by hand" for a sec (Zuh? I didn't put a slate on this!).

I like old-school stuff, and given all the great work that's been done with them, it'd be a shame to let those old-school kind of styles just fade out.

As I continue to learn using Premiere (and soon After Effects) I think my style may begin to change. I sure won't lose the old-school plot-driven editing, 'cos that's been my bread and butter from Day One. It'll just be prettier. I don't have the patience yet for frame-by-frame reworking of the source material, short of a chroma key.

Oh, and we need more in-depth post-contest wrapups like this. I really enjoyed reading it.

Org Profile · Post by **Vlad G Pohnert** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 10:24 pm

RichLather wrote: As I continue to learn using Premiere (and soon After Effects) I think my style may begin to change. I sure won't lose the old-school plot-driven editing, 'cos that's been my bread and butter from Day One. It'll just be prettier. I don't have the patience yet for frame-by-frame reworking of the source material, short of a chroma key.

Oh, and we need more in-depth post-contest wrapups like this. I really enjoyed reading it.

Bah, I'm old school and analog was my life, but adapted to digital very fast and not looked back since (in terms of the technology - not the ideas)! Hec my first comeating video in 2000 used After Effects... The way I see it, if your used to the patience of doing very fine and fast cuts with two VCRs then Frame by Frame becomes a piece of cake in terms of patience

Yea...right...I'm sure I've convinced my self of that...

Vlad

RichLather · Post by **RichLather** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 10:26 pm

I'm glad you did, Vlad.

Right now I feel that until I can get faster with Premiere, as well as drop all other hobbies, housework, yardwork, and maybe a marriage, I won't find myself making something like TaranT's winner anytime soon.

Ahhhhhh, we'll see.

TaranT · Post by **TaranT** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 4:02 am

Kai Stromler wrote:These were the only two Masters entries, and there couldn't be a more perfect contrast of the old-school and new-school styles, with some slightly unsettling indications for the future. In the red corner we have a video looking captured, even though it's from DVD (probably went to analog between Rich's house and the convention), using a title animated by hand. Its music track is vocal rock (ok, punk/hardcore, but I'm trying to be general here), and it is heavily focused on plot and pixel changes created by the original animators. In the blue corner we have a video ripped from DVDs of a show made without a single painted cel. The music track is non-vocal techno, and the emphasis is on feeling, atmosphere, and pixel changes created by the video editor. From a creator's perspective, one can see that these two videos were created with approximately equal effort and equal competence. Picking which is better, for anyone with experience and insight, is deadly tough. So you have a great old-school video up against a great new-school video, and for whatever reason, the audience picks the new-school video.

I like old-school stuff, and given all the great work that's been done with them, it'd be a shame to let those old-school kind of styles just fade out. But audiences like shiny things, and familiar things. TaranT's video was great, and there's no knock to be made against it, but its victory here shouldn't be the signal for the final die-off of old-school AMV or anything.

It's ironic - and a bit humorous - to see the term "new-school" applied to me. Especially after the video that I put in the Master's contest at AWA last year. And it's flattering (Thanks!) to be compared to someone with RichLather's years of experience.

I don't see any lesson here about old vs. new school, either. I've won contests with both and I've seen others do the same. My inclination is towards old school, however. I like the "DeMoss Rule" (my words, not his ^_^) to limit a project to two weeks, although I'm usually willing to go to four weeks. I don't have the patience for major reconstructions like Tainted Donuts or Transcending Love, or for an effects vid like Euphoria.

One correction to your comments: the source for Mirage was an analog capture through a camcorder from DVD to DV files. And all the editing was done in DV, too. Not as tech-y as ripping or the AMVApp, but it's what I've become comfortable with. And the video quality is more than adequate as you could tell.

I'll second RichLather, too: thanks for the long writeup. I thought about doing the same after Sakura-Con, but I forgot to bring something to write notes on.

oxiclean · Post by **oxiclean** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 12:37 pm

wow, i can't believe it took you guys so long to sign-up. I arrived at the hotel at 9 on Saturday and was registered within 5 minutes.
my poor feet were killing me by the Saturday night though. i had to stand the whole time, because it was so crowded and not enough chairs. awesome con, none the less.