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Wednesday, 15 July 2015

Dusting off something I did years ago.

  I was digging through a seldom visited folder on my hard-drive when I stumbled across something I forgot I still had.
 About ten years ago I was watching a lot more anime than I do these days and I did what an awful lot of anime fans do - I decided to make my own AMV.

(Anime Music Video, for those who don't know)

 The end results can best be described as rough around the edges but in my defence I was using the standard technique at the time - copying bits from one VCR to another by frantically mashing "play" and "record" at roughly the same time. You had to get the bit you wanted running on VCR A and hit record on VCR B at just the right moment, allowing for the fact that record had a bit of a lag so you really needed to start recording just before the bit you wanted in the hope that it would sort itself out.
 You also needed to make sure the tape you had in VCR B was at just the right spot because otherwise you either recorded over a bit you needed or there was a glaring gap in between scenes.

So I spent many evenings on my knees. fingers poised over two wired-together VCRs trying to create something as cool as the ones I had watched at Minamicon.
Don't even get me started on how I put the bloody music on the end product.  More "Play - Record - Swear because you cocked up again" funtime playtime.

These days aspiring music vid makers can use all sots of wonderful computer gizmos.  They also don't have to work from 2nd generation bootleg videos that were starting to wear out.

Drat. I'm making excuses, aren't I?  

Anyway, I managed to complete three actual videos, each one slightly better than the last. Showed them to family and friends then promptly forgot about them until now.

This is my third and final effort. I kept meaning to do another one but never got round to it. Maybe one day...

 Ladies and gentlemen, this is the ( belated) worldwide premiere of something I am still sorta proud of. Hope you like it.



 That's all folks.. 


8 comments:

  1. Can't get the video to load...

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    1. Oh dear. Are you getting any kind of error message at all?

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  2. Hi Big D,

    I love Skin - a totally underrated band in my opinion. Not into Anime but it looks good with the song.

    :o)

    Cheers

    PM

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    1. I was lucky enough to see them a couple of times - and they were brilliant.

      If they had been American and around 2-3 years earlier they'd have been a lot bigger, I'm sure of it.

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  3. I enjoyed the video, I can't imagine how many hours went into that. Thanks for the share.

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    1. Thank you. I couldn't tell you how long I spent on it - "Bloody ages" is the best I can do.

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  4. Great edit! also, good taste in music. I particularly like the randomness of the clips you've chosen.

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    1. Thank you very much. This was the first - and only - video where I tried to match the lyrics up to the onscreen action. Results came out a bit random, I have to admit.

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