Flash Step (Supercut)

Outcome

Statement

I created this video based on a common anime trope of the "flash step," where characters move at high speed, which looks instantaneous. I thought it was a fairly common trope so I could find the clips I wanted easily enough, and it looks pretty cool when animated well so I wanted to see what a supercut of many of these clips would look like. One way I thought I could make it more spreadable was to add music to the background to make it sort of an AMV.

Context

I used clips from various anime, but in some the trope was obviously more common in than others, and so certain anime show up more than others. For example Naruto uses this trope a lot in its fight scenes, and so it is the most used anime in my video. Other sources I used were Fate/Stay Night, One Piece, Bleach, Claymore, Dragonball Z, Sword Art Online, and One Punch Man. I drew a lot of my inspiration for the style I wanted in my video from the "Animegraphy" videos (Ex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X9IV98-cNY ) I even used a song from the 2013 Animegraphy. These videos do what I was looking to do in that they combine many different anime from a whole year into one continuous video, and they explore many different tropes throughout the video.

Process

I initially proposed a different trope to use for this project of "You are already dead," but as I searched for clips I found that flash step clips were more abundant. I began by using what I could remember from anime I had seen to gather clips, and then I used  http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FlashStep for more instances of the trope. I took a folder of over 20 clips and started to piece them together in Adobe Premiere. I decided which clips were good examples of the trope, and which maybe didn't fit as well as others. Once the clips were put together I was not sure whether or not to add music and mute the original audio of the clips or not. In the end I added music and muted the audio of the clips to make it more like an AMV.

Product

The finished product is an AMV spanning across different anime to the song "Intro" by The xx. I used Adobe Premiere to edit the clips and move them around to fit the music a bit better, and I chose this song because it is a pretty simple song without lyrics to distract from the video while still complementing it. I started out by adding entire fight scenes or even full episodes to Premiere from Youtube using http://www.videograbby.com/ , and cutting the large clips into the small parts in which the trope is used. When I added the music I had to move some clips so that the song flowed better with the visuals.

I uploaded the video to Youtube, and shared it on Reddit at r/anime

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/56ua14/supercut_amv_of_flash_steps_in_anime_i_made_for_a/ 

Critique

I think the video I made successfully showcases the trope of the "flash step" and how it is used in different anime, but I think I could have gotten a larger variety of anime to make it even better. I had something around 20 clips of this trope, and I think if I had double that, or maybe triple, I could have shortened the length of the clips to only the short moment when the trope is used. The way I have it now shows the a bit of the build-up and aftermath of the trope. 

Reflection

I found out by doing this project how hard it is to gather a substantial amount of clips for a supercut. I also learned how to use Adobe Premiere a bit better. If I were to do it differently I would try to increase the number of clips I have to just show the split second in which the trope occurs, but have it shown about 100 times.

Sources

Anime used: Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, One Punch Man, Claymore, Dragon Ball Z, Fate/Stay Night, Sword Art Online

Song: Intro - The xx

References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ1DlJxsUg8