Process

I had this notion of making an anime music video before I took this class, as I really wanted to make something based on something which I am really passionate about. Before I settled down on using Adobe Premiere, I carefully thought about what I would make this project look like. Ash is both a childhood hero and an embodiment of passion and valor, and especially in the battle with Sawyer, it is their friendship, Ash's confidence, and his bond with Greninja that finally make Ash win. Therefore I would like to create a flashback of Ash and Greninja, and clipped the original video to emphasize the bond between the rivals.

The first thing I did was to look for the music pieces that I intend to use in this fast-paced video, for which the original soundtrack cannot be used. I finally decided on five pieces listed below, from a variety of sources.

1. スーパーロボット大戦OG: 流星、夜を切り裂いて

2. Persona 4: I'll Face Myself

3. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel: 零之軌跡_終章突破重圍

4. Valkyrie Profile 2: Motion of a Finishing Blow

5. 大河ドラマ 「秀吉」 op

The first four belong to the soundtracks of Japanese video games, and the fifth one is the opening theme of a famous Japanese historical narrative series. They correspond to the ups and downs shown in the video. Most AMVs online used one piece of music, but I thought that it would be great to use different pieces to depict the emotions of the characters. However, there is a tradeoff: using non-uniform soundtrack might make the video chaotic.

The most challenging thing for me was to make a smooth transition between the battlefield and the flashback. I made several edits, but because of my lack of experience in video processing, none of them totally matched my expectation. I finally managed to slow down a frame, create a flash out effect, and then go to the flashback. It was still easily detected by the audience, though.

Another challenge is to make the video short in order to be spreadable. I had two finished versions prior to the current 3'48'' long version, and I posted the second one on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K36Q0dNcfME

I even made subtitles for this video, but it is 8'08'' long, which would definitely make anybody not familiar to Pokemon bored. Then I edited the entire video, increased the speed, and changed the audio.

To increase spread, I intend to post the video on Facebook as well afterwards. Also, I would talk to my friends to ask them help spread the video. I have already included several keywords in the Youtube link, which would hopefully increase the chance of online surfers seeing it.

In my original proposal, I intended to create a mashup of Pikachu's language. After I talked to my peers and the course staff about it, I was advised to do something simpler, as finding many clips of Pikachu's sound and making a smooth transition can be hard for a beginner. Therefore I decided on the current idea which is to have a remix/mashup on a single scene.