IDeATe

Outcome

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Intention

When I watched the Fate series anime, I was struck by the staggering visual effects. The fancy abilities also correspond well with the philosophical theme of the anime as the anime examines the conflict between good and evil and how their relative powers affect each other. Here, I want to extract the visual component out of the original story, recontextualize the abilities, and create a supercut with the famous fictional character Scott Sterling, who was best remembered for being constantly hit by soccer balls or volleyballs. Scott Sterling now keeps getting hit by the fancy abilities of the characters in the Fate series, but he strives to live on. I intend to make a funny video with this contrast between seriousness of Fate/Zero and funniness of Scott Sterling.

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Context

I was mainly influenced by the anime Fate/Zero and the famous funny video Scott Sterling. Also, I have watched a lot of mashups and supercuts of both funny videos and commemorative videos on video websites like YouTube and some Chinese websites like Bilibili (for ACG). Therefore, I am relatively familiar with the subculture of mashups and supercuts. My video is somewhat similar to existing videos that make fun by linking unrelated materials.

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Process

After I came up with the idea, I went through the general plot of Fate/Zero and figured out roughly what clips I could use. I intend to make a mashup with clips from Fate/Zero and Scott Sterling all mixed up so that Sterling seems to get hit by the abilities. I also wanted to leave the original sound clips in to create more of the feeling of mashup and maybe add in a song as the background music. However, I later realized that leaving in all the sound clips would make it quite messy, especially since Fate/Zero is in Japanese, so I decided to just leave in relevant sound clips from the Sterling video. Also, I figured that clips from the two works should be roughly mixed with the number of clips in a ratio of one-to-one so that they are constantly exchanging.

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Product

I browsed through existing clips on the Internet and downloaded clips of battles from Fate/Zero and the two complete videos of Scott Sterling playing soccer and volleyball. Then I started editing the project in Adobe Premiere. I basically cut clips of the abilities and shots of the casters of the abilities out. Then, when I was cutting up the Scott Sterling video, I realized that I would just use the one video with soccer and put Fate/Zero and Scott Sterling clips in action-reaction shots lined up in rough chronological order of the original Sterling soccer video. I had trouble trying to figure out which clips to put into the final product, so I had to go back to the original videos several times. I also had trouble controlling the tempo of the video, so I edited the several big segments several times. At last, I decided to leave only a few sound clips from the original video of Scott Sterling and then add a background music. To make it more amusing, I chose a famous electronic music piece, First of the Year by Skrillex. I also added in a boom sound whenever Scott Sterling gets hit. The music fades whenever there are other sound clips.

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Critique

I think that my piece is somewhat successful. When I watched it, I would laugh at it and love how it went pretty smoothly, especially with the booming sounds and the unifying background music. However, if I had better skills, I would refine it by replacing the soccer ball with some visual effects to make it look more smooth. Also, I feel like the tempo of the video still needs to be improved to have a better effect. Some of the clips are longer than I would like them to be and some clips can be in better places in relation to other clips. I like the sound aspect in general.

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Reflection

The most important thing I took away from this project was the ability to look at spreadable media in an analytical way and from the producer's perspective. I have to think about what's spreadable and how the final product should look like in order for it to spread. Therefore, after I finished the project, I feel like I didn't spend enough time focusing on the spreadable side of the project, but I have learned to think about the motives behind making each spreadable media, whether it is to simply make people laugh or to instil in the audience some deep meanings. Although my video is intended to be funny, it can also make the audience reflect on the difference between Japanese and American culture by mashing up two works from the two cultures and what spreads in their respective cultures. I have also learned a lot of techniques in dealing with video editing, specifically with Adobe Premiere, since I have never used that software before. For example, I learned about cutting clips and making keyframes for the sound effects. I would have refined the product if I had better skills and more time by, for example, changing some objects in certain frames and linking the tempo of the video to the background music.