[V] FFVIII Music Video

[Rampala]

Hi! I just finished a video I've been working on for ages for Final Fantasy VIII.

Name: The Ice Dance
Music: "The Ice Dance" from Edward Sissorhands, by Danny Elfman
Anime: Final Fantasy VIII (Does contain spoilers!)
~A Tribute to the Love of Squall and Rinoa~

Download it Here!

If you have time please take a look at it and I would love some feedback! Please let me know what you think! Thank you!

[MeriC]

Hey I went and checked out your video and I have to say- you did a pretty decent job on it! I liked how you faded all the scenes together and stuff...

It started out quite nicely... but then it was just so... slow and long. I got a bit bored watching the different angles of balamb garden while some faded clips are playing in the background as well. I thought the overall video was nice though and the clips went together smoothly but it's not just not my cup of tea. (too mushy, bah )

BUT I've seen worser Rinoa X Squall videos and I applaud you for your hard work!

[DocFrance]

GOD, I hate these things. They're just the same old FMV clips over and over and over again, dubbed over with either some sappy love song or some crappy metal or rap. There must be a thousand of these on the internet.

[MeriC]

Well that was very rude. Some Squall/Rinoa videos are actually very well done.

[Rampala]

Originally posted by DocFrance
GOD, I hate these things. They're just the same old FMV clips over and over and over again, dubbed over with either some sappy love song or some crappy metal or rap. There must be a thousand of these on the internet.

Well, I'm sorry you don't like them, but there's no need to reply so rudely. Also, you obviously could not have possibly looked at my video because I was rather proud of it for the fact that I used many scenes I have never seen before in any FF8 music video and I thought my choice of music was also rather unique, not your typical love song. Please don't judge before you have looked.

[DocFrance]

Sorry for my rudeness. I wasn't talking about yours in particular, but about all the other crap I see on the internet. To tell you the truth, I didn't actually see yours because I wasn't terribly interested. I meant no offense to you or your creation.

But I've seen plenty of these music videos, and the only thing that every changes between them is the order of the FMV clips and the background music. They're all pretty much the same.

[lonely]

Rampala I have a slight problem. I clicked on the "here" bit in your first reply and it took me to a thing and it gave me some info about you, but I dunno how to view it coz I've tried and I COULDN'T find it, and I really wanna find it coz it sound's so cool! help me out please.

[Squall04]

Umm, first of all, lonely, you've got to be the ditzyest (is that a word, well it is now) person I've known. The download link is right at the bottom of the screen. However, if you are not a member of AnimeMusicVideos, you cannot download the locally-hosted vid. And if you do end up registering as a member, you have to wait two weeks to download, so it's kinda dumb.

But anyway, about the vid. It wasn't all that great. I think you tried to substitute some flashy-looking effects for a good storyline. Besides, the effects were sub-par anyway. Anybody can take a couple of unrelated scenes and snap them together with some transparencies. Plus, you need to focus more on the story you're actually trying to get across, you know the "romance" between Rinoa and Squall. So don't use clips like battle scenes to show love, or giant gardens flying around, that in no way portrays any sort of emotion.

Also, another thing about the scenes you use, if you're going to use the 16:9 ratio end movie sequences, you might as well spend ten seconds and crop them down to 4:3 so it's the same size as the rest of the video.

Would you like me to leave an official op on the site? Or is this ranting sufficient enough?

[lonely]

Hey, that's a bit rude of you Squall04 to call me the ditzyest person you know, coz one you don't even know me and second I was asking Rampala, any how on a lighter note, I'm sure it's excellent.

[Rampala]

Well, Lonely, I'm sorry, originally I didn't realize you had to be a member of AMV to download the video, I'm obviously a newbie to the place. I knew there was a two week waiting period to upload videos, but to download... seems kind of silly to me. That's kind of the whole point of the site. If you're not a member of AMV and you're still interested in the video I'd be happy to send it to you over AIM or some other chat medium, until I can figure out how to host it otherwise. Just let me know!

To Squall, being it's a 3 and half minute music video I didn't realize it was suppose to have an intricate storyline. There is, one, however, I think you misinterpretted it. I wasn't trying to substitute flashy looking effects, it was an idea I came up with ages ago and this was my first attempt with it. I think you might want to take into consideration that this is the 3rd video I've ever made, and my first attempt at transparency. As far as cropping the sequences, I'm still a total newbie to the AMV making thing, so I was pretty clueless on that. My friend gave me some tips in that arena, though, and even directed me to a helpful guide to make my videos look cleaner in the end. Hopefully my next video will look better.

As far as the storyline goes. Isn't the idea of a music video to take scenes that were initally unrelated and piece them together to form something new? I do have a storyline, and a reason for the flying gardens etc. For the first half the video the bottom layer (the flight around the gardens, the garden at see, the SeeD ship, etc.) is suppose to symbolize all the chaos surrounding Squall and Rinoa. The transparencies, at first, don't show them together at all. It's suppose to show their seperate paths, their own personal struggles to find each other, and the climax of the song they finally overcome the chaos and are together. The remainder of the video focuses around their love and any trials they endured together. Cheesey, yes, and simple, yes, but you can't get too complicated in 3 and half minutes, I don't think.

[ShivaBlizzard8]

Well, as for me, I love music videos in general and enjoy making my own. Who cares if there is a million of them - they all have different concepts behind them, and its hard to use different footage when there are only so many FMVs in a game. Its kind of like fanart - the characters are all the same, but the artists' interpretaion of said characters are all different. In fact, I recently made my own FF8 vid, but I never thought to post it here.

Now, Rampala, as for the video, I don't think it was all that bad. I loved your choice of music, and I think it went well with your footage of the floating Garden shots. Very haunting. I think that the transparent overlays worked well with the tone of the music, but I'd cut down on how often you use them - they began to lose their effect after awhile. As for storyline, I don't have a problem with you using battle images even if this is supposed to be a "romance" video - in fact the tone of music seemed to focus more on the struggles the couple overcame then complete mush. Therefore, battle scenes are appropriate. And no, there doesn't have to be a complex plot, although images shouldn't be completely random either. They should promote what sentiment you are trying to convey, and, as I interpreted it, the conflict which brought these two together was your theme. I got that impression really strongly in some parts of the clip but not others. When making your next one, I'd suggest starting with a theme and then asking yourself, when including each segment, "how is this contributing to my theme?" That should help a lot. As a whole, I found it enjoyable, and not a bad try for a new vid-maker. Good job.

If you wanna check out mine, tell me what ya think: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/memb...fo.php?v=31196

[Squall04]

Actually, lonely, I have seen you around the forums here and there from time to time, and everything I read from you only establishes the statement I made earlier.

Anyway, Rampala, I see you obviously haven't read the Guides on the ORG, so I suggest you go there right now, and read every single one of them before you make another one. And that's a really good idea of ShivaBlizzard8 to always have a good theme in mind through out the vid.

[Rampala]

Originally posted by Squall04
Actually, lonely, I have seen you around the forums here and there from time to time, and everything I read from you only establishes the statement I made earlier.

Anyway, Rampala, I see you obviously haven't read the Guides on the ORG, so I suggest you go there right now, and read every single one of them before you make another one. And that's a really good idea of ShivaBlizzard8 to always have a good theme in mind through out the vid.

Well Squall, obviously I have not. However, I feel your rudeness is uncalled for. Although I may be new to this, I don't feel it further insists you should bash all the more. I value the constructive criticism, but little else you've said. As much as I enjoy making videos I do, however, have a life outside of it and this forum which does not enable me to go and read every single guide right this moment. I do plan on going through some of them before I proceed onto my next video, I'll take and leave what I need. I know I'm no pro, but I think the video came out better than you want to give it credit for; why you dislike is so much, I do not know, but I don't suppose it's really my problem.

[Xander]

Be friendly everyone... ^^ Criticism is okay, being insulting isn't. And I'll move this to Arts and Writing because videos go there.

[DocFrance]

I didn't see anything in what he said point to him "bashing" your video. All I saw was constructive criticism. What I said was bashing it, however. Constructive criticism isn't "Oh, wow, this is the best video I've ever seen!" - it's pointing out the flaws, and telling you what you can do to fix them. And that's what he did. If you didn't want anybody to criticize your video, why did you let any of us see it?