AMV: You're My Sunset
Feb. 10th, 2026 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizardjay^yeah it's not really an AMV but that's my titling convention...
Festivids has revealed! I've hardly watched anything yet but hopefully I'll have some time in the next couple weeks. My video is once again for the Chinese F/F mostly-commercials directed by Liu Yun Rui (also see my video from two years ago).
(also on AO3)
Festivids has revealed! I've hardly watched anything yet but hopefully I'll have some time in the next couple weeks. My video is once again for the Chinese F/F mostly-commercials directed by Liu Yun Rui (also see my video from two years ago).
(also on AO3)
As with last time, this post on baihe-media is a great place to check out a lot of the source. Though there are actually several more videos included in later posts... I would recommend checking out the creator tag in that post, or going directly to douqi's youtube channel.
I have now gotten into a pattern of participating in Festivids every other year... expect me back in January/February of 2028 I guess :)
Though I didn't actually sign up this year; I wasn't confident about finishing anything to a deadline. So of course I picked up a pinch hit that I had to finish in two weeks instead... but it's different, okay?? I got to look at the prompts; think about it at my leisure for a few hours; rotate possible songs in my mind; poke around at the newer source that I didn't use last time; download them; pick a song and get like five seconds on the timeline as proof of concept; and THEN go over and claim the pinch hit. Totally different! The problem with finishing something is not usually the amount of work, it's the vision, and this gave me the confidence that the vision existed.
But there's also... the amount of work...
I had exactly 14 days. I think I worked on 10 of those days, with the average day being like 1.5 hours and a couple of days being longer. On the due date I worked like 6 hours to finish up. I wish I was fasterrrrrrr T_T but alas lately I am incapable of considering less than three options for every single second on the timeline.
NOTES:
1. I never wanted to spend too much time on one source video at once; it's important to switch for interest. At the same time, you need enough continuity to convey events happening. It's tricky!! (... *I* need that, at least. I generally make conceptually linear videos with a storyline, you know?)
2. I had to set aside the several videos with other women... the two women you see here are Sheng Wei and Ai Ye. Sorry to the other ladies! It becomes more difficult to have a coherent narrative if I include you!
3. In this video I found myself cutting to the vocals far more than the instrumental beat. I believe that's due to the song I chose but I also feel like the nature of live action makes it a little less important to be precise with your cuts... or rather, there's so much going on visually that your precision is a smaller fraction of everything. (I guess this isn't exclusive to live action really, there are people out there making AMVs with dizzying animation sources.) Still, I tried very hard to make satisfying placements. I also heavily used (overused???) crossfades in a way I never do. I am generally not a believer in crossfades, and honestly I'm an effects/transitions purist in some aspects. (For the stuff that I make, that is! I love to see other people's maximalist videos!!) This is generally due to striving for cleanliness and useful information density. But with this here, I'm overwhelmed by the complexity, so I'm resorting to these 'cheap' fades to avoid those hard cuts that would make the eye hard to reorient. In an optimal world I would simply motion match everything but then I don't think I could have any semblance of a story... I should really take a film class T_T
4. I didn't realize until making this video that the sky is never blue in these commercials. It's all sun through white clouds. It's beautiful btw, the color palette is really lovely. (This isn't just my blue light filter, right? I'm unsure now XD)
5. Me starting this video: ah, a nice live action video, I won't have to do any of my bullshit!
Me doing this video: I want to do the all monochrome look with pops of red... I want to make only the characters have color... chroma keyer isn't doing everything I need, I need to MASK THEM FRAME BY FRAME...
So yeah. It was not free of my bullshit :D
I have now gotten into a pattern of participating in Festivids every other year... expect me back in January/February of 2028 I guess :)
Though I didn't actually sign up this year; I wasn't confident about finishing anything to a deadline. So of course I picked up a pinch hit that I had to finish in two weeks instead... but it's different, okay?? I got to look at the prompts; think about it at my leisure for a few hours; rotate possible songs in my mind; poke around at the newer source that I didn't use last time; download them; pick a song and get like five seconds on the timeline as proof of concept; and THEN go over and claim the pinch hit. Totally different! The problem with finishing something is not usually the amount of work, it's the vision, and this gave me the confidence that the vision existed.
But there's also... the amount of work...
I had exactly 14 days. I think I worked on 10 of those days, with the average day being like 1.5 hours and a couple of days being longer. On the due date I worked like 6 hours to finish up. I wish I was fasterrrrrrr T_T but alas lately I am incapable of considering less than three options for every single second on the timeline.
NOTES:
1. I never wanted to spend too much time on one source video at once; it's important to switch for interest. At the same time, you need enough continuity to convey events happening. It's tricky!! (... *I* need that, at least. I generally make conceptually linear videos with a storyline, you know?)
2. I had to set aside the several videos with other women... the two women you see here are Sheng Wei and Ai Ye. Sorry to the other ladies! It becomes more difficult to have a coherent narrative if I include you!
3. In this video I found myself cutting to the vocals far more than the instrumental beat. I believe that's due to the song I chose but I also feel like the nature of live action makes it a little less important to be precise with your cuts... or rather, there's so much going on visually that your precision is a smaller fraction of everything. (I guess this isn't exclusive to live action really, there are people out there making AMVs with dizzying animation sources.) Still, I tried very hard to make satisfying placements. I also heavily used (overused???) crossfades in a way I never do. I am generally not a believer in crossfades, and honestly I'm an effects/transitions purist in some aspects. (For the stuff that I make, that is! I love to see other people's maximalist videos!!) This is generally due to striving for cleanliness and useful information density. But with this here, I'm overwhelmed by the complexity, so I'm resorting to these 'cheap' fades to avoid those hard cuts that would make the eye hard to reorient. In an optimal world I would simply motion match everything but then I don't think I could have any semblance of a story... I should really take a film class T_T
4. I didn't realize until making this video that the sky is never blue in these commercials. It's all sun through white clouds. It's beautiful btw, the color palette is really lovely. (This isn't just my blue light filter, right? I'm unsure now XD)
5. Me starting this video: ah, a nice live action video, I won't have to do any of my bullshit!
Me doing this video: I want to do the all monochrome look with pops of red... I want to make only the characters have color... chroma keyer isn't doing everything I need, I need to MASK THEM FRAME BY FRAME...
So yeah. It was not free of my bullshit :D
