Review: Card Captor Sakura movie, "24"
This is a VERY late "July" review, I got sick and stuff :(
Title: 24 Hours
Song / Artist: 24, by Jem
Vidder: Yusagi aka darkbunnyrabbit
Fandom: Card Captor Sakura (movie)
Download link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVMnDJeNZjc or http://files.filefront.com/24wmv/;11206270;/fileinfo.html
Overall impression:
A flawed vid with distracting source issues, but not without it's merits.
I haven't seen the movie for a few years, and I had trouble remembering/following the plot which undercut the emotion of the vid. Some parts of the vid did work pretty well, though, and fast/slow cuts were visually interesting.
Titles: Opening: overlay of red text over images, simple "shrink from sides" effect. Works well with the music, but a thicker font (and maybe a different colour) might have looked nicer.
End: Over black with a different song in the background. Nothing wrong with that in principle, but the song didn't mesh very well for me.
Also, since none of the sections seem the perfect place to say it: I'm sure the vidder would have avoided using a subtitled source if she could, but it was very distracting, especially when a subtitle would show up for a fraction of a second between cuts (and those I think would have been the easiest to avoid)
Music choice: Not bad, has a compelling beat and the heartfelt female voice voice works reasonably well for Sakura. Seemed a bit cynical though, with the repeated line "wasting my time".
Narration, Tone and Movement: I had real trouble following the plot despite having seen the movie, some clips seemed almost random (it got clearer on a second viewing). I get the feeling the viewer is supposed to pay attention to the subtitles at some points, which is Not Good since the vid is overall best enjoyed by ignoring them.
The tone was fairly consistent and the desired emotion was generally (though not always) clear though I wasn't much affected by it. The movement was patchy: some of the use of the flowing streamers etc and the matching of character motion to building music was quite effective, but other times the characters just seemed to be standing around etc and the vid lost all momentum.
Cuts, Transitions, Effects & Colouring: The contrast of fast and slow cuts worked really well in principle and matched the music/beat nicely, but I found the fast bits too fast and the slow bits too slow, especially on first viewing. I had trouble figuring out what a lot of the fast clips were even showing.
No complex transitions I could see apart from one or two white flashes, which worked pretty well. (I'm pretty unobservant, I probably missed some!)
I liked the use of the blue scenes at the beginning: they were confusing narratively, but visually set the scene well.
Specific vid & music notes:
First few seconds: the use of multiple scenes involving tendrilly/blue things is quite pretty.
0.00.05 The blue pixelation was VERY distracting
0.00.16: Starting with Sakura waking up, nice symbolism as the vid proper starts :)
0.00.30: I'm not sure you needed to match the lyrics quite so closely, but it was competently done and "head spinning round I turn and sit down" was well matched
0.00.37-0.00.50: I have no idea what these clips are about, they don't seem to match the previous ones or the lyrics in terms of tone/meaning etc (there's a few places like this, but I thought I'd give an example)
0.00.50-0.01.09: This section is too slow for the music
0.01.21-0.01.25: even though nothing much is happening in this scene, I found it quite effective, so nice subtle clip choice
00.01.43: nice clip choice as the music builds
00.02.41: the fact you used a quick version of this clip just before adds some emphasis, and the matching of "I'm not alone" with Sakura being possessed is good
0.03.00: the vid slows right down here and the clips are pretty blah for a while, which is a pity since you had some good momentum going
Final notes:
So, there was a LONG time between me first watching the youtube version of this vid and me writing this review (based on a better quality version), due to various varieties of Life getting in the way. This actually turned out to be a good thing in one way: I went from not liking the vid to learning to appreciate it despite it's flaws.
I guess my first piece of advice is: better source, but I think you knew that :) The subtitles were so distracting that I think it would have been better to cut the vid down to a smaller size to get rid of them, though I don't know how that would look.
The use of fast/slow cuts matching the music was really good in principle, it just needs to be a bit less extreme (imo)
You need a clearer narrative, with clips which work even if the viewer doesn't recognise them and which match the music and narrative tone at the same time, as well a clear emotional arc.
Anyway, there was a lot of potential in this vid, and given that you said it was an early work you may have already learned all these things. I hope this review doesn't dampen your spirits, you're still a lot better at this stuff than I am :)
Title: 24 Hours
Song / Artist: 24, by Jem
Vidder: Yusagi aka darkbunnyrabbit
Fandom: Card Captor Sakura (movie)
Download link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVMnDJeNZjc or http://files.filefront.com/24wmv/;11206270;/fileinfo.html
Overall impression:
A flawed vid with distracting source issues, but not without it's merits.
I haven't seen the movie for a few years, and I had trouble remembering/following the plot which undercut the emotion of the vid. Some parts of the vid did work pretty well, though, and fast/slow cuts were visually interesting.
Titles: Opening: overlay of red text over images, simple "shrink from sides" effect. Works well with the music, but a thicker font (and maybe a different colour) might have looked nicer.
End: Over black with a different song in the background. Nothing wrong with that in principle, but the song didn't mesh very well for me.
Also, since none of the sections seem the perfect place to say it: I'm sure the vidder would have avoided using a subtitled source if she could, but it was very distracting, especially when a subtitle would show up for a fraction of a second between cuts (and those I think would have been the easiest to avoid)
Music choice: Not bad, has a compelling beat and the heartfelt female voice voice works reasonably well for Sakura. Seemed a bit cynical though, with the repeated line "wasting my time".
Narration, Tone and Movement: I had real trouble following the plot despite having seen the movie, some clips seemed almost random (it got clearer on a second viewing). I get the feeling the viewer is supposed to pay attention to the subtitles at some points, which is Not Good since the vid is overall best enjoyed by ignoring them.
The tone was fairly consistent and the desired emotion was generally (though not always) clear though I wasn't much affected by it. The movement was patchy: some of the use of the flowing streamers etc and the matching of character motion to building music was quite effective, but other times the characters just seemed to be standing around etc and the vid lost all momentum.
Cuts, Transitions, Effects & Colouring: The contrast of fast and slow cuts worked really well in principle and matched the music/beat nicely, but I found the fast bits too fast and the slow bits too slow, especially on first viewing. I had trouble figuring out what a lot of the fast clips were even showing.
No complex transitions I could see apart from one or two white flashes, which worked pretty well. (I'm pretty unobservant, I probably missed some!)
I liked the use of the blue scenes at the beginning: they were confusing narratively, but visually set the scene well.
Specific vid & music notes:
First few seconds: the use of multiple scenes involving tendrilly/blue things is quite pretty.
0.00.05 The blue pixelation was VERY distracting
0.00.16: Starting with Sakura waking up, nice symbolism as the vid proper starts :)
0.00.30: I'm not sure you needed to match the lyrics quite so closely, but it was competently done and "head spinning round I turn and sit down" was well matched
0.00.37-0.00.50: I have no idea what these clips are about, they don't seem to match the previous ones or the lyrics in terms of tone/meaning etc (there's a few places like this, but I thought I'd give an example)
0.00.50-0.01.09: This section is too slow for the music
0.01.21-0.01.25: even though nothing much is happening in this scene, I found it quite effective, so nice subtle clip choice
00.01.43: nice clip choice as the music builds
00.02.41: the fact you used a quick version of this clip just before adds some emphasis, and the matching of "I'm not alone" with Sakura being possessed is good
0.03.00: the vid slows right down here and the clips are pretty blah for a while, which is a pity since you had some good momentum going
Final notes:
So, there was a LONG time between me first watching the youtube version of this vid and me writing this review (based on a better quality version), due to various varieties of Life getting in the way. This actually turned out to be a good thing in one way: I went from not liking the vid to learning to appreciate it despite it's flaws.
I guess my first piece of advice is: better source, but I think you knew that :) The subtitles were so distracting that I think it would have been better to cut the vid down to a smaller size to get rid of them, though I don't know how that would look.
The use of fast/slow cuts matching the music was really good in principle, it just needs to be a bit less extreme (imo)
You need a clearer narrative, with clips which work even if the viewer doesn't recognise them and which match the music and narrative tone at the same time, as well a clear emotional arc.
Anyway, there was a lot of potential in this vid, and given that you said it was an early work you may have already learned all these things. I hope this review doesn't dampen your spirits, you're still a lot better at this stuff than I am :)