INSO02 - Howl From The Soul

video: Excel Saga
music: Death - "Voice Of The Soul"
link: depositfiles [37.1 MB]
editor: Dazzle MovieStar, well, as such
production date: October 2003

The reason this wasn't posted up here between INSO01 and INSO03 is that unlike those videos, and for that matter every other INSO video except INSO08 (which isn't getting republished here for other reasons), it has a .org catalog entry and thus tends to get treated as part of the 'main sequence' of SH videos. The reason it has that catalog entry is that I got convinced, about a year after actually making it, that it was worth publishing, as an AMV that is not immediately obvious as non-edited. All cuts in this one are cut in the source, with no effort expended in reassembling; I cut in at the right in-point, out when the music was over, and faded up and down. Honest; check it for yourself if you've got the DVD or know where to steal this episode from.

In a way, this is a remote and indirect ancestor to SH115; the synch in this one is partially there and partially closure, but the idea that the meaning in the original animation is tracking the movement in this song, but only in this particular section that is neither the start nor the end of the portion of the episode it comes from, is pure closure. Well, that, or some outstanding luck, but we all know which way Occam's razor is slicing this one.

SH064 - mardraum

video: Jin-Roh
music: Death - "1000 Eyes"
link: depositfiles [46.2 MB]
editor: Dazzle MovieStar
production date: January 2003

This one isn't quite as strong as I thought it was going in, probably because the color balance is kind of fucked up, but I still believe really strongly in it. I had this idea for a while and had to keep pushing it off, mostly because my capture card was dead, so when I got it fixed up in December '02, it naturally came off the queue first, and it was important to me to get it done well. This is one of a very few videos/ideas where this is the case; fortunately, I executed this one pretty much to intended spec.

Not much I can say about this one; if it doesn't speak for itself, I'm not sure that I can ever really explain it.

SH057 - Bijected Cosmic Face

video: Cowboy Bebop - Knockin' On Heaven's Door
music: Death - "Secret Face" and "Cosmic Sea" (remixed samples)
link: depositfiles [24.5 MB]
editor: Dazzle MovieStar
production date: October 2002

This is the kind of video that you make not just as an AMVer with a lot of disposable time, but as an AMVer with a lot of disposable time who also happens to be a musician. I wrote a lot when I was starting out about being just a "bass player with a capture card", but that musical training was not used for a whole lot outside of this video.

If I don't know what an arpeggio is, I don't have enough material to make this video. It's that simple. Without that knowledge, I can cut the cool solo sections from both of the songs listed, but I don't have enough information to realize that the composed sample can be reversed and added on at the end of itself while still sounding cool. Some progressions work one way and not another; arpeggios are inherently reversible, which is what makes the backwards-recorded section in the second half of the video work.

Even if you don't like the images or the composition in the video track, this is still one to pick up. Chuck and Steve's solo work as isolated here is fucking classic, and I ended up preserving a lot more of the original tone through the HQ build and later remaster than I (with my shitty speakers of the time) thought I had -- and that's before the largely-unexpected coolness of the reversed part comes in.

SH045 - Dawn of the Dead

video: Hellsing, Bible Black
music: Death - "Zombie Ritual"
link: depositfiles [44.2 MB]
editor: Dazzle MovieStar
production date: July 2002

Due to the production chain of grayscaling, then TMPEG-rendering full episodes, this was the video that really broke the camel's back and led to the investigation that produced the change in production management that was documented here. SH047 was another one that was bad in this regard, but this is where I started getting sick of the 13-hour renders.

This was the first Death video that I did, but that's not the reason that this video got a ridiculous number of .org hits in its first, say, five years available. The reason for that is that for a lot of that time, this was the "other" video in the .org database using Bible Black. (The video, of course, being this one.) If getting bycaught exposes people to early Death who'd never hear Chuck's music otherwise, throw me in the fucking gillnet.