Gintama Vid: "Cave In"

[xparrot]

So this was what interfered with my ficcing in the last week - crossing the final fandom frontier and making my first vid. An AMV, because that's where my fannish heart lies at the moment; a Gintoki character study, because, ditto.

I've been thinking Owl City would be a good fit for Gintama; it's got the right mix of silly puns and cute with a certain underlying melancholy. "'Cave In" is the first track on the same album with "Fireflies", and a while back I decided it was Gintoki's song, but when I poked gnine to vid it for me, she was uninspired. So obviously I had no choice but to do it myself.

...Okay, and it was an excuse to find angsty shots of Gintoki. Of which there are more than you might expect; almost none of the clips are taken out of context. I do cop to cheating and using a lot of footage from most of the opening and endings, because they've got great animation and often of just the shots I needed.

Much thanks to gnine, for helpful advice and support, and to naye for squeeing in the most encouraging way imaginable. ^^

Download .avi on Megaupload (52 MBs)
ETA: This .avi is slightly different from the version on YouTube; I tweaked the vid on 2/24, made a couple tiny changes that were bugging me.

"Cave In"
Owl City
(Lyrics by Adam Young)

Please take a long hard look through your textbook
'Cause I'm history
When I strap my helmet on, I'll be long gone
'Cause I've been dying to leave

Yeah, I'll ride the range and hide
All my loose change in my bedroll
'Cause riding a dirt bike
Down a turnpike
Always takes its toll on me

I've had just about enough of
Quote, "diamonds in the rough"
Because my backbone is paper thin
Get me out of this cavern or I'll cave in

If the bombs go off, the sun will still be shining
Because I've heard it said that
Every mushroom cloud has a silver lining
Though I'm always undermining too deep to know

Swallow a drop of gravel and blacktop
'Cause the road tastes like wintergreen
The wind and the rain smell of oil and octane
Mixed with stale gasoline

I'll soak up the sound, try to sleep on the wet ground
I'll get ten minutes give or take
'Cause I just don't foresee myself getting drowsy
When cold integrity keeps me wide awake

Get me out of this cavern or I'll cave in
Get me out of this cavern or I'll cave in

I'll keep my helmet on just in case my head caves in
'Cause if my thoughts collapse or my framework snaps
It'll make a mess like you wouldn't believe

Tie my handlebars to the stars so I stay on track
And if my intentions stray I'll wrench them away
Then I'll take my leave and I won't even look back

I won't even look back



So, yeah. My first vid, if likely not my last, since I had far too much fun with it. Any & all comments most entirely appreciated!
(ETA: If you don't know Gintama, the vid's not especially spoilery - it's not really a series that can be spoiled, so much - although I can't vouch for what sense it might or might not make ^^;)

Comments

[sholio]

... possibly I shouldn't be watching this, since I haven't seen Gintama, but I think I've got the general idea. ^^;; And I loved it! Beautiful matching of clips to the general song tempo & lyrics. I especially love the part where it gets all bright and happy towards the end! And I like the song, which I'd never heard before. First vid, huh? Stop making the rest of us look bad. ;p This is really awesome.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Hee, to be honest I was rather hoping you'd check it out even not knowing Gintama*, since, well, first vid, want to show it off, especially to those who actually know vidding! (even more impressed now with all the vids you've done - it takes quite a lot of time and timing, this!)

And very glad you liked it, and that it worked even when you don't know the source. The song is a great one for vidding - in my head it's Gintoki's song, but it could work with a lot of chars. And all the crazy stuff at the end, that's what Gintama's really like 95% of the time, and I love it for it...even if I am awfully partial to that other 5% XD

* If you didn't have several fandoms already I would totally be shoving Gintama at you big-time; it's cracktastic but it's got such fantastic friendships and found-families stuff, and you know enough shounen to appreciate the parody... ^^

[sholio]

Heh, yeah, I think I'd probably like Gintama but I seriously don't see it happening anytime soon, partly because there's just so MUCH of it and partly because I'm more into Western and book fandoms right now -- it might be a good one to get into the next time I go through an anime/manga phase. I didn't think it looked like the sort of show that would be a problem if it were spoiled somewhat, though. ^^

Anyway, the vid is lovely. :)

ETA: And, yeah, vidding is really labor-intensive; it makes fic-writing look like a breeze! For me at least, vids take FOREVER. I still have a bunch of vids I want to do, but it's really hard to find time, especially since once I start working on a vid, I really hate to stop for things like, oh, sleep or work -- it's remarkably addictive.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Eheheheh, when I say "interfered with my ficcing last week" I really meant "interfered with my LIFE" - I totally lost track of hours while working on this, but it must have been...a lot. At am estimate about 6 hours to assemble the basic footage for a minute of vid, and then at least that much time again to fiddle...and then the fast-cuts at the end took much debating...and that's not counting all the time when I got distracted and started actually watching the ep I was trying to clip from. Not to mention getting distracted by rewatching my vid itself, which I keep doing for no good reason...!

...which is to say, yeeeeah, addictive and SOOOO time-consuming! Fic has a much better effort-to-amount-produced ratio ^^;

And yeah, I was not in an animanga mood for years so I know what that's like (though I'm happy to be back in one now, and have all these new series to watch/read!) - but next time you are in such a fanning phase, definitely check Gintama out. (...yeah, 200 eps seems like a lot, but time-wise that's only as long as SGA's run, and it's mostly episodic so you can watch as much as you feel like without being constantly spurred on by "to be continued"s...)