This is the part where he runs away from his memories. If you look carefully, the scenes are in a chronological order. Almost all the scenes are from him and the girl and you can see he alread knows her from childhood. The last few scenes are more done for the dynamics and to make it look like the memories go by faster.
This is where he disappears and eventually falls - a figurative death: it affects him in a fatal way. The music starts going backwards as if he's going back in his mind to look for moments where things went wrong. You can see him for half the AMV in the middle, with his thoughts on the background.
The music starts and there's some bad lip sync going on. I wanted to sync his movement with the other him - the blue one in the middle, but it would be impossible without having lip flapping, so I choose lip sync instead. And it looks like shit.
I'm not really proud of this part because it disturbs the flow, but it's the best I could've think of at that moment. It litteraly follows the lyrics and shows alls his friends and a house as if they were gone home. I wanted something like a crowded room that fast-forwards to being empty, but there was nothing like that in Mind Game.
From this part on I start playing with bars and rectangles. I've always wanted to do something like since I saw the Capcom-Street-Fighter-esque intros. It's a good way to set and devide the mood without using too much movement. This way it looks like time stands still in his head. I'm not too proud of the drunk girl because it kind of disturbs the mood and flow, but I had to do something to sync with the text. Or just leave it out now that I think of it!
In the horizontal bar you can see they're in the same spot, just to show you the current situation. But when the two come in as the vertical bars it's zoomed in - as if the viewer can take a closer look. And a closer look gives you that there's actually a big gap between the two (that's why they're in two seperate images).
And this is how he feels at that moment. And what she says: "I thought you would disappear", as if he loses her. By making her flikker and him disappearing at the same time, it seems like that it seems like he feels he disappears, even when she would be gone for one split second.
Some cross-cutting is used to create some suspension: the girl that zooms in, while the guy is pulling something. What is he doing exactly? The lyrics goes: "This is the chance I never got..". This is clearly the part that marks the next section of the video.
And he pulls the curtain, as if a new world is opening: the chance he never got. But is he using the chance to take the risk? As you can see, they just "talk about the people they've met". And while nothing happens and they talk about the people, he wonders if she will still be in his mind in ten years. The lipsync was pure accidental, but a nice surprise when I found out a month later.
This is the part where we go back to the present. He starts to think about the moments he was together with her. As you can see he already tried to kiss her once, probably last winter (with the lyrics to support it).
This is also one of the shots I'm not really proud of. He tried twice before is what the singer is singing, but the only reason I choose this shot is because you saw two moving fish. The parts after that is somewhat a surrealistic scene, where he does kiss her, but saying it would not last, is like saying that dreaming is not enough (if this makes any sense).
The three shots are chronological again - like the sequence in the beginning, but somewhat more hopeful. It shows he had some fun times with her.
The end where he wakes up. This is not cut correctly, as you can see that at first he's laying on his side, but wakes up laying on his back. I first wanted to get the girl (in the background) out of the last shot (but wasn't technically able to do that at the moment), but a month later I thought it would raise the question of who the girl on th background actually was. This poses an interesting twist of where he actually still thinks of that girl, and the missed chance, even though he's already with another girl.


title Steadier Mind
anime Mind Game
song Steadier Footing
artist Death Cab for Cutie
genre drama, romance, serious
amv time 2:27
time spent 90-100 hours
programs used Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5

prologue
What you can read here is an analytical breakdown of the scenes and composition used in this AMV. I doubt anybody will actually read this, but hey, if just one person finds it interesting what's here, I'm already a happy man!
When I wanted to visit my first con in July 2006, I saw they had an AMV-contest. Not knowing what it was I gathered information of AMVs and because of my somewhat experience in editing I decided to join. As I wanted to stand out I chose a song and an anime probably nobody would.

main idea
This is the first AMV I've ever made. Anime makes editing easier, meaning that you can blend, mix, crop or do whatever effect you want and it's still forgiving. So an effect I always wanted to do are the bars that are used in the old 16/32-bit Capcom Street Fighter like intros. I always like it how you can put different elements in different bars/rectangles and still have a whole, while still be able to focus on details different parts.

editing info
I edited this in about 80-90 hours in four days. I only had 4 days before deadline would be reached, so I spent almost all my time editing it. I didn't use masking, as some people might think, but the technique used here is keying. I didn't have time to learn masking and had a lot of luck with certain scenes in Mind Game. Keying is good for some scenes as the beginning of the AMV, but sometimes masking is still required as the edges aren't that nice as you want them to be (even if you feather). After Effects might have better keying options, as well as those other special FX plugins, but I haven't figured that out yet.




Lyrics of "Steadier Footing" by Death Cab for Cutie

It's gotten late and now I want to be alone
all of our friends have left they all have gone home
but now sit on the front porch
watching the drunks stumble forth
into the night

You gave me a heart attack I did not see you there
thought you had disappeared so early away from here
this is the chance I never got to make a move
but we just talked about
the people we've met in the last five years
and will we remember them in ten more

I let you burn a smoke you quit this winter passed
I tried twice before but like this it just would not last




The lyrics are originally about (I think it is) a guy who just went to his college graduation party and meets up with a girl he was in love with for a long time. He now has his chance to hook up but talks about their college years and thinks about what will happen in the future with him and his friends - and actually whether his relationship with girl ends here or not.
Eventually I used another interpretation and told a story about a guy who runs away from everything (his past, his problems) and where the running becomes fatal (this is the beginning part). And when it becomes fatal he goes back in time within his mind (backwards music) to see what's gotten wrong. That's where parts of the lyrics are used to create the memories he has.