Title: Vultures' Dance
Anime: After War Gundam X
Music: Loreena McKennitt, "The Mummers' Dance"
Length: 6:11
Type of Video: Action, All-Around
Bitrate: Approx. 705 kbps
Completion Date: 10.24.2001
File Size: 30.4 MB

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As you can see, although this was my third video (it would've been my second if it weren't for my "Eden" video), it was the first under the Vulture Studios name, simply because I didn't think of the name until working on this one. But this one had been brewing in my mind for the longest time, as it's a combination of my favorite anime with my most favorite song. Granted, the song has been used for a few AMV's before--including the award-winning "Memories' Dance"/Miyazaki video that was one of my key inspirations here--but I bet no one ever expected someone to use it with any kind of Gundam series footage aside from maybe the Miyazaki-esque Turn A Gundam. But what can I say? It worked. It was easy to find footage within GX that matched the lyrics (though I had to use a piano player instead of a fiddler for that particular line), and there's plenty of things in it for everyone to enjoy. Also take note of how in some scenes you've gotta look deeper for the reasons I placed a certain clip there rather than just watching them for what they are; it might be something in the background or a play on words. I also tried to throw in a few fun or humorous scenes for good measure (including a rare shot of Jamil actually smiling that I just couldn't help but include ^_~) to show how GX has many scenes that are serious, sweet, silly, and action-packed, sometimes all within one episode too. So in a sense, you could call this a 6-minute-long commercial for the show, as I avoided major plot spoilers this time around.

Of course, as the title of the video implies, instead of being centered around a specific character, I chose to make it about the Freeden crew as a whole, as they're the main protagonists of the GX series, as well as a few of their allies (such as Ennil El and Paula Cis). (But of course, expect a bit of favoritism towards Jamil and the GX Divider in this, as I'm an obsessed fangirl and I couldn't help it. ^_^;;) And because the video is called "Vultures' Dance", one of the early clips features subtitles explaining who and what the Vultures are in GX (and where else do you think I got the name of my "studio" from anyway?), but because it's still during an instrumental part, it doesn't detract too much from the video. I also tried to limit any other scenes with subbing in them to instrumental portions and stuff that would go along with the theme of the video of showing who the Vultures are, but there were a few that I just couldn't avoid because that was a scene I wanted to use regardless of the subbing in it.

Overall, I'm extremely pleased with the final outcome of this video. Despite the fact that I found an extra frame in one spot that somehow got in there that shouldn't be there and the still images I used in some spots look kinda weird (especially the ending--it looked better on paper . . .), the timing is probably the best of these first three videos I've done so far, as I really tried to take advantage of the many dynamics of the song; that was what made making this video so much fun. Some of my favorite parts in this respect include the GX's eyes lighting up right with the beat towards the beginning, various shots of the Gundams to the "aaahh" parts early on (this was highly inspired by the "Memories' Dance" video more than anything else), the Double X's Satellite Cannon sights clicking down exactly with the beat, and a cute shot midway through of Garrod razzing with an interesting sound effect already in the song.

I spent about a month planning and then five days editing this thing, as it features over 100 different clips from many of the episodes, and it nearly killed my hard drive in the process. (I can't even begin to count how many times Movie Maker crashed on me while making this. >_<) Remind me not to do something this long and with that many clips in it again until I get a better computer with a better hard drive. x_X; But as a result, despite the higher bitrate and file size, the picture quality isn't all that great; I recommend not watching it at any larger than double its normal screen resolution because of this. But because of the bitrate, the sound quality is excellent, so hopefully you shouldn't encounter any problems with that. And now it's hard to say which is my most favorite video I've done so far: this or my first one.

Oh, and I did make a shorter version of this video that uses the remixed single version of the song (which I don't think anyone else has used for an AMV yet), but I've chosen not to feature it here because it's basically the same exact thing you see in this normal version but just more rushed and awkwardly timed. But if you'd still like to see it anyway (it's only 4 minutes long and a 10 MB file), talk to me personally, and maybe we can arrange something.