March 2024 – The Life and Times of Paul Geromini

You can watch the piece here. This was submitted to RICE 2024 where it was a finalist in Best Storytelling and Best Use of Space category. It was also submitted to Anime Boston 2024 and Connecticon 20204 both in the Drama category where it was not a finalist.

There is also a reveal video associated with this.

I had two impetuses for this work, which both ended up complementing each other. One was a desire to flout rules. When I started work on it there was a contest rule somewhere that said “75% of the entry has to be set to the same song.” I thought it would be amusing to start with one song and then switch to another, while still being within the boundaries of the rule. The second impetus was to try and produce a work that was more challenging to the viewer. I would like to try and grow the artistic purview of the AMV by creating works that entertain, but also get people thinking. That may be a quixotic endeavor, but I have always admired and desired to emulate the windmill chasers of the world.

This work has some successes and some failures. I really like the intro. It creates an atmosphere that is then immediately broken while introducing the games I will be playing with color. It is basically the first quarter of an entirely different AMV. I then got to play with some SFX without music, which I like and makes the work more distinctive. As we ease into the real AMV I was mostly influenced by the last episode of GunBuster, which is almost all in black and white. I did a couple of tests with colored footage from other episodes and all the results were great so I knew it would work for a longer piece. I like pretty much everything until the last quarter where I struggle to introduce Noriko’s relationship with Kazumi. I do like the ending though. Song wise it was a clear choice to start with Over There, given its bombastic tone and galvanizing intent. When I Lost You by Frank Sinatra was a bit harder to find. I knew I wanted to do something with Sinatra, but it took a little digging in his catalog to find something I liked while also being short enough to fit with another song.

Overall, I really like how this turned out. It is certainly unique. Have I really conveyed the loss of innocence for a child soldier and gotten people to question the tools and stories governments use to enlist soldiers? Maybe not, but its pretty cool to see flashes of blue set against black and white.

Director’s Commentary:

00:14 : There was a weird black smudge for a single frame here that I removed. It took me a while to find, but it was unconsciously distracting until I did.

00:34 – 00:36 : I like how all the characters are introduced here, but I probably should have excised the two characters who never show up again. That said, maybe its good to show a spread of combatants here.

00:46 – 00:59: Most of these sounds effects are from Steel Panthers World at War, which is still a quite competent game despite its age.

00:59 : This is the sound of one of those paper cutter guillotines in use. I was never quite sure what to put here. I fiddled with some VCR noises (given we do rewind things in a moment) but I like the noise of this so I kept it.

01:47 : Sometimes, for mixed color scenes, I used a mask like on the picture here. For others I used the Vegas Color Corrector (Secondary) tool (see 2:55). I was a little afraid I was going to have to mask every time so it was quite a relief to find this color tool in Vegas.

02:28 : Masking mouths on old anime is tough, especially for me: an advanced idiot. I think this is just the best I can do at present.

03:48 : I get why I did this, but it seems kind of late to be introducing a pivotal character. Maybe I should have put her in the intro?

04:04 : Again masking is tough. You can also see her ribbon is not blue here. In the unaltered anime it is in grayscale as she is on a TV screen here. I did not want to add it in, but I can see it be confusing as it does break the color rules I have been following.

04:48 : I really like the ending here. Its quiet and reflective of the journey our character has taken.

You can watch the piece here (and without SFX here). This was submitted to RICE 2024, and was a finalist in the Drama category.

There is also a reveal video associated with this.

While not a typical AMV, this Art Music Video was an interesting idea I wanted to pursue with some novel technical challenges to overcome. Overall, I am happy with the outcome. It is a good way to appreciate the many embellishments in the work and it is a modern take on how the Victorians may have experienced it at the time.

Our primary medium for this work is the 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras by Elizabeth Thompson. It depicts the 28th Regiment of Foot from the British Army (under Wellington) in square formation (with focus here on one of the corners) during the Battle of Quatre Bras. As part of the Waterloo campaign (summary for visual learners) Wellington is taking his army to reinforce his ally (the Prussian army under Blücher). Together both Armies can outnumber and destroy Napoleon’s army. However, Napoleon has correctly identified this threat and has moved to destroy the Prussians first (in the Battle of Ligny) and after that he will turn to destroy the allied armies (primarily British, but also Dutch and ‘German’ units). This will be the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon has dispatch Ney with part of his army to delay the allied army at Quatre Bras so they cannot join up with Blücher. At this moment in the battle Ney has ordered a cavalry attack. Infantry under threat from cavalry will almost always form square (minus some exceptions) with the front line kneeling to present a wall of bayonets and the second line shooting at the approaching horseman. The square provides 360 degrees of protection with no space for cavalry to get in-between the infantry. Horses will not charge into a line of steel so cavalry is relatively impotent against this formation. However, this kind of formation requires a great deal of training to execute properly under fire and it makes the unit very susceptible to artillery fire or other infantry. We can see a good example of this formation in Waterloo (1970).

The historical context having been covered, let us turn to the art itself. Painted by Lady Elizabeth Thompson in 1877 (62 years after the battle in 1815), it is one of the crowning achievements of her artistic career. Known for her careful research and a focus on individual soldiers her work has been reproduced an innumerable amount time. This piece is currently on display in the National Gallery of Victoria. More information on the painting itself here.

Over the summer I read Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles by Bernard Cornwell (ISBN10 – 0062312065). A very engaging and readable account of the Waterloo campaign. While doing some additional reading I discovered Lady Butler’s work. It is an immensely captivating piece managing to record the intensity of the battle without sacrificing the detail of the individual combatants. After seeing it I knew I wanted to mimic how it would be to experience this work in person. You would not take it all in at once, but instead inspect small portions and cast your gaze slowly around the whole thing. It was a simple leap to add some music and sound effects to accentuate the piece. Although, to spoil some of the magic most of the heavy work is done by this backing track that plays throughout. In essence this is an extended cut of what you might find in a documentary on the battle.

On the technical front I used an image enhancing tool to add extra detail to accomplish those tight zooms. There are some decent high-res scans online, but I really needed a lot more detail as I would be zooming in very close. It took a couple tools, but I managed to get a very sharp image for close up work. I also used an audio separation tool to pull voices out of some films separated from their music. The results were mixed. Sometimes it was perfect, other times not, but I got what I needed. With a pile of audio, music, and a very detailed painting I simply had to sweep the camera around in Vegas and call it a day. There were a few tricky parts, but I will speak of it more in the commentary.

Directors Commentary:

00:00 – 00: 20 : I wanted to have people wondering what exactly they were watching at first so I started with just they sky, then I let the battle noise seep in, and finally you get your the first clue.

00:43 : “Now’s your time” is a quote from Wellington, but during the Battle of Waterloo.

01:07 : Great find on my part with this “Help me…” dialog. It is from Sharpe’s Waterloo, although its more comedic than tragic in the show.

01:26 : I like lingering on the detritus of battle. Armies of the era were so ornamental it contrasts well with the brutality of their engagements.

01:30 : Horrifying audio from The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), an odd film, but the best representation of the charge we have. As an aside if you are interested in the Crimean War check out this.

02:49 : Maybe the most striking piece of this work is these two boys here. Have they lost themselves or is it relief at having survived so far? I struggled for a long time trying to figure out what would go here. The audio is from Zulu.

03:04 : So many times I missed this detail of the wounded soldier draping his arm around his comrade. Once I saw it late I knew I had to include it.

03:45 : Not a huge deal, but this subtle stop on the saddle is to work around an issue in Vegas. I wanted to curve the camera following a particular arc, but as far as I can tell, you can only instruct the camera to move in straight lines. I needed to avoid parts of the painting I would get to later so I ended up lingering on his saddle as a compromise, but I would have preferred something else. Audio is from the greatest depiction of a cavalry action on film. This funny enough is inspired by another of Lady Butler’s works.

04:16 : I really love the building climax here. The music is really coming into center stage at this part.

04:24 : I never could get the right reloading sound effect here. This is just a little too slow and isolated. It is the best I could do.

04:37 : Lady Butler can really capture eyes well. The man behind these two officers is saying so much with his.

05:07 – 05:13 : The screen used to flex oddly here until I eased us into the correct aspect ratio with the earlier pan. It is still a little noticeable, but cleaner overall. The payoff seeing the whole painting is really worth it.

05:13 : Right here is where I had the most issues in this project. As we switch to the museum I need to pull back so the art is just one more piece on the wall. I tried putting the high-res piece and the museum wall in one image and just using that, but GIMP was fighting me. Trying to scale down the image was causing a quality loss. What I ended up doing was using the high-res image until right here and then I switched to my combined image with artwork plus museum wall and then I continued to zoom out from there. To my eyes its seamless.

05:30 : I love the ending.