IDEA

Anyways, here is the LONG STORY of how it happened. I used to be big into the AMV scene back in the day. While my skills were limited by both hardware and software, my heart was there, and I was actually really good at it, for my situation. Eventually, the restraints of my equipment just gopt more frustrating than the subsequent rewards, so I gave it up. And didn't touch it again for a long time.

When I FIRST started playing this song on my iPod, nearly two years ago, at work, himitsu was swimming through my mind all the time, and I started absently piecing together particular sections to individual characters. Kerrik, Edalene, and Reeve's section came first, then Marias, Matthias, Performercrew ... and I started idly thinking, huh, isn't it a shame there's not enough to fit every section, and that there's like NO HIMITSU MEDIA that I could made a really fun, good AMV with. Sigh, oh well. But I kept absenting adding to the list every time the song came on at work until my iPod first broke, when the whole thing kinda got backshelved.

Cut forward to when my iPod was fixed last June. I started, once again, playing with the lyrics everytime the song came on, and now there were so many great plots out there that I could easily match up a character to every section (except the Anton/Inara one which came ... like, three weeks ago :') ) I started beating the idea around more and more, until one day, sitting there, NOT working, I decided, you know what, I WANT TO DO THIS. It was some time in July. I was so excited and the second I came home I made a cryptic :3 LJ post and started scouring the internet for footage, putting together plans ... I only completely finished up to the first lyric before I gave up again. That was about when it hit me HOW much work this was going to be, HOW much footage I was going to need, HOW much creative energy this was going to drain -- plus I was reminded of how much my computer blows for video editting.

CUT FORWARD TO A MONTH AGO. I got to thinking about the whole thing again when I fixed my desktop and found the work on progress, and I finally couldn't keep it quiet anymore, so I exploded my excitment all over Elzie. And then I got so worked up about it I showed her what I had totally done so far, and she got all excited and that got me all excited, but I was SO busy and stressed and still doubted I could do it ... then Elaine finished her video, and I was like ... you know what. LET'S DO THIS.

So four days of, like, 15 hours a day working on this thing, I'm finally done and so happy with it.

VIDEO

This is by far the most ambitious thing I've ever done, lol, oh my god. The sheer amount of STUFF I was trying to cover is massive. Getting the footage, editting to such a long and involved song, dealing with this computer ... it's all, yeah.

I tried to get DVD quality footage, avoid subtitles, all that AMV book of law stuff, but there were times when I sacrificed a bit of style for content in those areas. There are a few subtitles that I try to ignore, when it was fairly unavoidable, and the quality is crap, but I figure since half of you are just going to watch it on youtube anyways, why bother with that too much 8)?

There are also quite a few spots where the timing is a bit off, or there are flashes of things that shouldn't be on the screen. We'll blame the damn computer for this. I can't put into words how bad this was. Laggy video, laggy software ... later on, I figured out a complicated and time consuming trick to mostly stop it, but everything from the Matthias to Davan/Eve sections had WMM crashing at least once every three minutes, no joke. It was a nightmare. So that's what's with that.

What I ended up with, though, is, considering my limitations and the sheer scope, kinda something else, lol.

CONTENT

Basically what decided who made it in was sort of a hierarchy of things.

1. Are you important for a story section. I really tried to keep each of the sections as "serious" as possible and make everything fit, so despite it being Weird Al Polka, I think I did pretty good there. Fun angst. Or something. Anyways, so if you were the best fit for a story part, and you had ANY footage on the entire internet, you got in.
2. I tried to get most "major" characters who have decently easy to find footage in; Franelcrew and co., etc.
3. Characters who were in footage I NEEDED for story parts and had decent scenes were the first priority for filler.
4. Then it was basically "I need more selection of character here. Do I like you/do you stand out enough that I remember you exist and are you important enough that make use of your existance to put the work into finding footage of you."
5. I also tried to get a variety of muns. I know for sure at least one character appears in some level for Rosa, Elzie, Dots, Frozen, Jazzy, Lynne, Meg, Sapphire, Sara, Spork, Vicki, Willfor, and Yuzu. Some of you got left out; but know I did everything I could -- or I forgot about you, because I actually didn't keep track as I went, just went from memory, lol.

SO.

Eve and Davan's section is an artistic trainwreck for many reasons. The two major ones being suitable decent footage and the fact that, at that point, WMM was going nuts and I hadn't figured out how to fix it yet, so I could barely edit two minutes (including a minute and a half of lag) without a crash. So yes. I wish I could have done better, but it is what it is.

- Tamahome is meant to represent Kail, not Arthur. While I fudged other characters I absolutely needed to tell the stories in each section (Hasten and Reeve, namely), you pretty much can't fudge Kail in a Himitsu video, and since Kail's PB is manga only, and at the time I started planning this vid, there was no Tamahome PB in canon, I went with someone I could COUNT on getting footage for.
- Characters who are normally recoloured are not recoloured. This includes Celeste, Jace, Inara, Fartgus, blah blah blah, lots. It was so beyond my abilities, I didn't see why I should bother when we're all very good at just pretending.
- Kanoe naked with Lawrence is supposed to be Edalene naked with Lawrence. If you don't know it's Kanoe, it looks like Edalene anyways.
- Characters who don't look much like their manga incarnations (and thus PB) in their anime incarnations just have to deal. This applies to a lot of them, but mostly folks like Isanae and etc who look almost like different people entirely ... I tried to avoid it unless I needed them to tell a story, so.
- Characters who are doing things vaguely ooc/setting inappropriate in "serious" sections ... well, sorry 8) I did my best and worked with what I could. I tried not to have any outright giant robots or cars or guns or whatever, but shit happens. (Except in the crack section, that was supposed to be crack.)
- Others that I'm probably missing go here, they just don't come to mind atm.

I think, unbiased of any character involved or whatnot, my favourite sections are Matthias, Fayre, Atsiria, and Mainplot, just because I think I got what I was trying to get across ACROSS there, and I like the timing in them and etc. My least favourite is Davan and Eve's because while I like the ideas, it's shoddily editted :(

Here is a full list of characters who have been included:

Celeste
Lawrence
Kail
Chiel
Pearl
Lauren
Jonathan
Jace
Terrance
Keagan
Mallorie
Marias
Tyrane
Fayre
Dairanne
Demi
Kelita
Annie
Fartgus
Isanae
Amaeyra
Hasten
Elthea
Matthias
Ian
Hazel
(Robin???)
Fallyn
Gideon
Halster
Allison
Anton
Inara
Pandora
Erin
Jessica
Karlesta
Lillian
Gabriel
Dale
Caroline
Tyre
Chris
Kastel
Illuse
Eron
Davan
Eve
Brittany
Emmline
Myca
Garvey
Brendan
Elden
(Scot?????)
Andrew
Rae
Irene
(POSSIBLY EMMA AND CORDELIA GETTING YELLED AT BY LAUREN THERE LOLZ)
Kerrik
Edalene
Reeve
Connor
Emery
Debby
Oscar
Stephanie
James
?????
Justine
Relette
Lirit
Westa
Randy
Tarmon
Eric
Philippa
Noland
_____________________

75 (79??)


In case anyone missed any of it, here are the lyrics and which character was associated to each part:

Franelcrew (Celeste, Lawrence, Kail, Chiel, Pearl, Jonathan, Lauren, Jace, Terrance, Keagan):

Instrumental Start

Mallorie:

Cut my life into pieces
This is my last resort
Suffocation, no breathing
Don't give a (bleep) if I cut my arm bleeding
This is my last resort

Marias:

'Cause I'm losing my sight, losing my mind
Wish somebody would tell me I'm fine
Losing my sight, losing my mind
Wish somebody would tell me I'm fine
Nothing's all right, nothing is fine
I'm running and I'm crying

"Good" Lireth Siblings (Fartgus, Isanae, Amaeyra, Hasten):

Wake up (Wake up)
Grab a brush and put a little make-up
Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup
(Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup)
Why'd you leave the keys upon the table?
Here you go create another fable
(You wanted to)
Grab a brush and put a little makeup
(You wanted to)
Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup
(You wanted to)
Why'd you leave the keys upon the table?
(You wanted to)

Elthea:

I don't think you trusted my
Self-righteous suicide
I cry
when angels deserve to
die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die
HEY!

Matthias:

I'm gonna get free
I'm gonna get free
I'm gonna get free
Right into the sun
She never loved me
She never loved me
She never loved me
Why should anyone?

Fayre:

Come here, come here, come here
I'll take your photo for ya
Come here, come here, come here
Drive you around the corner
Come here, come here, come here
You know you really oughta
Come here, come here, come here
Move out to California

Jace:

Do what I want cause I can't
If I don't because I wanna
Be ignored by the stiff and the bored
Because I'm gonna
Hate to say I told you so, all right
Do believe I told you so
Now it's all out and you knew
Cause I wanted to

Random Characters:

Instrumental

Anton/Inara:

Fell in love with a girl
I fell in love at once and almost completely
She's in love with the world
But sometimes these feelings can be so misleading
Can't think of anything to do
Yeah, my left brain knows that all love is fleeting
She's just looking for something new
Yeah, I said it once before but it bears repeating, now

Random Characters:

Instumental

Davan/Eve:

Last night she said:
"Oh baby, don't you feel so down (feel so down)
When you turn me on (turn me on)
When I feel left out."
So I (what'd you do?)
Well, I turned around (right around)
"Oh, baby, gonna be alright" (be alright)
It was a great big lie (big old lie)
Cause I left that night
Yeah

Random Characters:

Ooh ah ah ah ah
Ooh ah ah ah ah

The Sick Ones (Emmeline, Myca, Brendan, Garvey):

Get up
Come on get down with the sickness
Get up
Come on get down with the sickness
Get up
Come on get down with the sickness
Open up your hate and let it flow into me
Get up
Come on get down with the sickness
Get up
Come on get down with the sickness
Get up
Come on get down with the sickness
Madness is the gift that has been given to me

Random Characters:

Instrumental

Elden (with Performercrew backup):

We're the renegades of funk
We're the renegades of funk
We're the renegades of funk
We're the renegades of funk

Taerin (Lauren, Rae, Irene):

This time I'm gonna let it all come out
This time I'm gonna stand up and shout
I'm a do things my way
It's my way
My way or the highway
This time I'm gonna let it all come out
This time I'm gonna stand up and shout
I'm a do things my way
It's my way
[beep] [beep]
Or the highway

Atsiria (Kerrik, Reeve, Edalene):

But I'm on the outside
I'm looking in
I can see through you
See your true colors
Cause inside you're ugly
Ugly like me
I can see through you
See to the real you

Random Characters Doing Hilariously Strange Things:

Nonsense

Young Ones: (Debby, Dairanne, Oscar, Stephanie, Rae, James):

We are, we are
The youth of the nation
We are, we are
The youth of the nation
We are, we are
The youth of the nation
We are the youth of the nation

Mainplot: (Lawrence, Kail, Celeste, ???)

Hey!
I'm Slim Shady, yes I'm the real Shady
All you other Slim Shadys are just imitating
So won't the real Slim Shady please stand up
Please stand up
Please stand up
I'm Slim Shady, yes I'm the real Shady
All you other Slim Shadys are just imitating
So won't the real Slim Shady please
Please, please stand up

Dynamic Many Character Finish:

Slim Shady won't you please stand up?
(Stand up Shady)
(Stand up. Stand up Shady)
(Stand up. Stand up Shady)
Shady, won't you please stand up?
Hey!