Esoterra

Video: Bakemonogatari, Kizumonogatari, Wolf's Rain, Haibanei Renmei (Charcoal Feathers Federation), Vision of Escaflowne, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Steins;Gate, Castlevania, Made In Abyss, Princess Mononoke, Grave of the Fireflies, Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Part 3: Rebellion, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Part 1: Beginnings, Patema Inverted, Demon Slayer, Big Fish & Begonia, Origin: Spirits of the Past, KARAS, Children of the Sea, Btooom!, Dorohedoro, Psycho Pass, Shinmai Maou no Testament, Flip Flappers, Dragon Dentist, Girl That Leapt Through Time, Golden Kamuy, Jyu Oh Sei Planet of Beast King, Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Part 2: Eternal, Nisemonogatari, Mushi-Shi, Princess Kaguya, The Perfect Insider, Your Name, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
Audio: Aurora – Apple Tree
Premiere Date: 2020
Status: Downloadable, Streamable
Genre(s): Other, Artistic
Cons/Awards:
Anime Weekend Atlanta 2020 PRO contest finalist for Artistic and Best Video
A-M-V.Org 2021 VCAs: won Best artistic
Agamacon 2021: won Best Artistic Endeavor
Outside Links: .org, AMVnews
Categories: Music videos, Featured videos, Award Winning

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I got weirdly defensive about my editing abilities in 2019 so decided to make something specifically to show that I could, in fact, make a really good edit. /shrug

Started: october 2019 during AWA PRO 2019
Finished: 12 August 2020
Spent countless hours on it during that time.
Started keeping actual track of hours in Jan 2020.
So total project time below is heavily UNDERstated.

Time spent:
94hr 3min 10s total. (again- understated. I normally just round up to 100 lol)
72hrs 38min 10sec for Premiere CS6.
18hr 42min for after effects CS6.
2hr 43min VLC (looping betas lmao).

Finalist in AWA PRO 2020: Best artistic, best video. No Awards won.

Many thanks to all my beta testers, for the editors on discord who actually tried to explain what flow was in esoteric ways so I could maybe understand it, and their help with footage procurement (searching for certain scene compositions in anime I didn’t know). Special shoutouts to TheLazyDaze for continuous hype and feedback, SeasonsAMV who showed me The Perfect Insider, which finished a big blank spot I was struggling with, and Niotex and Dr. Derpface who convinced me to just make my own butterflies in After Effects (Previously I had tried to mask them out of a Demon Slayer scene. It was awful).

This upload has some fixes from the file that was released with the PRO entries.

Breakdown of the baby scene: (released 26 dec 2020)

My PC nearly died while I tried to make this, and it didn’t even render correctly in the end. I’m sorry for the glitchiness, but due to the difficulty this is likely the only thing like this I will do for Esoterra.
[The gold mandala & meat pieces scenes show up later than they should, making accurate comparison pretty difficult. The other overlays seem mostly in sync. I apologize.]

This is all the overlays involved for just the one part of the baby scene. The baby scene is not even the most complicated scene in the full AMV, but it is the one that is most obviously different and the one that seems to get most the positive remarks.

Hope this is interesting to someone.

Breakdown of the whole thing: (released 6 Jan 2021)

Finally a breakdown that I’m semi-okay with.
It’s not as detailed as I wanted, but I think it gets enough of the message across. It’s still a bit buggy in some areas (2 different video files stitched together to get all the video tracks on screen) but it’s in sync.

This timeline is actually pretty organized. Any video that’s on it is actively being used in conjunction with an opacity/layer blending mode, masks, or keying. (But 80% of the time it’s a blending mode). Any nested sequences that seem to have the same clips repeated continually are due to the same reasons.

On this timeline, Green is nested, Pink is an AE project. I didn’t do pop-ups for every nested sequence or AE project because most of them weren’t anything complicated. The others were either complicated or I just wanted to show off for whatever reason. Especially the butterfly segment. I hand-made and animated the butterfly swarm.
All frames are shown on the tracks for informational purposes; I don’t edit like that.

Anyway, this was submitted and made finals in AWA PRO 2020, but didn’t win anything (My other video, “Dysphoria,” did win best tech in the same contest though).
Esoterra was the most complicated and tech-heavy video I’ve made. Also clocking in at the longest time I’ve ever spent on a project, nearly 100 hours.

Feel free to ask any questions!

The b folder houses all the betas.