Remastering an Anime Music Video

At Anime Expo 2000, I premiered one of my favorite AMVs, "This is the Life!" The video primarily featured footage from Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro to Weird Al Yankovic's song "This is the Life", it also had scenes from other Lupin III anime features; Mystery of Mamo and Plot of the Fuma Clan. The video received a warm reception at AX 2000. The only other convention it appeared at was Otakon in the same year.

This video was completed just before I got my Macintosh G4 and began to work in DV using Firewire. This is the Life was created on my PC using a Miro DC20 and Ulead Studio. I had DVDs for both Castle of Cagliostro and Mystery of Mamo, however I lacked the know-how as to Ripping the video from the DVD. Instead I had to use low quality VHS as well as the LD from the old Cliff Hanger game for source footage.

Speaking of the game Cliff Hanger; as you can tell from these screen shots, the opening title of my video is a spoof of the game attract mode.

The quality of the footage I was able to work with (VHS and poorly transferred LD) was rather poor. Once I started creating videos on my Mac, I wanted to re-master This is the Life! But my time was dominated by new video projects. With AWA and the DDR 3rd Mix project completed, I finally had the time to look at This is the Life! again.

The first thing I noticed is the extreme difference in quality from the footage in the video (left hand screen shot) and the new footage I was sampling from a copy of the Castle of Cagliostro LD my friend Paul loaned to me. (right)

Even at the reduced resolution for these screen shots, you can see the difference in video quality. I don't know anyone with Mystery of Mamo on Laserdisc, but I was able to rip footage from the DVD. Here is another example of the difference in video quality between the original AMV (left) and that ripped from DVD. (right)

Unfortunatly, the footage from Plot of the Fuma Clan is harder to come by. Originally, I planned to sample the video from the AnimEigo VHS release, but while I was working on the project, I couldn't find the tape and had to use a second or third generation VHS copy. (left) I don't have a DVD or LD as source footage for the Plot of the Fuma Clan scenes. So I copied the VHS tape onto MiniDV tape and then sampled the footage through the Firewire port on my Mac. While not perfect, the new footage is still a dramatic improvement. (right)

In order to maintain a consistant look throughout the video, I had to black out the top and bottom of the full screen footage from Plot of the Fuma Clan. In the first version of the video, I kept the bar to a minimum, but in the remaster, I matched the bars to the size of the rest of the footage, it got rid of some distracting flicker between cuts.

With the new source footage now in place, I began to look at some of the spots where I felt the video was weak due to either timing, or scene selection. During the initial creation process, I ran into some spots where I selected scenes more to fill a gap than made a real contribution to the video. In the fast cut sequence of the clock from Castle of Cagliostro, I think the clip of Lupin trapped on the gear went on to long. Instead of ending the sequence differently, I put a clip of Lupin slipping off the gears in first. I like the way the clip carries the energy of the sequence without changing the way I ended it.

The funny thing about this particular still is that if you look closely, Lupin has 3 legs.

A few other things I "tuned" up in the Re-Master:
Lupin's, Zeningata's and Mamo's lip-syncing, I took what I learned from Jinnai and the Bugrom Live! and applied it to the brief lip-sync scenes in this video.
Transition between the opening montage of chase scenes and Jigan and Lupin fighting over dinner, originally this was just a fade, I added a zoom effect to try and give a sense that the smoke was clearing to reveal the next scene.

I hope to enter this video in a few contests and put a version up on the web for download very soon. I welcome feedback on my work.

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