June 19, 2005: Holy crap! I'm now an award winning video editor! Thanks to everyone who helped me out and put up with me with all my earlier videos as well as those that supported me on this one. :)
Well, I've finally put together a home page for all my music videos, although unless I get a new server without space / bandwidth worries, I doubt I'll put them all online here. I will provide links to the videos on AnimeMusicVideos.org, however, for your convenience.
Also, please forgive some of the boring content up front here -- as I get more videos that require more space to describe, I'll better organize things. ^_^
What is Teal Studios you ask? Who is Teal for that matter? Well, we should probably go back to when I first started making music videos back in 2000 (yes, I've had a hiatus of sorts since then). I've been a fan of anime music videos for a while, although I didn't know how many producers there were and how popular they were in general. Then I came across William Milberry's Aluminum Studios website and his excellent videos. I dunno what it was about these videos in particular that drew me in, but they inspired me to make my own videos. Specifically, his Blue Mercury and Venus in a Bottle videos really got me hooked (especially Venus in a Bottle, but more on that later). When I made my first video, Alex vs Ghaleon: Duel of the Fates, I wanted to come up with a snappy name and intro of my own for my "studio." Taking a page from the guy that inspired me, I created the name Teal Studios, naming the outfit after a character of mine that I sometimes joke runs my business affairs, etc.
As for as this "Teal" character, well, I created her years ago in a fanfic that takes place in the universe of the Lunar series of RPGs. She's a blue dragon who can take human form, and actually prefers being in human form most of the time. She's a huge flirt and party girl (as her depiction in the logo demonstrates), but she's also very serious when needed. She's also a fan of cheesy pop / dance music (her favorite song is "Boom Boom Boom Boom" by the Vengaboys, for example). I've used her in a lot of other stories other than the initial fanfic, and as such she's probably become my most beloved and most popular character among my gaming circles.
Here are all the videos I've done in order from newest to oldest. Download links will be provided where possible.
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Hammer of Justice! Creation Date: May 16, 2005 Footage: Shin Getter Robo (AKA Getter Robo Armageddon) and Mazinkaiser Music: Japan Break Industries - Eurobeat Mix (English version) Original Song by: Nihon Break Kougyou (lit. Japan Break Industries) English words by: 641 Song by: 784 Arrangement by: 744 Cons Entered: AnimeNext 2005 - Winner: Best Action Video Download XviD locally now! Download XviD now from AnimeMusicVideos.org! This is a video I had been planning on making for well over a year, and now I've finally completed it. It was well worth it too -- it was my first video to ever win at a con! At the dawn of the 21st century, a small Japanese demolition company by the name of Nihon Break Kougyou (Japan Break Industries) tried to come up with an edge to compete in a very difficult arena. They decided to release their corporate theme song to the general public, and lo and behold, it became a top ten hit in Japan! This scheme paid off, and they soon became very successful and able to afford the latest and greatest in demolition equipment: giant robots. However, the demolition field is very competitive, and their rivals soon decided to also acquire giant robots. Can NBK survive this massive onslaught!? Watch this video and find out! |
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That Dirty Water Creation Date: February 25, 2005 Footage: Princess Nine Music: The Standells, Dirty Water Cons Entered: Anime Boston 2005 Download XviD now from AnimeMusicVideos.org! This was my tribute to the 2004 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox. Yes, it might be a form of blatant fan whoring, but I did have fun making it. Not only did it include Dirty Water, but also some audio clips from a few of the games as well. |
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Creation Date: April 19,
2004 Well, I've gone back to my roots with this one -- not only making a video game AMV, but making one based on a Lunar game, no less. The reasons for making this are simple. First, I've never made an Eternal Blue video before. Second, well, I feel that my older Lunar videos are pretty weak (understandably so, since I was just a beginner at the time). While I'm certainly not an elite video editor yet, I do think I'm much better now than when I first made videos. Given how much I love the Lunar games, I figured it's time I gave them better treatment than I have in the past, hence this video. This video was my first real shot at doing precise lip sync as well as my first attempt at dabbling with fancy transitions (I'm always worried about overdoing them, so I tended to avoid them in the past. No, I am not too stupid to figure out how to use them. :P ). |
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Creation Date: January
2004 Well, this was the first video I entered at any cons, and surprisingly it has been my most successful (I felt that my later two videos were actually artistically superior and less "offensive"). I first targeted Anime Boston, my local con, and based on the good crowd reaction it got there, I decided to enter it at a few other cons. Now the story behind this video. Well, indirectly you can thank Aluminum Studios for this one. Basically, I got the idea after watching William Millbury's excellent Venus in a Bottle video, which was set to Cristina Aguleira's Genie in a Bottle. My twisted little mind decided that if Cristina could have an anime music video, than Britney deserved one too. Now the only Britney song I knew at the time was Hit Me Baby One More Time, so I started with that and thought about what anime works with it. After not much thought, I realized the line, "Give me a sign!" means one title would be perfect for this video: Neon Genesis Evangelion. Besides, Asuka kinda resembles Britney a little, and there seems to be an unwritten rule that every anime music video producer has to make at least one Eva video. ^_^ You could also say this video was years in the making -- I first came up with the idea back in 2000, before I even made Duel of the Fates. However, I didn't have the Eva DVDs (I don't think they were even out back then) to make the video with, and the tapes I had were fansubs. It wasn't until a few months ago that I finally sat down and started working on it after getting the DVDs. While putting this thing together and choosing the right clips for the disturbing / humorous mood I wanted this video to have was fun, listening to Britney Spears over and over and over wasn't. |
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Independence Day: Do You Remember Love? Creation Date: Jan. 2003 "What's this? It's not an anime music video!" you're probably saying to yourself. Well, this is what I call a "reverse anime music video" -- taking an American film and using anime music in it. Of course, since there is no anime footage, I can't put it up on AnimeMusicVideos.org, but I figured I should add it to my list of videos. If you really want to download it, mail me and we'll see if we can work out a file sharing arrangement or something to get it to you. So, why did I make this video? Well, I don't know about you, but when I saw the final battle scene kick off in ID4, I had one thing running through my mind: Macross Missile Attack! The missile smoke trails flying towards huge alien vehicles did remind me of similar scenes in Macross:DYRL, and I decided that one day, when I had the time and equipment, I would cut the last battle and dub over it with Minmei's infamous love song from the movie. The other thing about this video was that a lot of it was experimentation. It was the first video I made using ripped DVD footage, so I had to learn how to use the tools to do that. Also, it is the first video I made after my old Athlon died and after I switched platforms from Windows to Mac, so I had to learn how to use the different tools on the Mac platform. As such, this video isn't exactly a work of art, but you may still find it amusing. |
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Creation Date: 2000 This is the last video I created before I my trusty Athlon 600 died and had to be replaced, and it took me a few years until I got back into the habit. This could've been my favorite video, except in retrospect I noticed a few problems. First, there are a few single-frame glitches and bad cuts (which, since again I deleted my source, would require me to recapture everything to fix) in it. Second, it's boy band music (though my choice for that will be explained in a bit). Third, the intro is way, way, way too long on this -- I should've known better and now I do. Sadly, it takes 45 seconds until the video starts. Now, if I put a fancy intro on anything, I'm limiting it to about 10 seconds (and only 2 or 3 if I just have my logo). There was just way too much text, and I really should've put it at the end. Oh well. Still, it's a pretty neat video, although a bit repetitive (there's only so much footage you can eek out of 1 hour of cut-scenes). Then again, the lyrics are repetitive, so it works out thematically at least. Now why boy band music? Well, it turns out that one of the members of O-Town, Ashley Angel, was the English voice actor for the character of Alex in both Lunar: The Silver Star and Lunar: Silver Star Story, so it seemed fitting to use one of his songs in a video featuring the character he once played. That also explains the dedication in the video. |
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Creation Date: 2000 Cruel Xenogears' Thesis was my second video, and up until now probably my best. All for Love has a couple glitches in it that, well, I don't like, but I didn't catch until I stupidly deleted much of my source material and only kept the MPEG version. I was a newbie back then and stupid (you'll find that this is a recurring theme). Fortunately, I almost never get rid of my old video games, so I can always rerip the video and remaster this if I get the time and desire. The inspiration for this video came from ToastyFrog (ToastyFrog.com), who did a line-item comparison of Evangelion and Xenogears on his page. Well, after digging through some cut scenes and adding a few graphic touches, it turns out that you can do the entire opening credits of Evangelion using Xenogears footage. Don't believe me? Download the video and check it out, but don't say I didn't warn you. |
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Alex vs. Ghaleon: Duel of the Fates Creation Date: 2000 This is my first ever video, and well, I guess the quality shows. At the time I made this video, I didn't have any video capture equipment yet nor did I have much in the way of anime DVDs to rip from for footage (I don't think anybody was doing much DVD ripping at that time anyway). I did this video on a self-built Athlon 600 (one of the first Athlons released) running Win98, and, well, Win98 isn't exactly designed with stable video editing in mind. Anyway, because of the lack of video capture equipment at the time, my source materials for any video were limited. Fortunately, I had recently discovered a bunch of tools for ripping videos from PlayStation games, so I used that as a start. When choosing what to make a video of, I chose my favorite video game series of all time, the Lunar games, and combined it with the music scoring of John Williams. Say what you will about Episode 1's plot and characters, but in my opinion Williams never disappoints with music. This video, along with the other videos I made from PlayStation rips, show a lot of newbie signs. One thing is that it might appear pixelly -- probably a result of my inexperience with ripping video and what the best codecs to store them in are. There are also undoubtedly plenty of other rookie mistakes in this, but hey, I was just starting out. ^_^ |
Just a few links here related to anime video production, cons, etc.
AnimeMusicVideos.org : The premier resource on the net for anything having to do with anime music videos.
AluminumStudios: The home page of one of my favorite creators, and the guy who someone inspired me to create my own videos. He's really good -- check him out if you haven't already.
Anime Boston: This is my home-town con. Only in its second year, they literally sold out on the second night of three last year.
Otakon: This is one of the biggest and most famous anime cons anywhere on Earth. It's so big that Konami named one of the characters in the Metal Gear Solid series after it!
VideoLan: VideoLan's player software, VLC, is one of the most useful media players around. It plays nearly everything, and all my videos are tested against it.
Other than email, you can also often find me lurking on LunarNet IRC (irc.lunarnet.org port 6667). I'm DMLou on there and usually lurk in the #Arcadia channel with a few friends, both online and real life. You can also reach me by AIM under the screen name DMLou1. Just please don't be offended if I don't answer you right away as I'm often quite busy while running AIM in the background.
Anyway, thanks for stopping by, and enjoy the videos! -- Dragonmaster Lou
Page and videos by Dragonmaster Lou Arruda. Last updated May 17, 2005.