Yuri on Ice, "I Promise You" [AMV] (Skaters & their fans)

[melodytree]

Title: I Promise You
Fandom: Yuri on Ice
Song: The Promise by Superfruit
Contains: Possible visual triggers: a couple of white flashes, some very quick cuts back and forth, brightness changes.
Notes: Every skating program is a performance for the judges and the world - and a promise for the fans. Made for Misura for sunflower_auction, which raised money for Ukraine.

Download: Click here (contains soft subs for lyrics)
Embed: (also has subs)

Misc notes:
Misura requested this song be paired with Yuri on Ice - Superfruit's music video features the well-known real-world figure skater Adam Rippon. I was otherwise given pretty free rein, and the first thought that occurred to me was that it would make a good Victor/Yuuri song... but then I thought that it could be interpreted as looking at the dynamic between skaters and their fans. It's not a huge theme of the anime or anything, but it does hover in the background; like real-world skating fans, the YOI ones bring multiple flags and custom signs, hang banners they designed in the arena, and throw flowers and different plushies for different skaters. In return, we get moments like JJ reassuring his devastated fans who are trying to cheer him up while he's probably still in shock himself. I had a lot of fun editing the AMV with that idea in mind and also connecting lots of bits of the skating animation.

Process notes:

• After clipping out the better animation from every single program in the show that I hadn't already clipped (so most of them), I tried to make life easier on myself by picking out some favorite clips and, as I've done in other projects, color-coding them by movement direction. I ended up not using a decent proprtion of those picked clips and had to go search through the separate full clip timeline because I didn't have enough variety.


• In the full clip timeline, I gave each character their own track, plus one for misc. clips. I managed to crash Premiere with 15 tracks full of thumbnails even with my shiny new graphics card - but only once!


• I bit the bullet and finally tried using After Effects purely for the Rotobrush tool. It makes masking SO much easier but is also a bit frustrating to use, and it didn't track shapes very well (for instance, I had to re-select Canadian Flag Guy's pole every single frame). Maybe I need more practice with it - third mask was certainly easier than the first. I also tried using the built-in Premiere captions tool for the lyric subs, but that was also a little frustrating as there aren't enough keyboard shortcuts, so I'll probably go back to my external tool.


• Wasn't sure what to do with those pretty sparkly/water drop sounds at first, but I'm pretty happy with how the brightness effects came out. Alpha overlays are from Videezy.


• My favorite part might be Georgi screaming at "these words just come out". So much drama, Georgi.


• I am sad that I could not get in any of Seung-gil in the rainbow feather duster outfit. I tried, but none of the clips ever quite fit in with the others or they didn't quite match the music.

Comments

[chestnut_pod]

I really enjoyed watching this and reading your notes! The fan-skater relationship is a really fun angle for a vid to take. I was also impressed by how well you matched the skaters' motions to the beat when the chorus came along, like around 2:15.

[allekha]

Thank you! I spent a lot of time trying to edit so the clips matched the beat well, so I'm happy to hear it :)

[cesy]

Lovely!

[allekha]

Thank you!

[lizardjay]

Stunning!!! What a great concept and great execution!!

-I love 0:48-0:56, the lead up to the chorus.... the pacing and the similar shots are so good.
-The wink at 1:33!!
-I am in love with the repetition at 1:38
-Also really enjoying a lot of your effects. The stuttering at 1:52, the little blur effect at 2:22, the tiny zooms you did near the very beginning in the crowd shot... (none of these are there originally, right? It's been so long since I watched YOI). There's probably a bunch more I'm missing, but they add a lot to the video! This is giving me some ideas :D I'm normally not very adventurous with effects.
-GO JJ! His big moment is great.
-The little kick and grin at 3:12 is the cutest thing I've ever seen. That's my favorite part :)
-All the movement matching is so good... I can't believe this is my last comment, bc honestly it's really impressive, but of course when it's done well you don't notice!

I'm really intrigued by this rotobrush tool and I might investigate something similar in the future.... for now I'm fine with masking myself but I'm considering doing another masking-heavy video soon and the tracing might get out of hand. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on it once you've used it more!

[allekha]

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback :)

The focus blur at 2:22 is original to the show, but the others were added by me, yeah. A lot of the effects in this one are ones that aren't very flashy or visible but help the shots flow (coloring, emphasizing shaking and blur in the first shot around 1:00 and adding it to the start of the second, things like that).

I learned about the rotobrush tool from this tutorial by someone who does Disney etc videos with lots of masking... definitely something I need to play around with more to better understand how to make it work. I might try combining it with a bit of hand masking where it seems to have more trouble, like acute angles where things go out of frame.

[misura]

This was absolutely amazing: I've watched this vid three times now and it still puts a grin on my face every time with how great it is. I love the theme you picked, and the way this video explores it and highlights some-slash-a-whole-lot of the moments canon touches on it, but also the way you patched together a ton of different routines and merged them together. Just ... so many skaters! <3

Georgi's dramatic moment was really fun, but I also loved seeing Yuri in his moment of growly anger and Chris in flirting mode (so, basically, Chris on the ice) and both the different and similar ways the various skaters interact with and draw strength from their audience.

Thank you so much for this! <3

[allekha]

Glad to hear you enjoyed it! <3 It was a good song to edit with, and I had a lot of fun putting together all the sequences of skating bits.

(And Yuri's angry face was another favorite moment, it made me laugh while I was masking a few frames of it.)

[caramarie]

This is really lovely! Very nicely edited, and it makes me feel warm inside ♥

[allekha]

Aw, thank you!