This is my first time making a music video (or making more elaborate video edits in general), it was a time sink but the end result is worth it and I hope you are enjoying it too.
My fondness for Shikanoko’s character model inspired me to do something with it; they are a good blend of anime cuteness and realistic proportions. I decided to focus on Koshitan because she’s my favourite character in the show and Nokotan is already the centre of attention for most other Shikanoko fan content. As for why I am doing Lost Kitten, I simply found the idea funny when I saw the Nijika version of the meme and the notion of doing my own spin on the idea has been in my head for a while.
I deliberately made the aspect ratio 4:3 complete with old VHS effects because Shikanoko feels like a throwback show to me, and my thumbnail design is influenced accordingly. Shikanoko plays with a lot of hackneyed tropes straight with no twists yet it remains a charming (if somewhat flawed) show to me despite being unabashedly old-school; it could easily have been a story written thirty to forty years ago as far as I am concerned. (On the other hand, going on a tangent, I think Shikanoko’s ingenious meme marketing should be studied by people in the industry for years to come.)
While editing this video, I also gained a newfound appreciation for the cleverness of Shikanoko’s animators. Shikanoko is hardly a big budget show where every moment looks stunning, quite the opposite in fact with its generous use of slideshows and other ‘padding’ techniques, yet it never felt obvious to me while watching the show. Its animation limitations only became apparently to me when I had to cram a lot of scenes into this short video forcing me to speed up clips or extract the brief moments when the characters’ faces or poses made a real change. Most of the editing was done on Avidemux, and some tasks Avidemux could not handle were left to FFmpeg.
I do have a rough plot in mind when arranging those scenes. In this video, Koshitan was a violent delinquent who turned over a new leaf after a deer girl sacrificed herself to protect Koshitan. Koshitan gained the dream of being an idol and realised that dream after working hard, she also found love and went on dates along the way. However, as she became more successful she also became more arrogant and when she was about to reach the zenith of her success she was struck down. Her past caught up with her and she ended up where she started.
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This is my first time making a music video (or making more elaborate video edits in general), it was a time sink but the end result is worth it and I hope you are enjoying it too.
My fondness for Shikanoko’s character model inspired me to do something with it; they are a good blend of anime cuteness and realistic proportions. I decided to focus on Koshitan because she’s my favourite character in the show and Nokotan is already the centre of attention for most other Shikanoko fan content. As for why I am doing Lost Kitten, I simply found the idea funny when I saw the Nijika version of the meme and the notion of doing my own spin on the idea has been in my head for a while.
I deliberately made the aspect ratio 4:3 complete with old VHS effects because Shikanoko feels like a throwback show to me, and my thumbnail design is influenced accordingly. Shikanoko plays with a lot of hackneyed tropes straight with no twists yet it remains a charming (if somewhat flawed) show to me despite being unabashedly old-school; it could easily have been a story written thirty to forty years ago as far as I am concerned. (On the other hand, going on a tangent, I think Shikanoko’s ingenious meme marketing should be studied by people in the industry for years to come.)
While editing this video, I also gained a newfound appreciation for the cleverness of Shikanoko’s animators. Shikanoko is hardly a big budget show where every moment looks stunning, quite the opposite in fact with its generous use of slideshows and other ‘padding’ techniques, yet it never felt obvious to me while watching the show. Its animation limitations only became apparently to me when I had to cram a lot of scenes into this short video forcing me to speed up clips or extract the brief moments when the characters’ faces or poses made a real change. Most of the editing was done on Avidemux, and some tasks Avidemux could not handle were left to FFmpeg.
I do have a rough plot in mind when arranging those scenes. In this video, Koshitan was a violent delinquent who turned over a new leaf after a deer girl sacrificed herself to protect Koshitan. Koshitan gained the dream of being an idol and realised that dream after working hard, she also found love and went on dates along the way. However, as she became more successful she also became more arrogant and when she was about to reach the zenith of her success she was struck down. Her past caught up with her and she ended up where she started.