[djpretzel]

OC ReMix Announces Voices of the Lifestream Music Video Contest Results!

For Immediate Release
February 24, 2008
Contact: David W. Lloyd, dlloyd@ocremix.org

FAIRFAX,VA--OverClocked ReMix announced results from its music video competition for Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream (ff7.ocremix.org) today. This was the first official competition held by OC ReMix, with 17 entries in three categories: "FF7", "Anime", and "Original." OC ReMix partnered with Piano Squall (www.pianosquall.com), and eStarland (www.estarland.com), to offer prizes including signed limited edition promotional copies of Voices of the Lifestream, signed copies of Piano Squall's album GAME: Game & Anime Music Emotions, Final Fantasy VII merchandise, and OverClocked ReMix shirts & hoodies.

A complete, streamable listing of all music video entries is available at:

http://ff7.ocremix.org/videos/

Voices of the Lifestream Director Andrew Aversa expressed his enthusiasm at the fan-made music videos this fan-made album has elicited: "The average level of quality and creativity among the videos was really outstanding. I'm glad that the entrants were so inspired by the music of VotL! Congratulations to all entrants on amazing work!"

Winners in each category are as follows:

- Final Fantasy VII Category -

• Winner: "Compiled Memories" by sayde (David Lee)
• Runner-up: "Black-Winged Angel" by slkdragon (Chris Cook)
• Honorable Mention: "Wheels of Lifestream" by Big Paul (Paulo Augusto)

- Anime Category -

• Winner: "Final Moments of Clarity" by Mindeffects (Saša Tarbuk)
• Runner-up: "Sweetest Embrace" by Phantasmagoriat (Chris Studer)

- Original Category -

• Winner: "Stone Eyes" by Zethzen (Ian Cofino)
• Runner-up: "Lunatic Hero" by backseatstuff (Matt Furbush)

Videos are available online at http://ff7.ocremix.org/videos/ and will later be distributed via bittorrent in higher quality. Entrants will be contacted shortly with details regarding prize distribution.

Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation, preservation, and interpretation of video game music. Its primary focus is www.ocremix.org, a website featuring hundreds of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans.

[Sansana]

wow, glad to see the results :D Congratulations to all winners! Now it's time to see those beautiful creations *makes some popcorn*

[Zethzen]

Thanks for posting up the videos, I think the competition went really well, we have some spectacular entries. Congratulations to everyone who won!

I was talking to DJPretzel about the competition and he asked me how I created my video. He thought it'd be a good idea to post the info in here. Here's some back story on the technical/and some of the creative process. So for my video I primarily used the adobe suite of programs. After researching some Native American Art for ideas and Red XIII's markings I started to sketch some things up, working in both Illustrator and Photoshop. I used Adobe Premiere Pro to cut out the clips that I wanted from the fullsize originals. At this point I created a rough storyboard of what I wanted for the project. The final really doesn't look anything like it though, but whatever, the project went through a lot of changes and revisions as I was working.

The most important thing for me was to keep everything in sync with the music, since that was the whole point of the music video. So after that I moved into After Effects and started putting clips together. Once I had what I thought was a cohesive set of clips I started to animate over it with what I was creating in illustrator and photoshop. I kept doing this (jumping back and forth between illustrator/photoshop and after effects) until I reached the end, the whole time going back and revising sections. I hope that gives you some idea of my process for this.

[Dhsu]

Lunatic Hero was totally the best entry. :D

[Mindeffects]

Congrats, everyone! I was totally not satisfied with how mine turned out, but it ended up winning anyway. Looking forward to the prizes.

[suzumebachi]

holy crap awesome. this made my day. srsly. nice work gentlemen.

[bethel1614]

Nice to see the results. Those are some quality videos! Good job you guys, and congrats to those of you who won! I can't wait to get my hands on the HQ torrent to see the rest.

[phantasmagoriat]

Nifty =P
props to everyone!

@ Saša: I haven't watched a good EVA vid like that in a while. You totally deserved to win in 'anime' :thumbsup: The moment I saw it, I knew my quicky vid was beat.

On another note, I've always wanted to submit to ocremix, but I'm not a musician-- I just like to make AMVs, so this was something I simply had to do. Thanks for holding the contest guys :DD

[RyuDeathstrike]

Wow. Congrats to the winners! Those vids were awesome!

[The Pezman]

Totally wish I could have entered. I had an awesome idea for Trigun with Collision. I may do it anyway for the hell of it. But please aim for contests like these to happen during the summer, since school age fans are a large percentage of the community.

But my question is this: where do you get the original high-quality vids to work with? Particularly the Crisis Core cutscenes (since I don't want to be spoiled, I actually held off on watching the winning entry), but also the anime. I know of no reliable program to convert from DVD to mpeg, so if anyone can point me to one that'd be grand.