Mo Dao Zu Shi [ Wangxian ] || AGAIN
My, there's quite a lot to say about this one. I'll start from the beginning!
Firstly, i wanna say that this project is quite a special one to me, which will be explained why, a bit below.
Back in, i believe early October of last year, I had really gotten into listening to Flyleaf, so much so that they became one of my fave bands! This was one of the songs i came across from them that I really grew to like. I no longer remember how i found the song, but the next memory i have is that I could barely listen to the song Without realizing that this fits Wei and Lan so well, and getting extremely vivid visions of a Wangxian edit with this song. The inspiration was absolutely overwhelming, and this was happening during a time when i was still so nervous and unsure about my new year in uni, where i felt like I was losing my touch with creativity - something which is very important to me for self-expression.
The idea of the video goes as such: I envision this song as being Lan singing to Wei, and singing about him. He's singing to him in his most vulnerable moment, when his vessel has become far too weak, and he finds himself reflecting on Wei's past actions, and trying to find it in his heart to explain himself, and comfort Wei in this moment. He never hated him.
The black and white variations were supposed to represent different parts in time, based on their color scheme.
Full color: the past
Half-colored b&w: the present
Full b&w: the imaginary, hopeful and ideal visions
Although with time, during the editing process, this color symbolism faded a bit in favor of adding smooth color transitions and added intensity.
It didn't take long for me to slap down this song into Vegas and absolutely FILL the timeline with markers about my clip ideas - i knew exactly which scenes i wanted to use. Then, worry started to settle in. ''What if the clips don't look the way i hope? what if this is another project I will start and give up on?''.
Nevertheless, i pushed forwards with this project when i had the time. Shuffling the project between two different computers, losing some of my files along the way.
I wanted the clips to match both the lyrics and my ''story''. I believe the more I set clips, the more a very clear idea popped into my head - i wanted to work with voice overs and sound effects! But i didn't just wanna plop some down for the sake of it, i wanted to create an entire atmosphere in this video with the sound effects. I see some editors splendidly use sound effects in their videos and I really commend them for it! I wanted to go all-out with my work, as well. And so, i started looking up tutorials on how to work with sound design ^^ Important to note, however, is that most of the separate sfx aren't mine, i tried to find copyright-free or general sound effects on YT. I did, however, make a couple wind howl sounds from white noise ^^
Adding the clips was a process of adding the scenes i already had in mind; some got swapped out. And for others I had to add something new or work on the clip flow.
To add to being ambitious, i tried to do more masks than usual, experiment with transitions. I wanted to build atmosphere with layering light rays to add an extra glow to water scenes for example, too.
I spent a lot of time trying to get the effects to be just perfect - exactly how i want them to be. Up until the final days that i worked on finishing this, that entire process got so tiring that i barely had the energy to work on this anymore. Detail can naturally come out as i get into the process, which it did. And i finished this out of spite last night at 4 AM, but left small fixes and rendering for today.
Ah yeah. And another aspect that made this video feel special to me is that for a couple months late last year, and early this year, I had felt like i relate to bits of this song, and ''In The Dark'' by Flyleaf in their own ways. It's like this encapsulates my mental state, my reoccurring hyperfixation on Wangxian, and my new creative attempts/mindset all in one video.
I don't mind if to someone else this may sound silly, but making this and finishing it meant a lot to me. While it took me 9 months to finish, in realtime those 9 months where long, excruciating months for me, with some days being so much harder than others. this video being here in the state that it is, is a reminder to myself about some things i found completely hard to believe during these long months: that i haven't lost my creative spark, that i still know how to edit well, that i can finish ideas i start, and that i'm still capable of pursuing my passion - art, design, video editing. Thank you for reading ❤️And thank you all for your continuous support, it means so much to me!
Well then! I really do hope y'all enjoy this one ^^
Stay safe and hydrated, and have a great day/night! ^^
~
Layers:
Total count: 90
Video layers: 56
SFX layers: 34
Time taken: ~9 months (on and off)