Can i call you tonight? - Narut9
Jul. 22nd, 2024 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katranatHey everyone!
This time last year I was deep into my monthly posting of “AMV Roundup” a series I wrote to try and highlight obscure AMVs. For various reasons I’ve decided not to do that again this year, so instead it seems I’m reverting back to posting about individual AMVs as and when I feel strongly enough about them to write something. So that’s what today’s post is - there is an AMV I’ve recently watched and want to share it with the world and gush about it.
I began this whole blogging endeavour a few years ago with an entry focused on a Naruto AMV which had caught my attention; DEEP SPACE - Hatekiri. At the time I wrote the statement: “the anime is one that I have no attachment to”. Oh boy, how that’s changed. Within the past two years I have gained an overabundance of fondness for the ridiculous piece of media that is Naruto. This fondness hasn’t quite led me yet into deliberately seeking out Naruto AMVs, but I do now click on them when they cross my path. I found the following video while going through another editor's AMV playlist collection.
Title - Naruto AMV • Dayglow • Can i call you tonight?
Editor - Narut9
VPR - All (major quick cuts)
Addressing the elephant in the room, I would describe the quality of “Can i call you tonight?” as messy - that’s the best way of putting it really, and I’m sure that anyone who has watched even a handful of other AMVs will be able to identify the reasons why it’s messy, so I’m not going to list them all out (besides I’ve already written a piece about quality in AMVs, I feel I don’t need to go into it again). Personally it’s not something I’m too bothered about, especially considering the anime source - Naruto is a pain in the ass to edit with, I’m willing to give Narut9 a whole lotta grace for whatever clips they have.
“Can i call you tonight?” is also one of the most beautiful and heartfelt things I’ve watched recently.
I’m aware this will be a hard sell, even disregarding the quality niggles which will inevitably turn the majority of people off, the subject matter of the AMV will most likely only interest avid Naruto fans, further filtering out potential viewers. I can say that if I were not currently a Naruto fan I would have never clicked on this video - and I will also say that as someone who loves AMVs in general I’m glad I did click on it as otherwise I would be missing out. Ultimately even if no one else watches “Can i call you tonight?” because of this blog post, I feel I need to write this anyway simply to release all my feelings regarding it.
The editing in “Can i call you tonight?” straddles the line between pure chaos and utter brilliance. Narut9 has a distinctive style (which is objectively more technically refined in some of their older videos - their Yuri on Ice AMV is particularly wonderful to watch) consisting of quick cuts and often jumping back and forth between different scenes.
Almost every iteration of Naruto is represented here: the manga, original series, Shippuden and Boruto all make an appearance, where we are treated to rapid fire shots of interactions between Naruto and Sasuke throughout the generations. Interspersed between these moments are clips from various opening/ending sequences in the anime (I have no idea exactly which) - these clips in particular are the ones which get cut back and forth to the most, parts of them being included throughout almost the entire runtime of the AMV.
These opening/ending sequence clips are used to create an abstract juxtaposition to the ordinary scenes, suiting the dream-like quality of the song, and adding punctuation to the emotions expressed in the interactions between the characters.
The cuts often happen randomly, and not necessarily always synced to anything, however they mostly happen quickly enough that a sense of rhythm is maintained regardless. I feel though that the internal sync and lyric sync are ultimately what drives the video and holds it together - there are so many incredibly powerful blink-and-you’ll-miss-it internal sync moments.
There are also a few moments of audio sync - however it’s not how I typically see audio sync in AMVs. Narut9 has included the audio from some of the anime clips (not very many overall) and the audio from them is not synced to the music, instead they are often used to add additional context and atmosphere.
At 04:00 - 04:02, there is a moment where Narut9 has included the audio of Naruto speaking, and the subtitles present in the clip show him saying “That’s why I’m happy!”. It took me a few watches before I truly understood what Narut9 had done here. At this point in the song, just before Naruto speaks, the song lyrics are “I hear your voice on the phone, now I’m no longer alone”, and Narut9 has made it so that Naruto is interjecting with a response to that lyric. Naruto is stating that now he’s not alone and Sauske’s with him, he’s happy. This blows my mind. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this before, ever. Maybe I’ve seen something similar in comedic AMVs, but those are more often fourth wall breaks. I don’t feel this instance qualifies as a fourth wall break, but it is edited as a character interacting with the song, or rather, they are adding more context to their situation from a prompt in the song? I don’t quite know how best to describe it.
Even ASMV’s, where the style deliberately contains a lot of audio from the anime, don’t ever have this kind of interaction. They often focus on the narrative from the audio and match the music accordingly, as far as I know there’s no awareness of the music content in the audio clips selected.
I guess a similar message could be achieved simply from visual storytelling to get the sentiment across - having the character blatantly say something is wild. Although I’m not saying that visual storytelling would be a better choice, there’s already an excellent amount of this throughout “Can i call you tonight?”, it’s glaringly obvious Naruto wants Sasuke around (the whole video is practically nothing but Naruto pining after Sasuke after all), the audio clip is just the icing on the cake really.
There are further subtle instances of similar interactions. For example at 01:07 - 01:08 the song lyrics are “there’s so much time”, and then immediately after, during 01:09 - 01:11 there’s a clip where Naruto says “At times like these…”. I may have just latched onto the word “time” here, but considering the previous instance in the paragraph above I don’t think it’s a coincidence, I feel Narut9 has deliberately placed it like that.
Then again at 02:59 - 03:01, there’s no audio this time, however the subtitles in the clip on screen begin with “I’m sorry” and the song lyric at that point starts with “we’re sorry”.
I am in awe of Narut9 - they’ve wrangled hard coded subtitles into submission and created a new sync method. They don’t do it all the time when hard subbed clips are present, but it happens enough that it’s a lot of fun and actually makes me more engaged with the hard subs rather than trying to ignore them - it’s like an Easter Egg.
There is a lot more I could potentially say about “Can i call you tonight?”. I have watched it many times in the past month and have been obsessively dissecting it. I’m not sure it would be worth going into minute detail though. Half of me thinks there’s layers upon layers within the video and the other half of me thinks that Narut9 just wanted to make something for these characters and I should stop looking so deeply into it.
Anyway, it’s a lovely video. I will continue to watch it and enjoy it a lot.
This time last year I was deep into my monthly posting of “AMV Roundup” a series I wrote to try and highlight obscure AMVs. For various reasons I’ve decided not to do that again this year, so instead it seems I’m reverting back to posting about individual AMVs as and when I feel strongly enough about them to write something. So that’s what today’s post is - there is an AMV I’ve recently watched and want to share it with the world and gush about it.
I began this whole blogging endeavour a few years ago with an entry focused on a Naruto AMV which had caught my attention; DEEP SPACE - Hatekiri. At the time I wrote the statement: “the anime is one that I have no attachment to”. Oh boy, how that’s changed. Within the past two years I have gained an overabundance of fondness for the ridiculous piece of media that is Naruto. This fondness hasn’t quite led me yet into deliberately seeking out Naruto AMVs, but I do now click on them when they cross my path. I found the following video while going through another editor's AMV playlist collection.
Title - Naruto AMV • Dayglow • Can i call you tonight?
Editor - Narut9
VPR - All (major quick cuts)
Addressing the elephant in the room, I would describe the quality of “Can i call you tonight?” as messy - that’s the best way of putting it really, and I’m sure that anyone who has watched even a handful of other AMVs will be able to identify the reasons why it’s messy, so I’m not going to list them all out (besides I’ve already written a piece about quality in AMVs, I feel I don’t need to go into it again). Personally it’s not something I’m too bothered about, especially considering the anime source - Naruto is a pain in the ass to edit with, I’m willing to give Narut9 a whole lotta grace for whatever clips they have.
“Can i call you tonight?” is also one of the most beautiful and heartfelt things I’ve watched recently.
I’m aware this will be a hard sell, even disregarding the quality niggles which will inevitably turn the majority of people off, the subject matter of the AMV will most likely only interest avid Naruto fans, further filtering out potential viewers. I can say that if I were not currently a Naruto fan I would have never clicked on this video - and I will also say that as someone who loves AMVs in general I’m glad I did click on it as otherwise I would be missing out. Ultimately even if no one else watches “Can i call you tonight?” because of this blog post, I feel I need to write this anyway simply to release all my feelings regarding it.
The editing in “Can i call you tonight?” straddles the line between pure chaos and utter brilliance. Narut9 has a distinctive style (which is objectively more technically refined in some of their older videos - their Yuri on Ice AMV is particularly wonderful to watch) consisting of quick cuts and often jumping back and forth between different scenes.
Almost every iteration of Naruto is represented here: the manga, original series, Shippuden and Boruto all make an appearance, where we are treated to rapid fire shots of interactions between Naruto and Sasuke throughout the generations. Interspersed between these moments are clips from various opening/ending sequences in the anime (I have no idea exactly which) - these clips in particular are the ones which get cut back and forth to the most, parts of them being included throughout almost the entire runtime of the AMV.
These opening/ending sequence clips are used to create an abstract juxtaposition to the ordinary scenes, suiting the dream-like quality of the song, and adding punctuation to the emotions expressed in the interactions between the characters.
The cuts often happen randomly, and not necessarily always synced to anything, however they mostly happen quickly enough that a sense of rhythm is maintained regardless. I feel though that the internal sync and lyric sync are ultimately what drives the video and holds it together - there are so many incredibly powerful blink-and-you’ll-miss-it internal sync moments.
There are also a few moments of audio sync - however it’s not how I typically see audio sync in AMVs. Narut9 has included the audio from some of the anime clips (not very many overall) and the audio from them is not synced to the music, instead they are often used to add additional context and atmosphere.
At 04:00 - 04:02, there is a moment where Narut9 has included the audio of Naruto speaking, and the subtitles present in the clip show him saying “That’s why I’m happy!”. It took me a few watches before I truly understood what Narut9 had done here. At this point in the song, just before Naruto speaks, the song lyrics are “I hear your voice on the phone, now I’m no longer alone”, and Narut9 has made it so that Naruto is interjecting with a response to that lyric. Naruto is stating that now he’s not alone and Sauske’s with him, he’s happy. This blows my mind. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this before, ever. Maybe I’ve seen something similar in comedic AMVs, but those are more often fourth wall breaks. I don’t feel this instance qualifies as a fourth wall break, but it is edited as a character interacting with the song, or rather, they are adding more context to their situation from a prompt in the song? I don’t quite know how best to describe it.
Even ASMV’s, where the style deliberately contains a lot of audio from the anime, don’t ever have this kind of interaction. They often focus on the narrative from the audio and match the music accordingly, as far as I know there’s no awareness of the music content in the audio clips selected.
I guess a similar message could be achieved simply from visual storytelling to get the sentiment across - having the character blatantly say something is wild. Although I’m not saying that visual storytelling would be a better choice, there’s already an excellent amount of this throughout “Can i call you tonight?”, it’s glaringly obvious Naruto wants Sasuke around (the whole video is practically nothing but Naruto pining after Sasuke after all), the audio clip is just the icing on the cake really.
There are further subtle instances of similar interactions. For example at 01:07 - 01:08 the song lyrics are “there’s so much time”, and then immediately after, during 01:09 - 01:11 there’s a clip where Naruto says “At times like these…”. I may have just latched onto the word “time” here, but considering the previous instance in the paragraph above I don’t think it’s a coincidence, I feel Narut9 has deliberately placed it like that.
Then again at 02:59 - 03:01, there’s no audio this time, however the subtitles in the clip on screen begin with “I’m sorry” and the song lyric at that point starts with “we’re sorry”.
I am in awe of Narut9 - they’ve wrangled hard coded subtitles into submission and created a new sync method. They don’t do it all the time when hard subbed clips are present, but it happens enough that it’s a lot of fun and actually makes me more engaged with the hard subs rather than trying to ignore them - it’s like an Easter Egg.
There is a lot more I could potentially say about “Can i call you tonight?”. I have watched it many times in the past month and have been obsessively dissecting it. I’m not sure it would be worth going into minute detail though. Half of me thinks there’s layers upon layers within the video and the other half of me thinks that Narut9 just wanted to make something for these characters and I should stop looking so deeply into it.
Anyway, it’s a lovely video. I will continue to watch it and enjoy it a lot.
