Bionicle G1 Tribute: Falling (Cryoshell)

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One of my video tributes for Bionicle. None of the properties in this video, visual or auditory, belong to me--Bionicle and the videos are made by Advance for Lego, and the music is created by Cryoshell/other bands. Shout-out to the most excellent sites of the Biomedia Project and Biosector01, as well as certain biotubers for their archiving all the material I was able to use.

It's been nearly ten years since Bionicle ended, and about a decade since music was ever released for Bionicle, and while we are still hotly anticipating the promised second album, perhaps this will help satiate some of the nostalgia buds in the mean time. So far, I've made ten videos themed around each of the ten years of Bionicle, as well as one overall video dedicated to the whole of it. The challenge is to take Bionicle CGI (minus the movies, including those would provide their own complications that I don't want to address at the moment) and string them together to songs that aptly fit their year. Most of the time, these are the ones that coorespond to the year they promoted, but sometimes I take a few liberties--I think to much success. Personally, I'm surprised no one has done this already. This has been something I've been meaning to do for years, and now that I have the training to make it happen, I've been thrilled with the results. I hope to do a two more for Hero Factory (Come to My Heaven and Breakout) and probably one for G2 (and G3?), but I'll tackle those down the road.

G1--Falling. How does one summarize Bionicle? To cut the whole of the legend, the emotion and the legacy, down to four seconds. I'm not the best to do it, least of all by video, but I'll certainly try.

Honestly, all the best fan music videos that encapsulate Bionicle do so with the song Falling, and I admire their choice. Falling has for some time been my favorite song, and it, in my opinion, most perfectly captures the emotion of Bionicle in ways words cannot. I honestly felt the most pressure making this video, far above the others, because it had to be a good enough video to represent this, my favorite song, as well as a good enough video to represent the whole of Bionicle. To stand out from the others who have made Falling videos (as well as most who make music videos for all of Bionicle), I generally kept the clips in chronological order, save for the stuff in the beginning. Some of the elements used in the first minute or so (as well as the flashing near the end) were ideas borrowed from others who have made their own Falling videos (not ripped outright, I was sure to recreate them myself). I could not see myself recreating those moments better than guys like Jac, Vrahno, or the others--all of whom I referenced quite a bit when creating this and drew much inspiration from. The video may not be perfect, but you can be certain I tried to take all the best from the other guys, mix it with what I could bring to the table, and create a video that would epitomize the best version of that song, or at least my personal favorite. Whether I accomplished all of my goals or not is up to you, but, aside from the rushed 2009-10 and conclusion, I think I quite lived up to the high standards I had set.
The bulk of the video is arranged chronologically, when it isn't moving according to the song. I was tempted to make another version where all the clips highlighted the lyrics, but that would be a lot of trouble, rather chaotic, others have done that before, and I'm happy enough with what I already have. This is certainly my most fast-paced, sharply edited video in this series (so far, at least), and while I'm not usually very good when it comes to sharp editing (most of the prior videos involve far slower cutting partly because I'm lazy and partly because I'm rarely satisfied when I try--the sharp edits there tend come from the videos themselves) I think this was the best I've done when it comes to this speed. I think that was important in adding to the vertigo and sense of weightlessness.

Many of the clips selected were chosen for their tropes and themes. Characters falling Kini-Nui, canisters and domes opening and closing, Ignition villain weapons, the Hau, and others that were shown over the long run of Bionicle are all present in as much capacity as I could pack them in while keeping the video coherent and easy to follow.

Overall, this was such a thrilling video to compile, and on top of everything it does, I think it well represents all that I've learned over the course of these videos. I was waiting this entire project to make this video, and I am thrilled by the results.