Then I got to college, and things started to change. I started getting much more exposure to animé, through the campus's animé and gaming club. I also got my first real taste of animé music videos. Also, over the summer, my younger brother went to Shoujocon 2002 (making him the first one in our family to go to a convention; one of his friends was on staff) and brought back a VCD of that absolutely brilliant fan parody by NoN.D.E. Films, "This Is Otakudom".
Well, one day, as I was sitting putting off my homework (as is my wont), I got the idea of taking sound bytes from "This Is Otakudom" and putting them to my own special mix of LA Style's early 90s techno hit "James Brown Is Dead" (which I hadn't mixed yet). Thus was born This Is Otakudom: The Song (I'm Not Gay!)... Lukas (voice actor for Andy in "Otakudom") bestowed on me the moniker "DJ PJ", which I still use in connection with the song (which isn't very often at all, to tell the truth).
Shortly thereafter, after my little song had had some time to circulate among my friends (and among the "This Is Otakudom" mailing list), it was once again Inuki42 who pushed me in the right direction by suggesting what I'd already been thinking: that I should make an AMV to the song.
"This Is Otakudom: The Music Video" was completed on 10/10/02, having used the VCD footage and Windows Movie Maker (which was a bad move, because the footage was 352x240, so it came out letterboxed and with hard-to-read titles). At the time, WMM1 was all I had in terms of editing software.
I was reminded that my father had bought a legitimate copy of Adobe Premiere 5.1 a few years ago when it was new, so when winter break rolled around and I had to go home, I made a point of installing it on my computer and experimenting with it. I started a few projects that ended up not going anywhere.
At some point in the spring, a friend pointed me to VirtualDubMod.
I didn't actually complete any more videos until the travesty of a video that was completed 3/31/03, but it was so sad that I'm not even going to say anything more about it. However, the records will show that I joined AnimeMusicVideos.org that same day.
It was also at about this time that I adopted the "Aquiline Studios" name, because for a long time I'd wanted the chance to associate myself with a derivative of the Latin root "aquila" (= "eagle") somehow. I like raptors.
One month later (4/30/03), "The NERV Evening News with Dan Rather" was completed; the next day, it was uploaded to my TCNJ webspace (otherwise known as this site) and entered into the Org's database. I was lucky that I managed to get it finished when I did, for I had managed to finish it in time for the PortConMaine 2003 and Otakon 2003 AMV contest deadlines. I sent it to both as soon as I got the chance.
I think it was after that video that I finally decided to take the time to READFAG (Read Ermac and Absolute Destiny's Friendly A/V Guide), which resulted in my downloading AVISynth... and I kind of wish I had done all that before making "NERV Evening News".
In August, my father surprised me by taking the family (and Cyanna) to Otakon 2003, even though he wasn't an animé fan. It was the first con for all of us (except my brother, but I explained his case already). And somehow, my "NERV Evening News" managed to make the finals in the Comedy category (but then, rather predictably, didn't win anything).
Later that same month (8/22/03 to be exact), "Haruko the Superfreak" was completed... but I didn't upload it right away. First, I rushed to send it to Nan Desu Kan 7, Anime Weekend Atlanta 9, and AnimeNEXT 2003 ("NERV Evening News" was also sent to NDK and AWA). Once I learned that it had been accepted to all three, I decided not to make it available for download until after NDK7 was over.
Cyanna's first video to be released to the public, "Us Against the World", was completed and uploaded to AMVs.org's Golden Donut on 10/13/03; she listed it under Aquiline Studios, and afterwards expressed an interest in officially joining the studio. Well, considering that Aquiline Studios consisted at the time of me, my computer, a handful of DVDs, and my parents' VCR when I needed a VHS copy for a contest submission, and considering that we were good friends IRL already, I had no problem with this.
One month later, Cyanna completed her second video, "These Angel Hearts"... however, her copy of Windows Movie Maker 2 suddenly stopped letting her export DV AVI files. So she was stuck with WMV, and she didn't want to put a WMV on the Donut, in case WMM2 suddenly changed its mind later and decided to let her export DV AVI. So, she uploaded her video to her Angelfire webspace instead, and I linked to it as soon as I could.
On 12/23/03, my fourth (real) video, "Dueling Videos: Under Ice" was finally completed (after a few final tweaks following some beta views by others), after about two months of on-and-off editing, and uploaded to AMVs.org's Golden Donut. A few days later, I sent it to Katsucon 10, and I'm also planning to send it to Anime Boston 2004 and Tekkoshocon 2004.
And that's all the history we've got so far.