-
AWA Journal Part 3: Sunday
2002-10-05 23:40:10
Suck... I go to sleep late (my own damn fault, but hey, Saturday was so much fun), so I wake up late. Get ready late, go to tech panel late. No matter, ten people in the audience :P It was a great panel, too! You guys absolutely know you're stuff. My jaw was on the floor with all the stuff I had no experience in. Not like that's saying much, all I've used it Nate's stuff and my PC. Me do AMVs ghetto style. Anyway I did kind of have to rush after that panel. I was sure my flight was at 4:00, so I regretfully left, missing Nate and Mike's panel.
So I sit outside, talk to Turboneko for a few and head to the airport... halfway inside, I realize my flight was 4:45... GOD DAMMIT! GOD FUCK IT! FUCKING FUCKING FUCK FUCK! Oh well... nothing better to do now except crash Nate's panel. Hehe. If you weren't there, here's how it went:
I call, Nate picks up (that was luck). I say, "Hi, I'm crashing your panel." and he proceeds to tell the audience who I am (which really wasn't necessary but hey, he called me a brilliant graphic designer... oh I was quite happy to hear that from him. Well, ok, to hear that from ANYONE), and I told him my predicament of me being an idiot, which he also told the crowd :P. He tried to put me on the mic, but cell phone speakers don't pick up at all, so that was basically it.
Now for some reason I immediately got paranoid that I pissed Nate off for interrupting. Apparently that was not the case. Talked to Mike when I got home, all is well.
Anyway, I get on the plane, lose my left ear's hearing, get a cold. I hate planes. Last time I fly to AWA (and travel the thirteen hours in a car? Ok, I'll have to think this over some more...).
So here I am, back in NY, and for the first time reality doesn't SUCK as much this time. Post-Otakon was HARSH! This was easy. My teachers were more than happy to hear about the happenings at AWA so they're more than happy to see me develop any future AMVs. One of my teachers suggested I use real source and put music in it so I can enter it in design competitions. I would, but I hate directing. I hate it with a passion... well, we'll see what comes up. Worse comes to worse, I MAKE something in Illustrator and use that instead :P Vector graphics here I come!
Ok this post has basically run out of steam, but whatever. AWA was awesome. I left out so much of the good stuff, but mostly to protect the names of the guilty (heh) and because my memory is terrible. Who am I? What am I typing?
-
AWA Journal Part 2: Saturday
2002-10-04 12:21:22
Yeah I woke up at some point that day and walked into MTT's panel. Dude, home movies. ROCK! Also showed Derek Lieu's attempt at musical typography. Very cool. Outside they showed the DDR project so I was looking at it... and my god, the quality on that video is just outstanding. My cleaned-up divx of Daicon and Mahoro actually looked cleaned-up. So, Turboneko popped by, Meri and Mike looked on, Nic, Vlad, Nicole, whole bunch of us just staring at this screen... good times. :P
Anyway Bill and I headed down to the dealer room and just shopped like crazy otaku, him getting something for his girl (aww...). Clamp's R.G. Veda's the way to go, man. Even if it had been stolen later, but I'll get to that. Left that, went to the art room, cool stuff in there, left that, went to... *think think* I think we headed to the awards after that, with Nate, Andy (screenwriter Andy), Mike and others not there... panic. So I get to the elevator, door opens, and there's Nate right in front of me. We end up taking the stairs and get to the video room without missing anything.
So, the contest. Expo vids were great, TomServo3K did a good thing and entered in ANY video of his. Seriously, this guy's stuff is absolutely hilarious, and yet he doesn't publicize it at all, doesn't send to cons... amazing. Check out more of TS3K Production's stuff. Highly recommended. Congrats, I say, to the winners. BaHaRa, nice job on Scatman! No idea that was you guys! I remember watching Blackbird somewhere else, too, probably because I was in a Beatles mood and downloaded that video offhand, but yes, also something I enjoyed watching again, even if the lights in the room made it too dark. I want to see some of the ones not shown for time. I got shafted like that at Master's last year, so hey, a little support for the shaft, folks! (Heh...)
So, Pro awards. Thank god we didn't sweep. So many great videos got wins it doesn't matter Nate and I got Best Video. Seriously, every video there had such great work on them. Ian's KareKano/Eva video took the breath out of my lungs, Christina's (Turboneko) Berserk video was just another beautiful piece, and seriously, if you loved that, go get her "Snow" video when it gets re-edited. That was a diamond in the rough, but is promised to be cleaned up. I'm sure you'll like it. Heh, Justin congratulated us before heading to the DDR tournament. He's so awesome, folks, lay off him.
Master's was a good watch, but of course we all loved SushiBoyJared's Totoro video. Hence it's Con Fan Fav. The guy looked great in person, too. Loved the goggles.
Award ceremony cool, Iron Chef even better. Got to talk to Will Mill a lot about technique, projects, ideas and such. Suggested progs to him, got suggestions back... I have to email him for the Aki Sin videos. Such great work... Justin came back, and he won! Congrats man! I seriously was drooling over that box set of KOR. Got any video plans with that? Hehe... I should email him too. Damn, I should email a bunch of people. The lack of internet is REALLY hard on me, though. So, if you're reading this, write me!! I can reply, I just can't start emailing people as much as I want because of my lack of solid connection.
Anyway, Iron Chef... yeah, the idea that the event was sponsored is a wonderful thing. Also cool Hsien won. Can't wait to see him and Ian duke it out next year.
Alright, so that ended, and basically the rest of the night was just a mess of standing outside smoking, staying inside partying in Jason's room, handing out CDs, going to Waffle House, going to the dance party, a whole slew of things. So much to do, so little clothes.
Which brings me to titty-bitch. AWA GONE WILD! Got good pictures out of that, nice one Mike. Those guys were being annoyingly loud, though. Whatever. I got to meet that english voice actress for Hyatt, Monika Rial. She was so much fun to talk to. It was her third anime con so she's talking all about how she's getting used to things and how some male voice actors have "A Hard Day's Night" happening to them. Freaky. Oh yeah, dude, I'm one of her bitches now! Sweet... I humiliatingly handed her a CD of NOP's too. I hate this CD thing. Well, no, the CDs are a great idea, it's the distribution I hate. If someone doesn't specifically ask me for a CD (like mexicanjunior... dude you're awesome) then I feel totally stupid whoring them out to people who probably don't want them. I ended up doing that anyway. I still loathe it. We should just make order forms on our website and do a delivery service at cons... that sounds better. No it doesn't. I'll shut up now.
Anyway, lots of punch, running around... fun. I'm ending this post now. Tomorrow's Sunday. Well no, it's Friday so today is Saturday... oh whatever. Later! -
AWA Journal Part 1: Friday
2002-10-01 04:36:31
Friday was a late start, well, in my terms anyway. I walked into Will and Tim's panel, however, just as the second half of an Aki Sin AMV was playing. For those who don't know, Aki Sin is what I wanna be when I grow up. He Uses particles, still footage, a blurred, airbrushed look, and absolutely beautiful music. His Kanon AMV to .59 is absolutely stunning. I need to ask Will for those video. They are exactly where I want to head into. In Search of Dokinum was hysterical, as was a lot of that panel. I had to leave early, however, since I was, in fact, looking for people.
I think I bumped into MeriC and VegettoEX somewhere there. They had great stuff for this con! Funny tales of CD burning, too. Also checked out Dealer Room and found Turboneko Studios again. Hadn't seen em since Shoujocon, and thankfully they remembered me ^_^; (not like I was worried about that, but, kinda). Anyway, we all ate lunch together (god damn shuttle does not come fast enough), then sat in on expo videos. Had to leave early to drop stuff off and met the Mindwarp crew while coming back. Those guys are awesome. Idiot moment of the day: constantly prodding MJ, calling him Carlos repeatedly while he's telling me Carlos is behind him. Man that was stupid. Thankfully MJ didn't mind (or remember) and we'd be chatting away at random moments throughout the con. Met with Nate and walked into Pro. Somewhere in there he got drunk, and by the time DDR started, he was flailing around like a paper doll in a hurricane, which, technically, he was.
DDR 2nd Mix was hands down the most fun I've had dancing in my idiot "I'm special. Durrr..." trademark style. You'll get to see lots of that in the documentary, I'm sure. The best was the mosh pit on Nate's track, however. "Stomp to My Beat" was more fucked up than I had realized, and my backgrounds were treated with the utmost of care. Actually, no, they were screwed to hell. All the better for the piece. I was barely able to watch most of it since the mosh pit was just too much fun. I got a face full of RYS at one point, too. Just absolute fun. Was on the wrong side of the VAT, too! HA! Nate basically was dead after that, I think they dragged him away at some point. I resolved to dancing. MeriC & VegettoEX are geniuses. Smoke kicked so much ass. Turboneko kicked out an amazing "Let's Get Down." Finally, the moment I anticipated, my DDR video came up. Beautiful video quality. I love DV... The dance break got a great reaction, the fact people actually danced to it amazed me to no end.
I was such a sweaty man afterwards, so what better time to interview me for DDR, eh? I thankfully was not too much of a mess. Random events happened, then came more fun. Will Milberry, Nicole Barrs, Tim Park and I were all chatting and decided to sit. We found a nice panel-looking table and sat at it. I had CDs to whore out so I put em out on display for people to take. People actually stopped, looked, and asked me "How much?" I'm sure half the people didn't know who NightOwl Pictures was. Then again, who cared at that moment? Anyway soon we were joined by Nic Neidenbach (Hubba Hubba Zoot Zoot is my god), Senta Miller (awesome Angelic Layer vid, man), Ian, Justin, Vlad, the Mindwarp crew, my hotel room crew, your crew, his crew, your mother and my aunt Sophie. Everybody was there and more came every five minutes. We had Hsien and his puke, Mindwarp and pictures for a trailer, talking to MJ, talking to Justin (hehe, he told me my steps in the dance break were wrong. I didn't argue, he'd later win the DDR Tournament), talk talk talk. Nate in a toga (didn't remember that part), Hsien and puke. Joe, jescaflowne and other fun things that night. It all ended as I walked off to the room as Tim and I explained to Justin what happened with Nate at Otakon (the infamous lighter story). Such a great story. Musta been a fun night for Nate.
Oh yeah, of course, my awesome friend Bill from Jersey! (gabriel32###, forgot the ###) He was such fun to hang out with. Love the guy. Hope he goes to AUSA.
Ok, tomorrow: Saturday. Awards, tits, and alcohol. Don't wanna miss it. -
AWA Journal prologue: Thursday.
2002-10-01 03:49:11
Tropical Storm... boo... delayed my flight an hour and a half late, but no biggie, I still made it to Atlanta early enough. Around 7PM, I think. On the plane I was listening to DDR 2nd Mix and was basically getting shivers at being able to see my project in front of a crowd and on a giant screen. Hell, TriEngel also. I knew I was going to have fun whether I wanted it or not. Reality had been so bad recently, I needed the drinks.
Nate picked me up, drove us to the con, and I finally met Mike Barranti of Studio KZ! The man, the legend... the awesome camera. Also met the other Mike of StudioKZ (first video was for DDR2, he and I were Waffle House nuts). After dropping bags in the hotel, we all went out to Hibachi. Yummy sushi. Got to follow Nate's and my tradition of immediately getting our water, drinking it almost to half-full, and promptly putting it down almost in sync. We did that in NYC last year. I'm telling you, folks, he's my frickin clone. Love the guy to bits. The dinner with the AMV crowd, for me, was awkward, especially since I was still kinda uptight and clingy like I was at Otakon. There were a ton of new faces, though, so can you blame me? Rode in Nate's car with EK and Brad DeMoss to the place, too. Good times.
Food good. Credit card better. Sorry Mom. Got back to the hotel and met the rest of our hotel mates, one an excellent, brilliant screenwriter (and high class swooner), the other a staff member at the con. Ah yes, moved to the lobby (said a quick hi to Tim Park) and out and got to meet the one, the only, ErMaC. The dude... what can I say, I never had anything against this guy. I mean, for god sakes, he's the only one out of all of you who e-mailed me to make sure I was ok on 9/11, so I knew he wasn't what he was hyped to be. I was absolutely right. Great guy. Talked to him about the Gamers store in Japan which I MUST visit if I ever go there. Can't remember much else for that night. That was probably it anyway after watching Nate, Hsien, Andy, and I forget who else randomly group-hugging. Heh, I was cockblocked by Hsien, too, weirdly. Oh yeah, also met Ian Roberts that night. Anything else? Nah, don't think so, off to Friday... -
I went? I went!
2002-10-01 03:10:16
And I came back. Now I am dead set on doing another AMV quite soon. This time... my Gainax-fanboyism has pointed me to the wonder of Gunbuster. The song? Ain't giving that away, but like TriEngel, it is a challenge from Pat. I've taken this song apart so much when I wasn't sleeping in the hotel room; I basically have the entire vision of the video done, and I haven't seen more than episode one of the OVA.
I am also dead sure, after meeting Ian Roberts (AbsoluteDestiny) at AWA and watching his videos over and over, that I should start trusting other programs and leave After Effects alone a bit more. I have to e-mail him soon, he's just so awesome. I sense a Gainax fanboy in him, too.
Speaking of con journals, I should write about AWA, shouldn't I? Hell, did one for Shoujo and Otakon. That'll come soon.
JOURNAL: gambitt (Jeff Heller)
Current server time: Sep 09, 2025 20:51:17