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VCA Thoughts
2003-02-25 11:48:43
Looking through the VCA nominations, the thing that strikes me most is the general lack of variety in the videos up for awards. That's not to say those nominated aren't deserving...they're the best of the best, so to speak, and I won't argue with that. But, the fact that the same few videos seemed to pop up in so many categories made voting a little difficult, as I wrestled with whether to vote for one particular video over another in one category while doing the exact opposite in another category. In the end, I ended up spreading my votes around best I could.
To be honest, contests - both online and at conventions - seem to be so much more competitive now, as the crop of good videos out there is really growing as more and more people get involved. As a result, there are a lot of truly good videos out there that never win anything, as there's just not enough awards to go around. The question is, will this drive creators to focus even harder on winning contests, or will it convince everyone to just relax a little and have some fun with what they're doing? It seems there's a little bit of both going on right now... -
Forever and Before (more...)
2003-02-17 23:26:13
Well, a detailed description is up now...
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=14551
Download will be available for the masses some time this coming Friday. And, once again, for those of you who are taking the time to read this, you can get it now...
http://www.jefflawson.net/nowhere/amv.html
I'll definitely be sending it to Animecentral, and provided I don't have anything else new, Akon as well (Akon is a bit important, being my local con and all). -
Forever and Before
2003-02-17 00:06:12
Wow...I never thought I'd be able to finish a complete video in a matter of a couple of days, but the idea I was mulling over on Friday really took off. Life conspired to give me an excess of time to edit, and considering that I was only working with one episode worth of footage and was, frankly, on a roll, I managed to get everything done by the end of the weekend. Editing time was still about 20 hours (yeah, those were some long sessions).
When I did my first full render of the video, I was thinking "Well, this is going to be unimpressive", and then upon watching it for the first time, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. I don't want to say it's perfect, because it's not, but damn if it wasn't everything I wanted it to be. It blew me away, and to be honest, it makes me wonder if I'm a little better at this than I tend to give myself credit for. That may sound like false humility, but it's true.
Anyway, enough of me babbling about and praising my own work. You can download "Forever and Before" yourself and form your own opinion:
http://www.jefflawson.net/nowhere/amv.html
I haven't gotten the download link (or description, even) up on the .org yet, as I'm not ready to be swamped with the excessive downloads that always accompany a new release - I'm nearing the end of my billing cycle with my hosting provider, pushing my allotted bandwidth, so I'd rather wait until the new cycle begins later this week before allowing myself to really get hammered. But, the video is available for download on my site (at the above address) so consider this a special pre-release for those paying attention.
Oh, and I'll probably be sending this to ACen...I had been fretting over whether I'd have something new for the convention or not, and even though I had never intended for this video to fill that role, I think it's a good choice. Whether it's competition-worthy or not, I can't say (so many good videos out there lately that it's hard to say any more), but I'd definitely love for a large, receptive crowd to see it.
Anyway, if you want to leave an opinion, it's at least in the database here at the .org...I'll have the video description up in a few days:
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=14551
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A Bounty of Ideas
2003-02-14 18:38:34
I have all of these in-process or potential projects piling up, waiting around for more source footage to make them work. The Kare Kano video is on hold until Vol. 4 is available. I had originally planned to get back to work on it following the release of Vol. 3, but I've been playing around with the concept a little and feel it would be best now to wait a little longer. The Strawberry Eggs video I was considering may never come to be, as I'm not sure the footage really allows me to capture the mood I want. I'm still waiting for my copy of the final volume to be delivered (was just released this past Tuesday) before deciding whether to scrap it or not. I also have a Fruits Basket concept boiling in the background, but I'll definitely have to wait for the final volume to be released before working on that.
And then there's the matter of a particular song I'd very much like to do something with. To be honest, the ideas have been forthcoming, but they all seem like rather routine concepts. They'd make for great videos, but right now, I'd like to do something perhaps a little more unique.
Then, out of the blue, the most absurd idea struck me, and I've become so enamored with it that I feel I'm obligated to give it a try. Basically, I'm going to make a full video (3:15 in length) using a single episode of Kare Kano. And it's a weird episode, too (OK, most of them are weird to begin with, but this one is particularly odd). I've thought about it for awhile now, and I think it can work. If anything, it should be a fun experiment, and the fact that I'm only working with one episode will allow me to be very meticulous when editing.
Stay tuned... -
XviD, baby!
2003-02-01 02:24:11
Whoops...was editing some video links and ended up re-setting the download counter for "Haruka's Song". Oh well.
Anyway, good news!
Higher resolution XviD encodes of "Haruka's Song" and "After the Rain" are now available. They look pretty nice, and have slightly smaller file sizes to boot. Theoretically, playback should work with DivX 5, but I haven't actually tested it yet. Works fine with the actual XviD codec and ffdshow for sure, though.
XviD version of "Sakura no Yume" is still on the way. There are some problems with the remastered master (that's a mouthful), so before I bother doing the encode, I need to go back and fix a few bad frames. It means going back into Premiere, though, to create a new master - so, have to do post-production all over again and redo the distribution MPEG version as well. I wish I had caught those problems last week...but, luckily, I hadn't deleted the source footage yet. Having to rip all of those DVDs again would have been a pain.
JOURNAL: jal0021 (Jeff Lawson)
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