JOURNAL: Keeper of Hellfire

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  • 2006-05-21 16:56:54 Today I worked again on project "Secret". Did something that I'd tried before - replaced a user mask, which I'd made with much effort in GIMP, with the floating mask from MoviePack. This time the exprience from the work with the morph effect helped a lot. The use of the floating mask is so much faster and easier than creating a mask with GIMP, and it offers so much more possibilities.

    From friday 'til sunday I was at a biker party in my former home state, meeting my old friends. It's around 480 km (300 miles) away. I needed 5.5 hours including break for one way. I had to pay the price that I didn't ride my bike that much this year. Several muscles in the neck, arms, shoulder, back and legs were aching. Saturday was really crazy weather - we had nearly all that can happen. Sunshine, rain of different strength, a rainbow, thunderstorm, hail, storm and a temperature drop of around 10 degrees. The bad weather ruined the biker games. But it was still enjoyable. Especially since under such conditions only the hard core is there and the most idiots stay at home.
     
  • A wonder? 2006-05-18 16:16:13 Short after I'd complained in the journal that my announcement thread at the org was unnoticed it got resurrected from page 2. :D Is it a weird coincidence, or was it one of my regular journal readers, reaching a helping hand? Probably I'll never know.

    In the meanwhile I've played around a bit with MP7 to see what several effects do, if they're usefull for future projects. Wanted to start making clips for my MEP segment, but the concentration after work isn't that good, so I stopped it. A weekend will be better to do this. Tried to make an intro for my future AMV's using the sample footage from MP7. But it's PAL, and I got horrible interlacing. If I want to use that I have to go the same was as making clips, via avisynth and VDM.

    Today I've ordered new footage. It's the Blue Submarine No.6 Special Edition. That's good for several types of AMV. Originally I wanted to order an Agent Aika DVD too, if I ever make a fanservice AMV or take part in a fanservice MEP. The Blue Submarine was a bit over $17, Aika only $6, and the estimated price for 2 items S+H was around $4, making around $27. The limit for custom and tax free import in Germany is 22.50 Euro. At an exchange rate from 1.20 this is $27. For some strange reasons Blue Submarine counts as 3 items, so the total was over $29. Even with the high Euro course at the moment this is too much. Wonder what that additional 2 items are. 
  • Feedback? 2006-05-17 05:07:40 I'm a little bit disappointed that my announcement thread at the org got no replies. How should I improve and know with what to continue if noone points me to the bad and good sides of my AMV? At least it has generated a good number of hits and DL's. The star rating tells me that it is mostly liked, though the low number of stars doesn't make the result very reliable yet. Even at the Noir forum I got only one reply. :( I believe the people there are tired because the last weeks had a real inflation of Noir-vids. The most feedback so far I received from the org's German sister site.

    In the short time between release and announcement of "A Fallen Angel" and writing the last journal entry I received 2 QC's. I'd like to reply to one of them. Since there is no reply function I gamble on the very little chance that the commentor reads my journal. So I copy the QC here and reply to it.

    "I don't like the song, so it ruined any joy I might have found in the video. but the editing was awesome. next video I guess. next video, do a non-noir one, I really want to see you try a different anime. your editings certainly good enough"

    That the song ruined the AMV for you is sad, but fortunatly tastes are different. Thanks for the compliment about the editing. A look at my profile should reveal that the majority of AMV to expect from me will be Noir AMV. Despite I have already made a non Noir AMV (the one for the "Hot Coffee" IC), have started another one (segment for Freddy-Mercury MEP) and for sure I'll do others. But in the moment my sources are very limited. (Noir and Queen Millenia movie, to be honest) 
  • It's done! 2006-05-14 16:33:15 Project Fallen Angel is out. I've improved the timing and the effects much since I made the beta. XviD seems to be superior to DivX since it compressed very well with good visual quality.

    Normally I'd give something like a "Making of..." at this point, but this time isn't much that isn't already told. One thing is that I got that idea for this project like a virgin gets a child. I was looking for translations for the lyrics of the ED of the Queen Millenia series, "Maboroba Densetu", because I want to make an AMV for this. I had no luck, only Japanese, either Kanji or Romanji, but all sites listed "Angel Queen" too. At the beginning the only anime that came to mind for "Angel Queen" was Queen Millenia. Since I didn't want to make an AMV with an anime to its soundtrack again I tried to find a different one. From the lyrics I tried to match these criteria:
    -Femal character (angel queen)
    -involving air-/spacecrafts (floating down from the sky)
    -a 1000 year tradition of ruling something(1000 years she rules the earth)

    But no idea. The second and the third criteria (air-/spacecraft) were the k.o. for Noir ... until I remembered ShaoLi saying that Noir has a 1000 year tradition. After that I remembered Intoccable saying that too. And from Intoccabile I got the first idea for "floating down from the sky" - Kirika's tower fall to kill that one mafia "saint". All the situations came too mind in which Kirika jumps down from something. After that it startet raining ideas for the clips, the storyboard was completed nearly within one hour. With one exception. For the last "in time we will be together" I had only one clip in mind - K & M leving the altair with dead Chloe in ep25. Since it wasn't long enough to fit the whole lyrics, I had a gap. At one point I got the idea to fill this gap with scenes from the beginning of ep26. Sometimes I'm so blind. I was still not satisfied with that one clip running so long. The solution was so obvious - using more clips from ep26. But it needed a good while until I had this inspiration. 
  • Funny discovery 2006-05-11 16:38:00 Today I looked at the statistics of my vids and I found they have paired. A Life For A Dream has exact the same number of hits as its remake. And it has exact the same star rating as Ep#25. Ep#25 and A Life For A Dream (Remake) have the same number of downloads. Since it is 111, I think I must take 2 drinks this evening. ;)

    Since I'll wait a while before watching the beta of "Fallen Angel", to get some distance, I have made the first step for my part of the Freddy Mercury MEP, I have cut the music. I'll go nearly over the maximum length that I have allowed for the project. Flint the Dwarf has sent me his selected part of the music to judge if it'll fit into the project. Since I think it is a good idea, I've requested this from the other editors too. One editor told me today that he drops out. :(

    Since my choice for music and anime for this segment are public, I can put some light on the idea I have. I'll show Hajime Amamori as Flash Gordon. 
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