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Life is strange
2007-07-08 12:18:09
Things develop different than I expect. The additional footage that I needed was in episode 3. That was much earlier than I expected, and it saved me from rewatching the entire series. But it didn't fit my needs 100%. Doesn't matter, I have still found a way to use it.
I have tried to work with the overlay scenes. I have tried a lot with the effects combination before to optimize it, to make it look good. But obviously with the wrong footage. (I used Queen Millenia, but different scenes) With my actual footage it looks like crap. To make progress, I started to apply the other effects. But my next attempt failed again. It doesn't look like I expected, and needs much effort. At least my other effects work well.
So I'm confident to make it to the deadline for the con. 10 days are left. After I have sent it to the con I can't release it until 09/09. :( I'll use the time to write my "Making of..." so that it is online if I release the AMV. Depending on how fast I can write it, maybe I'll start project "Sisters" too. -
The greek alphabet...
2007-07-04 16:14:13
... starts with alpha. That's where I'm now - the alpha version of project "Love". So the main editing of the storyline is done - with one exception. There is one verse to witch I have selected the footage, but not arranged. I want to make a composition, but I need additional footage. That's really weird - I have too much footage, but not the one I need. Unfortunately I can't remember in which episode the scene is, so I have to rewatch Queen Millenia. And speaking about the Greek alphabet - normally it's alpha, beta, final release. But this time it will be alpha, beta, gamma, final release, because of the overlay.
Exactly 14 days to the deadline if I want to enter it to the con. Let's see what's still to do - possibly improve some timings, build up the overlay, add effects. That's still a lot to do, but I have 2 full weekends beside the evenings. MovieXone now works long enough again to make progress during an editing session. I had a little problem with the export - the audio was incomplete. But that doesn't matter - I can add the audio with VDM.
A rant about the work. Does your boss also assign tasks to the least competent employees? My boss does that often. This time it hit me. I had to write something for him about a matter I hadn't to deal with so far, while my colleagues have a lot experience.
I did notice a grammar mistake in my last entry: "Has my PC catched a cold..." must of course be: "Has my PC caught a cold...". Damn exceptions. But what do I complain - German has much more exceptions than English, one of the reasons why it is so difficult to learn. -
I'm annoyed!
2007-06-29 13:48:04
I thought I had solved the problem with MovieXone - but no, the same shit happens again. The music disappears. And there is still so much to do. Over one minute basic editing. Around 45 seconds editing for the overlay that I want to use. Not to speak about the effects that have to be applied. If MX1 keeps acting like that I'll miss the deadline for the contest.
So I really like to know what's responsible for that instability. Has my PC catched a cold that I'm not aware of? Is the firewall causing problems? The Anitivr? Is it faulty hardware?
As a side note - project "Love" seems to revers the relationship that I'm portraying. It's a fault of the footage, at least the one that I used so far. Maybe it changes with the further editing. Though for project "Love" I wouldn't mind if this happens. But for project "Sisters" I'd shot myself. ;) -
2007-06-21 16:21:45
I have tweaked the instrumental (that's what I meant with "musical" in my last entry) part of project "Love". The last days I have spent with practicing of an effects combination that I want to use for the vocal part. It's not that easy to get what I want, but finally I've found a way that looks good enough. So today I have started with the vocal part.
This time I try to avoid random lipflap. To clarify: I don't want to avoid every movement of a mouth. Often it's important to express emotions. I want to avoid that random speaking. For the instrumental part it wasn't that hard. Only one scene to care at all, and it was easy to solve with a cut at the right moment. But for the vocal part it will become much harder. For example I had to get rid of it for the first 3 clips. For the first clip it was done with a cut again. For the second it was easy too - I could stretch a single frame, since the mouth was the only moving part.
But in the third had more movement, so I had to use the masking (or better said: cropping) way. In the preview window, which is tiny, it looked good. But after exporting it was easy to spot that I had made changes. The clip has two things that aren't remarkable during normal watching - a slight movement in the beginning and a slight brightness change. So the overlaid mouth was easy to spot. I corrected both - only to encounter the next problem after export. While Yayoi is speaking her head makes very little movements. I thought: "No problem. Move the mouth the same." But the movements are so little - not even a full pixel. But I could enter broken values. But after export I was horrified. Over the parts where the movement was less than a pixel the cropped part had a dark border. And somehow the brightness was affected too. I tried the different render engines - the same. So I have decided not to care for that little movements. They're nearly not noticeable (but I fear at the big screen at the con you'll notice it).
What is problematic is that I need an additional track for the last method. For some parts I need all available tracks. At that parts run two clips at the same time.... Either I leave it as it for that parts, maybe I can get through with methods one and two, or I have to introduce additional render steps. -
Weirdness!
2007-06-17 13:58:01
Lately I was able to edit longer times with MovieXone. The reason why I was able to do it is strange. The usual rule of thumb for video editing is: Let the NLE be the only active application, cut off the Internet connection and shut down firewall and anti virus software. That was exactly what I was doing while MovieXone permanently crashed. I remembered that the last time as MX1 worked for hours I was connected to the Internet. So I tried - and it worked. So I made several tests and I figured out the following: It's not the anti virus software. I can turn it off and on, and MX1 works. It are the firewall and the driver for the WLAN card. In the moment when I disable one of them MX1 will permanently crash. So I assume they are purely programmed, leaving some parts in the memory that will conflict with MX1.
The raw cuts for the musical part of project Love are done. I have rendered it and watched it as a whole. Some synchs need tweaking, but in general it is ok. I hadn't to change my ending, with a critical selection of scenes and much faster cuts than originally planned I was able to finish the story arc.
This week I was watching one of my older AMV - "Noir-Episode#25". Now I know why it is my least rated Noir AMV. The synch is really bad, and over major parts it doesn't follow the flow of the music. Maybe I should do a version 2.0 once in the future.
JOURNAL: Keeper of Hellfire
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