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all play dead
2003-01-28 12:44:47
Aint that how it goes? I stay up way to late reading through old projects dropped, taking advantage of a creative burst, and then the fact that I'm not a college kid anymore comes through and kills me when it comes to actually taking advantage of those ideas and turning them into something accomplished. At least I got the titles for the current video ginned up.
Current video: Sentenced, "Kaamos" to Noir. Progress check: 35%. Expected catalog number: #67. Probably going to clip this tonight, followed by drafting tomorrow morning, then rebalancing and final edit tomorrow night.
O ya, Mindwarp I think announces their final awards for their winter contest at the end of this week. There's no way that #30 or #48 is going to win anything, but they're in there nonetheless.
--Kai out
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det som en gang var
2003-01-27 11:36:20
If it ever wasn't true, or wasn't certain, it is now: I am a Footage Snob. It isn't that I don't have the steel to do a five-minute video or clip 12 episodes, but that my Juuni Kokki eps were still tagged with the original channel watermark, and pixellated to a degree that I probably would have brushed off just a few weeks ago. So those projects mentioned before are cancelled (either this anime will come stateside or I'll get some all-region gear later) in favor of a trailer that mainly exists so I can put out a SHSC volume featuring Sentenced, since it'll be done a maximum of a month before the anime it's trailering comes out.
Club was decent, though Photon got a little old and a lot wrong by the end of six eps. We welcomed a new backbencher to our psychotic little clique, and I got the last volume (for now) of LoGH, meaning I may hit up iserlohn for the rest of the series. No idea what we'll be seeing this week.
Current video: Sentenced, "Kaamos" to Noir. Progress check: 25%. Expected catalog number: #67. Basically the rule is that if it has words on video footage and runs less than 2 minutes, it doesn't count as a SH video, or if it includes one or fewer cuts from any anime. These are the rules that disqualify respectively the credits reels from the three demos so far, and the opening sequences from said demos, the Boondock Saints live-action video, and the one project I've edited for someone else's purposes. This being said, the current project, despite a projected running time of about 1:40, falls into the same category as the 11 existing demos, but since it's selling a series, not a club, it can go into general release.
Grimlock news: getting Audacity for use in current video project, so perhaps I'll be able to steal some time in the near future to record more material.
Con news: 'One Way Down' is in the finals at Katsucon, so if you're there, please support.
--Kai out
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the only peace i can find
2003-01-24 11:58:36
Well, #64 never did encode properly to SVCD, so I had to go with card direct digital output. The result looked decent, and sounded pretty awesome when I tested it on a normal stereo system. That's always gotten me, as long as I've been showing videos on larger systems, that there's always something there that I didn't catch because my computer speakers don't have a subwoofer.
With #23, the first SH video to get shown on a big screen, it was this big huge horrendous beat that I hadn't heard at all when editing, and I thought everyone there was going to tomahawk the vid for that, because the videography didn't take that pulse into account. Ofcourse, it had always been there, just quieter, so I shouldn't have been quite as surprised when everyone was impressed. With these two, it was just a giant bass response that I hadn't gotten before, which fortunately did not bury the audio that I had done the synch to. Even if #64 looks a little dark, and #66 looks a tad flat, colorwise, they sound like a KK video is supposed to: like you're at that show standing in front of the PA breaking your neck to the riffs.
Hopefully, they'll get shown. I'm not too optimistic about this, because both could definitely be viewed as in flagrant violation of the appropriateness-of-footage rules, for violence in #64 and medical gore in #66. You wouldn't see wolves devouring human flesh or bloody gloves pulling a brain from a skullcap on basic cable. But that's the way it has to go; just because of who I am as a metalhead and an AMV editor, my best work is going to be by definition my bloodiest, and there's no way that I'm going to defend my home ground with something less than a KK video. Rules be damned. I'll gin up a "Forbidden Art" release to pass around there if I get shot down, and kick out prescreeners to my club buds as soon as the ruling comes down.
Current videos: Iced Earth, "Blessed Are You" and Nevermore, "The River Dragon Has Come", both to Juuni Kokki. Progress check: 25%/25%. Expected catalog numbers: #67 and #68. It'll take at least two solid weeks to do the clipping on these, and for 100% overage I'm going to need about 20 minutes of footage, since the songs are so different. If they were more alike, I could get away with only 15 minutes, on the principle that the first video completed is only going to use five minutes of that, leaving the second to be completed at 100% overage. With this in mind, these are probably going to be the last two videos made before any demo that gets done for MITAC's AniBo booth; outputting to VHS will not be an issue, but the demo is going to take a long time to do given the huge title volume I have planned. So I'll ask this week about need for such, give Ed or Sean the demo mix on CD next week, and look for a go-ahead.
Con news: I should be adding more dates to my con schedule, but I'm lazy and just made the last deadline of a four-week dead rush.
Grimlock news: Again, I SHOULD be looking for some multi-tracking software so I can properly execute the remix for the Grimlock vid currently climbing in the production queue, but I'm still lazy.
--Kai out
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promised only lies
2003-01-23 12:51:17
Entry for #66 is up now, as the video in question is done, and looks pretty good on the AniBo SVCD. The problem, of course, is that the same is *not* true of #64: there's a heinous stop around the 3:46 mark, so I'm re-encoding said video to see if I can iron out this problem. A little more pixellation on #64 as well, but Jin-Roh really pushes the boundaries of detail level a lot more then Black Jack, and the cutting is faster as well, so it's not exactly surprising that SVCD bitrates have problems handling it.
I'm kinda steamed about the current state of high-end home video. I had to get at least one EHG tape to send the AniBo entry on (to make up for my low-end VCR that has to record it), but all I could find for retail sale was this four-pack of foofy see-through colored plastic ones. Good thing I'm sending the SVCD as well; the elasticity on those things is probably not anywhere near normal standard.
No current video right now; I've got enough to take care of with con publishing (hopefully, I'll be able to send off the tape and SVCD tomorrow) without having to bother with such things. May do a trailer before the two videos mentioned yesterday, may not. Es hangt alles darauf an.
--Kai out
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i'll do anything
2003-01-22 11:39:44
Vid #66 is all but done; drafting is complete and the effects don't look to be that intense, so it'll probably be done, and maybe even export-mastered, by this time tomorrow. Forcing me ofcourse to buy more DVD cases (ran out), CD-cases (one left), and a pro-caliber VHS-cassette (rare breed). Plowing the sea, plowing the sea.
I should go through and add all the participation notes to the videos sent out lately, but I keep getting sidetracked. After the AniBo entry is safely mailed, or sometime around that.
If you don't have this month's Shonen Jump, get it. If you do have it, turn to page 272. This is the greatest game in the world. Why didn't I think of that when I was in junior high? Well, besides the fact that in this country girls don't have to wear skirts to school, anyways.
Current video: Danzig, "Five Finger Crawl" to Black Jack movie. Progress check: 90%. Expected catalog number #66. Just a couple more hours' work and a whole lot of post-production for various export versions, and I can get on with videos that aren't staring a deadline in the face. Two dark ones, then one silly, or maybe the other way around if I decide I'm fed up and need a break.
Remember, if you know the first word spoken on an official recording by Chuck Schuldiner, you'll win a screener CD if you mail it to merlane@hotmail.com.
--Kai out
JOURNAL: Kai Stromler (Kai Stromler)
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