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i don't wanna be saved
2002-11-25 12:40:21
Last video is posted; AMV staff for Katsucon needs to get on the ball and get their contest listed here. Nobody's given me a reference for the intro, so I don't need to buy more DVD cases just yet.
The current video is coming along pretty well, but there's a pull coming to switch it from the current song to Nevermore's "Next In Line". Normally this would not be a problem, but I had to order _Old Rope_ from Europe to get a decent version of "...Rising Slum", and I don't own _Politics of Ecstasy_ either. Having to buy one CD to do a video is rough enough; two is really uncalled for. I'll see if I can do some audio-resurrection on the encode of "...Rising Slum" I have off _Outrageous Fourtunes_, since that's where I got the original idea; if that pans out, I'll doubleshot that version with "Next In Line", as the fells are close enough to do one run of clipping. Less intense goes to Skyclad, more intense goes to Nevermore.....and will probably pick up a KK number.
Current video: Skyclad, "Land Of The Rising Slum" to Witch Hunter Robin. Progress check: 34%. Expected catalog number: #61. Clipped through three eps so far, for about 4 minutes of source of the 9 I need. Eleven to go, so any doubleshot video shouldn't be a problem.
Con news: thinking about sending #18 to Tommy's '80s contest as well as the special-order HammerFall, but I'll have to read over the rules again. Still no word on rules from my "home turf" con, Anime Boston. I'm thinking about offering my services to MITAC for their booth, as in doing another demo. As much trouble as those things can be, and as much time as they take away from making 'real' videos, I like doing them, and I've got four good tracks picked already.
Javla Tampa Bay!
--Kai out
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"Death Devil can't play to save their LIVES, amigo!"
2002-11-22 12:38:59
The video isn't QUITE technically done. All the editing is in, but I'll have to take another 2-4 hours tonight and tomorrow to really finish it up. It's pretty neat; maybe not my best, but I have a history of making slackish videos that other people like (cf #23, done around this time last year). Next up is one that should go a little faster (no lip synch, no pesky filters, lots of eps to work from, no file damage, all that good stuff), so I might even get 3 videos done this month.
After that, I've got Tommy's '80s contest to deal with, a video for a local band in need of some more exposure, and a non-anime project for my brother, which ofcourse aint gonna be listed here. There's also a bunch of dead-serious stuff, but that just seems to keep getting pushed back. Sooner or later, it'll all get done.
Current video: Gamma Ray, "Lonesome Stranger" to One Piece. Progress check: 95%. Expected catalog number: #60. Like I said, it's done, but it's not done. And all the goddamn rainbowing is back as well, at least in the MPEG1 draft version. If it's there in the HQ, I'll chalk this one up to a learning experience, scrub the mixdown version, and remember to set Tim's filter in early the next time I do one of these.
Note: I don't know where the intro to this song comes from, and I'm too busy/lazy to do the research myself. If you can find the original source of the dialogue below, mail me and give the reference where you found it, and you'll get a screener of this video, plus your choice of mixdowns.
The opening dialogue from Gamma Ray's "Lonesome Stranger", off the _Heaven Can Wait_ EP (Noise, 1990):
"Let's make it about metal this time. Which metal band do you support?"
"Death Devil!"
"Death Devil can't play to save their LIVES, amigo!"
"Yeah, I agree."
"Well, then I DON'T agree. I think they CAN play. They just need a new MANAGER!"
"Yeah...."
"Well, anyways: YOU'RE -- GOING -- TO -- DIE!!!"
--Kai out
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architects and fools
2002-11-21 12:25:42
It turns out that I couldn't use the movie (second, Clockwork Island) for more than the intro, as it was at a different resolution and a subtly different animation style. Just as well; I'm through gathering source and done lipsynching two of the seven lines that I need for the intro.
One Piece has what might be termed deceptively high production values. It's a long-running kids' TV anime, so the initial expectation is of a low per-episode production budget, and the slashy character designs and soft backgrounds don't really challenge that. The thing is, though, that there is a lot of *jaw* motion here as opposed to just mouth motion in other series, and a lot of camera motion as well. Jaw motion makes lip synch a little more difficult, and by-handing nearly impossible.
Unless you do what I do, anyways, and just rearrange frames instead of editing the picture itself. There's always a hack.
Current video: Gamma Ray, "Lonesome Stranger" to One Piece. Progress check: 68%. Expected catalog number: #60. Plan is to finish the intro tonight, do the necessary compositing (an awful bear involving four different tools), and try to at least draft the vid tomorrow. If not, no prob; I've got all weekend.
Con news: TommyRude has posted a new '80s-music contest, and I'm going to take a stab at comedy as soon as I can find something appropriately maudlin and make the required edits to "Glory To The Brave". Damnit! I wish I had kept those Glass no Kamen eps.
--Kai out.
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will the lord forgive
2002-11-20 12:46:27
Video progressing pretty well, despite the time it's taking. Why do I bother noting this? It's a hell of a lot rarer that a good video clicks fast than just inches towards completion. I've got one more ep to cut through, and then I decide if I'm going to use the movie for more than the intro.
The song I'm using opens up with seven lines of dialogue cut from some movie over about 50 seconds, then goes into an instrumental for the next 4:09. By plan so far, the intro is in full color, and the rest of the video is sepiatoned. The only problem is that every ep I've cut through so far suffers from really bad chroma rainbowing. This is not a problem for the main body of the video, but in full color, it looks like there are little neon patches all over the picture. I do have Tim Park's anti-rainbow filter, but I'm a lazy bastard who'd rather just find an encode with a clean picture than do work. Es kommt darauf an.
Current video: Gamma Ray, "Lonesome Stranger" to One Piece. Progress check: 50%. Expected catalog number: #60. The deadline's a ways off, so I won't kill myself finishing this. Say start of next week, maybe.
About a month until the next releasepack from SH drops at the AMV DC; that'll probably include the first KK Ultimate Collection, another PC volume or two, and a SC volume including the current vid, as this'll make four that I've done with Gamma Ray, and at least one full CD.
Assembling a list of more stuff to donate to club; I've used so much of their stuff in my past few vids that it's really not fair not to give back.
--Kai out
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why so cold
2002-11-19 12:48:45
Before I start in on the problems of Japan and high culture for today, lemme just get my voice in that the new journal layout SUCKS. If it's being done for any other reason than bandwidth optimization, it badly needs to change back. You wouldn't make video entries illegible like this. People shouldn't be digging for the magnifying glass to read these at normal (editor) resolutions.
Anyway, I also read a biography of Yukio Mishima over the weekend, and the author made an interesting point: that after the war, Japan became this cultural powerhouse, exporting all kinds of new and innovative art, cinema, writing, etc etc, but then blew to a dead stop by 1970. The author didn't quite answer *why*, either. For all his slagging against manga as opposed to literature, if you know about Japanese comics in this period, you also know that the gekiga style was also withering out towards the end of this period, after doing an immense amount to open the comic form to all audinces in the early and mid-1960s. It's not just a question of 'high' versus 'low' culture; it's about being adventurous and innovative regardless of the cultural form.
As for why Japan stopped, the answer is pretty clear. Everything in Japanese culture precludes the possibility of true success. Japanese heroes may succeed for a while, but ultimately fail to reach their final goals. It is not success, but the willingness to die or be destroyed rather than give up one's dream, that is romanticized as heroic by the Japanese tradition. After the end of the war and the end of the occupation, the Japanese became, as a nation, almost obsessed with the desire for recognition by the rest of the world as an equal, if not a leader, in the world community. But what happened when the Tokyo Olympics were an unqualified success? What happened when Kurosawa's films started winning awards in Hollywood and at Cannes? What happened when Mishima burst into the West rather than merely crossing over?
Japan had succeeded. There was nowhere else to go. No focus, and without that motivating focus, there was no impetus for pure excellence, no reward to justify taking risks. Not quite "strangled by purity", but definitely showing some of the settling characteristics of Ormgarth. It would take five years of recession even to get to the level of Hideaki Anno and Takashi Miike, as good as they may be.
Getting off the cultural analysis horse that I'm still not cleared to ride, the video's actually coming along OK, at a rate that is hell on my time but pretty good for purposes of overage. Thanks to my brother (able to see colors, where I have problems on shades) for helping get the sepiatone right. It's amazing how the picture changes under a monochroming filter: some chroma artifacts are entirely cleared off, and some areas get a lot more pixel-blocked than they originally looked. Sometimes redeemed, sometimes enslaved.
Current video: Gamma Ray, "Lonesome Stranger" to One Piece. Progress check: 40%. Expected catalog number: #60. I'll get through another ep today (hopefully), and still have time to dupe another tape. I'm out of digisubs at this point, and am now going on raw DVD rips from Korea. I've already got a little overage, and I know the movie will go decent, so it's not like I'm counting on these three eps for a huge chunk of the video.
--Kai out
JOURNAL: Kai Stromler (Kai Stromler)
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