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take hold | of what | is true
2002-10-25 12:04:27
The video is done, and while there are some issues with the HQ, mostly in terms of fidelity, the divx mixdown looks pretty swell. I turned out not having to use Meimi on this one; I got the rotary effect in the place I needed it from actual animation, which is always a plus. The less I have to get in the way of a video the better.
I also got the basic character designs done for the next video; now I have to do the clipping, decide how much I have to animate, and draw some more gear and some different poses. Hopefully, it won't be much.
Current video: Iced Earth, "Highway To Hell" (cover) to Animation Runner Kuromi. Progress check: 20%. Expected catalog number: #58. If I can get 100% overage in the clipping stage, I won't need to do any original animation and it'll be done in short order. If I can't get 100% length, I'll cancel the video and declare something else video #58. Otherwise I'll be working on this for about a month, mostly trimming little chibi metalheads into the right poses.
Club tonight, and hopefully I'll get the digital source I need to pursue two very interesting projects a little further down on the to-do list. Sword take Premiere for breaking my drivers and forcing me into this position. Absent that lapse there would have been a lot more and better SH videos by now, and I wouldn't feel like a git for not capturing my own source.
Bastids.
--Kai out.
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into the emptiness of time
2002-10-24 18:06:10
The digisub group on today's hitlist is the venerable #elite-fansubs, who for two reasons have forced the cancellation of the next video. Reason #1 is excessive pixel blocking, the result of unnecessary scrimping on filesize. Ippatu Kikimusume eps are less than 4 minutes long here; a little more sense on the part of the encoders would have produced something still smaller than a normal ep was back when this series was being released, and looking pretty nice. Ofcourse they aren't expected to do a resurrection job, but the same can be said of the original encoders as well. Reason #2 is their ridiculous animated watermark, which I could have clipped off if Reason #1 wasn't such a big problem. Kudos to them for also being one of the first groups, having a watermark, to ditch it.
The current video may not go out to any cons; we'll have to see how the pixel-blocking turns out in the end. However it will ofcourse be released in due time on CD, no matter what the decision is. I should have this wrapped up, even considering the effects that will probably need to be applied, by the time I go into the city tomorrow night.
I hit the new military surplus store that actually doesn't require me to go into Tourist Traffic Hell (aka Salem) today to pick up a new all-purpose bag, and also acquired a paratrooper knife that is just about the niftiest gadget on earth. It's a folding knife, but not like any other folding knife on earth. Like a cross between a butterfly knife, a Leatherman, and a retractable landing gear. Too cool. Trust the Germans to come up with something like that.
Current video: Death, "Cosmic Sea" + "Secret Face" (samples) to Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heaven's Door. Progress check: 85%. Expected catalog number: #57. Maybe gonna roughdraft this tonight, then work on Meimi f/x and tie everything together tomorrow morning. Next video will take hella long, as I may have to animate some stuff myself to get it to work right. With Paint and SSMM in hand, tho, I know no fear.
And hey, I can always just cancel the vid and roll with the "take 2" idea on the song. If both these are made as intended they'll be right up there for weirdest brace to same song by same editor.
--Kai out
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gone but not forgotten, you walk with us
2002-10-23 13:30:52
Sad news today; one of me mates from school has decided to pack it in for the current semester, stating, in essence, that his life is all fucked up. That's the problem with institutions; they never give you a break until you decide to completely throw in the towel. Ben is a great guy, a true metal soldier, and a fierce competitor (he nearly got his hand cut in half last semester and still finished all his coursework), but the rolling wheel of academia grinds the strong and weak under alike as soon as life gets in a sucker punch. Hopefully, he'll be able to get his shit squared in time to bounce back somewhere; Bowdoin breaks too many good people and lets too many bad, shallow, ones just float through unchallenged.
While I'm singing "Hammerheart" and drinking ales for friends gone by, y'all who looked over the Hypocrisy/X video are to be congratulated, for making it be a True Metal (and KK, but that's not the point) video that was the first non-demo to go over 100 hits. For those put out that those indirect links go to a postal-order catalog, and not to a video file, please bear in mind these simple truths:
* I do not have a site, or hosting anywhere.
* I do not have the time, at present, to contract for hosting or develop a site.
* Even when I DO get a site, I will be unable to host my entire back catalog. Even discounting demos, it is above 1 GB RIGHT NOW, and only going to continue growing.
This AMV DC is a real lifesaver for people with a deep back catalog and without a ludicrously lenient bandwidth provider. There will be more releases; eventually every vid except the demos will be linked at least once. Once I do get a site developed and a place to host it, the VOTM will also be linked as long as it's up.
Current video: Death, "Cosmic Sea" + "Secret Face" (samples) to Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heaven's Door. Progress check: 50%. Expected catalog number: #57. I went over 100% overage last night, so everything from here on out is gravy.
Con news: In an extremely late-breaking story, video #32 won Joe [Maboroshi] Croasdale's "Buddy Lee Elite" VAT Talent award. So I impressed someone else who's been around for a while. Said video will be available on Hasshin! volume 2 as soon as that's listed on the AMV DC, and shortly afterwards on Shin Hatsubai Perfect Collection volume 4.
There was some other stuff about linking the cases of Annelise Michel and Michelle Smith, the role of the skeptic in evaluating the unexplained under the current Western spiritual and medical framework, and the dangers of approaching the Beltway sniper case without the proper understanding of the truth behind Son of Sam, but this journal is supposed to be about AMVs. I have to write somewhere else about occultism in modern life.
--Kai out
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i've never | been the one to just blindly follow
2002-10-22 13:10:00
Progress on the current video just drags along; I've gotten to my next milestone, but the richness of the source is just dragging it out something ridiculous. Still, it's a man/machine time savings of more than 50%, even if it turns into all man time.
Rapping with different people about different stuff brings up an interesting point: not everyone knows the rule of 80-20. This is practically taken for granted in the musical world, and yet so many people haven't heard of it.
Properly, the rule of 80-20 applies only to guitars, but it's also pretty clearly in evidence in a lot of other places. Simply put, 80% of all guitar players will be satisfied with a choice over 20% of existing guitars. The other 20% of players, though, will not be satisfied with ANYTHING in that 20%, and will demand choice from the other 80% of the market. This is why guitar stores are full of Fenders and Gibsons, even though their highest-end models can't compete, in terms of quality and playability, with a production BC Rich or a Jackson, let alone a custom from one of these manufacturers, a Heritage, or a Jauros. Because the great mass of people are not aware, and indeed in many cases do not want to BECOME aware, of what their options really are, and what kinds of things are really desirable or possible with a guitar.
This could also explain why Top 40 radio is so bland, and why Dragonball Z has its own section, often nearly as large as the rest of the anime section combined, at many video stores. Kangaisurumono: are you in the 80% or the 20%?
Less divisive:
Current video: Death, "Cosmic Sea" + "Secret Face" (samples) to Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heaven's Door. Progress check: 40%. Expected catalog number: #57. Currently rendering clips right now; maybe an hour away from 45%, since this current slice wasn't quite as rich. I got close on 3 minutes out of the first 22; I'm gonna be frickin rolling in overage by the end, since the audio track's only 2:21.
Still putting off getting together a new con slate; I had other things to do this morning.
NB: even in metal there is 80-20 division. Among some black metal circles, it becomes a 99-1 division: those who have the new tape from the least known new bunch of Malaysians or Poles with corpespaint and broken amplifiers, and subhumans. Everything is relative.
--Kai out.
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i will be heard
2002-10-21 14:50:51
Life going medium well. The local Ota-King stole the next Guru Guru tape ahead of me, but in compensation, Hana Yori Dango was much better than I expected. Makino Tsukushi just Kicks Fucking Ass. More scarily, Legend of Galactic Heroes is starting to grow on me, even though all common sense puts it in the Never Should Have Been Animated camp. When you need little placards to remind you who this or that character is, or when you have two protagonists basically alternating episodes, you know it's only a matter of time before you start pounding your head against walls, desks, and the like. And yet this incredibly slow-paced and overnarrated combination of boring antiwar military sci-fi and more boring drama is slowly becoming interesting. Gods.
Stranger still, MTV2 showed live Maiden, then live Hatebreed while I was watching after the college games Saturday night. Ofcourse *I* was thrashing like all get-out, but that's hardly something they can afford to do. There are so many bands out there that are just _pretend_ tough, and _pretend_ metal, that to follow "Run To The Hills" with "I Will Be Heard" is a dumb act for MTV2, running the chance of blowing up their audience. You see some REAL metal, and some REAL tough for once, and then all these Disturbeds and Drowning Pools look like a bunch of kids in the garage with tennis rackets, pretending to be rock bands. Bikers say 1%, and that may be a fact of life, but it's been more than 1% before, and there's no doubt in my mind that the current corporate music system will have no idea to handle it if it goes over 1% again.
Anyway:
Sent off the first two discs for Red Wolf today; the next five releases will go out next weekend.
Current video: Death, "Cosmic Sea" + "Secret Face" (samples) to Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heaven's Door. Progress check: 30%. Expected catalog number: #57. Clipped through about the first 23 minutes of the flick today, and it seems that I'm back in my groove with regard to source richness. Like 60 clips; better than I've gone on an ep in a long while (save Kogepan, ofcourse, but that was working into this current project). No idea where this one's going to.
Con news: didn't win anything at Sugoi-con, which is hardly surprising. I'm kinda glad someone else produced something more technically gripping than the cube-in-cube; it's a lot easier an effect than it looks, and IF I had somehow taken that award for the vid, I wouldn't have felt right. More importantly, a bunch of people got to hear Gamma Ray light it up Best Of-style.
I'll have together a new con slate in a matter of days; I've basically filled up my card for Ohayocon, which I don't have to send the CD in for until like December. I hate offseasons. All these videos pile up, and then when the new season rolls around again, people don't get to see what I've been doing _currently_ at the start until the very end. Ofcourse nobody else competing has this problem, so it's not for me to complain.
Grimlock news: all this offseasoning means that I'll probably lay down some riffs to fill out the Tenebral Presence material to something EP-size. Look for that maybve start of 2003 if I can get my ass in gear, and if I don't get a new editing station, which would immediately launch me into a big swack of vids I've been itching to get to work on for a long time.
--Kai out
JOURNAL: Kai Stromler (Kai Stromler)
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