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der winterwind | weiss wer ich bin
2002-09-17 14:01:32
short one today, still a bunch of stuff to do, like buy tapes to dupe my current borrowings, packing tape to send Salce his due, clip though another ep or so...basically everything I said I would do yesterday before Monday Night Football intervened.
Right now I'm applying for a bunch of federal jobs all the hell over the place, so I have no idea where I'll be in a year's time, or what I'll be doing. Makes it hard for me to commit to a new editing station now, when I may have to move halfway across the country and drag all of my current gear, which is a hella bunch as it is.
Con news: If you're interested in getting Red Wolf's AWA comp from him at the con, or if you're one of the contributors to said comp CD-set, you'll have a chance to see two older SH videos on it. One has recently been re-designated as also Kuroi Kenshi video #1, because the principles of Kuroi Kenshi are really a proper subest of the principles of Shin Hatsubai, and videos participating in that particular mindset should be recognized for what they are. In other AW Pro news, logpage:
vid XX:
vid hiccups, but otherwise good use of fx
vid XX:
missed hits like crazy. mix of artstyles bites, effects are lame -- completely underdone, even repeats beatsynchs frame for frame -- this one sucks hard.
vid XX:
overpixelled, too reliant on anime for concept, some jawflap, and it all blows. synch needs to get much tighter. Not pro-level yet.
vid XX:
some good, some jawflap, some missed hits and shielded plotrefs. no more than ok.
Current video: Gamma Ray, "Heaven Can Wait" (2000 version) to Onegai Teacher. Progress check: 35%. Expected catalog number: #52. DEFINITELY going to clip through a couple more eps today, but then I have four still to prerender and render to finish it up. Maybe by start of next week; these renders go fast.
--Kai out
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there is no thrones up there in the sky
2002-09-16 16:28:13
Post-op from Saturday:
Kreider shows up on my doorstep without telling me in advance, and we hang out for a bit. I play him some Death, and Agalloch, and my own stuff, and the new In Flames, with a reaction just as weird as anticipated, then burn him _Tenebral Presence_ and _Reroute to Remain_.
After this we head up to the show, which is in the middle of nowhere (aka northern Mass), and listen to some Kreator and Cianide in the car, Ben never having heard either of these two. We eventually find the venue, which is a tiny little bar between a mini-mall and a bowling alley in Haverhill, MA. I am reminded of Spinal Tap's performance opening up for the puppet show. We hang around the parking lot for a while, and rap with other fans, who are also kinda steamed at how screwed up the booking and such for this show was.
Disaster strikes! Apparently, all bars in Haverhill are 21+ only, at all times, and thus Ben can't get in to see Destruction, Kreator, and Cephalic Carnage (who DO turn out to be on the bill after all), as he's 19 and doesn't have a fake ID. So we get back in the damn car (no point in him hanging around outside, and I have no way of getting back) and point the nose south. We hit Newbury Comics in Danvers on the way back, and Ben spends too much money on CDs, as the selection here beats Bull Moose's around like a redheaded stepchild.
We rap with a biker who's just getting into black metal and NWOSDM about music, and choice of artists, and what to buy first. Ben sells him on Meshuggah's _Destroy Erase Improve_ despite my efforts in favor of Death's _Symbolic_ and Arch Enemy's _Stigmata_. I score Primordial's new one, and curse my lack of funds.
We get back to the pad, and listen through the new Dark Tranquility, which is amazing; if you don't have _Damage Done_ yet, even if you don't listen to metal, you should get it. SO killer, SO interesting, SO absolute mastery. We grab some eats, and then Ben has to head into Boston to crash with Alex. I listen to the Primordial and set a render going.
Since then, I've heard and raved through In Extremo's new one and Bathory's _Twilight of the Gods_, and got about what I expected from Carcass' _Heartwork_, Sodom's _Mortal Way Of Live_, and Bathory's _Requiem_. And also got a bunch done on the current video. AWA Pro logpage:
vid XX:
footage degraded/pixellated. inessential (CRUD)
vid XX:
somewhat pixel-blurred. strong on feel, lacking on concept. grayscaled bits much better than color. more jaw-flapping! nice end, but....
vid XX:
shines on beat-pulse sections. very tight. stutter-frame doesn't always work. plot nice but not essential
vid XX:
some nonsensicals, but very emotional. not strong but works
Only 6 pages left in the log; we'll see how many entries I make before the vids are all announced. Still looking for a job; I've got some prospects, but I dont want to jinx myself. Work on the video proceeding apace; it'll slow up after I run out of rendered episodes, but that's the price to pay. I don't ALWAYS go 3 vpm; hopefully, I'll get gainful employment and the means to go faster. ;{]>
Current video: Gamma Ray, "Heaven Can Wait" (2000 version) to Onegai Teacher. Progress check: 30%. Expected catalog number: #52. I expect to get through at least another 2 eps today, clipping-wise, then I have to work really hard on scheduling to get the rest of the machine-work-intensive bits out of the way. It'll get out there....
More important right now, though, is to contact Nekocon about accepting my formats, run off resumes for the people who still need them through the post, tell Salce to send me his RW address, and get the Dark Tranquillity and some more packing tape.
--Kai out
for the ones
who stood me near
and you few
who were me dear
i ask of the
to have no doubts and no fears
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nailed to tha fuck-in' cross
2002-09-14 11:48:04
If my neck is in one piece after tonight I will be most surprised. If Sodom and Celtic Frost were on this bill I'd think I'd stepped into a time/space warp to Munich in 1987. Unfortunately, the opening acts are pretty bad, so that means I'll have time to do other stuff before heading up to Bradford.
I gave Saul HnK last night, plus copies of videos #46 and #51, as part of an overall mixed-bag outing:
Good: I got the other two parts of Pia Carrot 2, AND something from Kia Asamiya on VHS I'd never heard of, AND the Wolfwood figure.
Bad: This left me with total finances of 17 cents and 2 subway tokens.
Good: I was able to beg pizza off Saul because he insisted that he owed me for the CD.
Bad: I got DENIED on MB; someone else is starting in on the series....wtf is with 24 eps for 2 weeks?
Good: RahXephon is only a total Eva ripoff, not a total and COMPLETE Eva ripoff.
Bad: Because it took so long to raffle off the Spirited Away press passes and posters, I missed the fourth ep of AzuDai.
I was bored this morning, so I was flipping through TV channels and found out that the Kinnikuman anime has been brought over under the name Ultimate Muscle. So I watched the two eps shown today in between parts of the Guru Guru tape I borrowed last night. The English v/a is ok, but still rather cartoonish, and while not much has been edited (bare butts, farting, and blood all show up), what edits there are are obvious, and hack up the plotline a good deal. The second episode looked particularly damaged. Despite the fact that this was a kids' anime in Japan, the lack of real changes makes it a kids' ANIME in this country as well, which I think is probably a good thing. Hopefully, it'll survive.
Borrowed some of the SaiKano anime at last (I love the manga of this series, and have been searching for the anime for the better half of forever since I heard it was coming out, and that Gonzo had actually stayerd true to the shoujo aesthetics of the original); that may crop up in a video, but I really want to get more full-length works done. Of the last five vids (#47-#51), only two were longer than 3 minutes, and two ran about a minute and a half apiece. That's not a pace I can feel comfortable with; I need to keep up speed, but make more 'flagship' videos in the 4- to 6-minute range to compete with. Of course, that really means I need another editing station, which I can't quite afford until I get a job again.
AWA pro logpage:
vid XX:
very old-school, "nice". some missed hits.
vid XX:
little attempt at synch, MUCH disjoint. lipsynch is never more than ok. some clips hung -- CRUD!
vid XX:
some strange cuts; good repeats. inconsistent in theme; ending bags it. ok if arty.
vid XX:
excellent synch; overlayering screws it up usually. still damn good.
I gotta get Salce-sensei's address, then send him _Under the Wings of the Double Eagle_; better and simpler than just _Wait Me At Dusk_. Stands to reason that if he digs "Skyland", he'll also enjoy God's Tower.
Current video: Gamma Ray, "Heaven Can Wait" (2000 version) to Onegai Teacher. Progress check: 19%. Expected catalog number: #52. I'd be feeling better about this video if I was able to work faster, or if I was further along. I have absolutely no patience, which is a bad thing in this hobby; instead of changing to become patient, though, I went out and invented a whole new paradigm, and now I can't just sit patiently and wait for a video to creep along to completion like a normal person.
--Kai out.
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life has given me much, maybe taken more
2002-09-13 14:27:11
ummm....last day of work. Maybe going to see Kreator and Destruction, but they're playing at a small club on the South Shore, and the good supporting bands got cut in favor of crappy ones. If not, I'll find other stuff to do Saturday, like get my resume out to some more places, buy more pants, and work on the current video, which is progressing almost deceptively well.
True adventures in A/V:
As my regular readers (strange people tho they may be) know, my VHS deck recently died, which was a Bad Thing as I collect quirky, offbeat, unknown anime, and there's a lot of that available real cheap on VHS these days. So I went out to Redneck World (aka WalMart) to see if I could pick up a pair of decks for real cheap, allowing me to dupe the tapes I borrow from the club library.
This turned out to be the case; about $120 for two good-quality decks. I wouldn't use 'em to dupe for a fansub distro, but that's hardly what I need 'em for. Of course, the trainee at the register fucks up the total, but that's expected; no skin off my back. I go play some 5-strings at the guitar store next door and pick up MB volume 2 on the way home.
Then I unpack the two decks. One is obviously a return (no cellophane or manual, and has a dead fly fall out of it. This is the good one. The other deck looks as though somebody ran it over with a truck. I have a prerender going, so there's nothing stopping me from going back and getting a return on the deck that's too damaged to work.
I haul it back (3 towns over, by the way), get a return, and cut the new deck open in front of the girl at the exchange counter to check and see that it's not fucked up as well. All goes ok.
The moral of the story? Don't buy A/V gear at WalMart. The other moral? I have two working decks now, so I no longer care about how I happened to come by them.
I watched most of _A Year and a Half In The Life Of Metallica_ part 2 again last night, which is an experience that really takes you back, because the time period documented by this mammoth homevideo is the time when they turned from the fun-loving, unserious, beer-swilling, messed-up metalheads they show themselves as through Adam Dubin's lens into the bloated lawyering corporate-rock sellouts they are now. As Lars talks about taking up scuba diving, you can almost see him turn into a short-haired, fan-suing, poser incapable of playing an interesting drum pattern right before your very eyes.
What would it have been like if Metallica had put out something halfway between the Black Album and _Symbolic_ in 1996 instead of _Load_? What would the music world be like if that "Shit in the Sheds" summer tour in '96 had featured rage and headbanging instead of feather boas and eyeliner? Would Iced Earth be as successful without that void to fill? Would hordes of new bands still rip off Creed, knowing that the biggest metal band in the world was STILL out to kick corporate rock's ass?
Who the fuck cares, here's another page from the AWA Pro log:
vid XX:
lipsynch is in and out, and obviously framedited in places. a 'nice' parody, but not overly well done.
vid XX:
stuttering bad. Subs bad. Cut smarter. Oddly cut off, and with annoying pulses
vid XX:
minor vidfi issues, but otherwise very well-done.
vid XX:
nice use of grayscale; not of strobe. action over solo aint that great; reuse of lipsynched bits a tad lame. some good edits, but not quite enough.
Current video: Gamma Ray, "Heaven Can Wait" (2000 version) to Onegai Teacher. Progress check: 17%. Expected catalog number: #52. Going to do another render tonight while I'm out/sleeping, then think about cutting up some of the source I've rendered so far over Saturday and Sunday. If I go too hard on the early parts, I'll blow the bottom clean out of my hard drive.
Con news: I should email Nekocon, but I haven't yet. NDK is end of next week, and videos #18 and #33 are going to be there, unless there were problems exporting them to VHS. In old convention news, Jason Salce (RYS, aka THA MAN) said video #32 rocked. If you saw the Pro tapes, you saw it, too; lack of other comments may mean that I only appeal to metalheads, but I don't think Legionair is in that subset, and he seemed to like it too.
--Kai out
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one foot in hell
2002-09-12 09:42:01
Man, did I ever screw up last night. I went and fell asleep before I could set ep 4 to prerender, so now I'm half a day behind, and going to fall even farther back because I'm missing one of my last days on the fast render box. SUCK!! And I won't even be able to make it up with VDub while I'm at work today, because I can't use the job control system (some library went missing)! Damnit!
At least I got something done. I entered all the comics I scripted yesterday, bringing the total to 87 strips in ready form, awaiting only an artist to bring them to life. I also got Hoshi no Koe and some omake onto CD for tomorrow night; I know this show isn't supposed to be distroed any more, but the guy I'm giving this to is going into digital animation, and it would be a shame if he didn't see it as early as possible. If I had Understanding Chaos (American one-man anime-inspired OAV), I'd give him that, too.
AWA......well, here's me judging the last two categories:
K: Best various? WTF? There's no such thing as "best" various, it's only even ALLOWABLE when you're doing comedy. Guess I vote for <guessed creator name> here....
K: Best video.... The FUCK? <sam hill voice> Gener'l, Ah do this under protest! </sam hill voice> <click>
The best video in this contest is going to come away stiffed. It is utterly inconceivable to me how such an obviously transcendant video could get denied like-- wait, the people judging this contest are the ones who MADE these videos. All those people whose work has been identified as royally sucking in those posted logpages get to vote, too.
At least none of my works made it into the final round, so I guess they have SOME taste. Logpage:
vid XX:
DAMN COOL. good fx, not spackle, if contrived
vid XX:
mostly good synch, but slipped in a few places. No concept but ok.
<----------------- END TAPE X ------------------------------->
vid XX:
some jawflap. nice editing but stutterframe doesn't work. minor degrades. superspin isn't synched.
vid XX:
jawflap occ. but mostly ok. a little spackly, and some synch isn't.
Current video: Gamma Ray, "Heaven Can Wait" (2000 version) to Onegai Teacher. Progress check: 12%. Expected catalog number: #52. Renders should go a little faster now, as the OT episodes are about 2000 frames smaller than most of the other eps I've worked with in the past. It's still gonna go long once I lose my fast box -- maybe I should just knuckle and buy that new editing station now....
--Kai out
JOURNAL: Kai Stromler (Kai Stromler)
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