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standing on our own -- and seeing what is real
2002-08-02 09:28:55
No progress on the current video yesterday. I didn't even install the new VDub filters. Man did it ever feel good to take a day off. I don't get many of those.
On that tack, I am NOT going to be seeing Arch Enemy and Nile tomorrow, which royally sucks. I read a review of Nile's new one, and I could almost see the reviewer's eyes popping out of his head. I really liked _Amongst the Catacombs..._ and _Black Seeds..._, and _...Darkened Shrines_ sounds like it's going to be even more and better of the above. Even if you don't like death metal, you really ought to try out some Nile if you're into just plain strange sounding music. The new one's got even more African/Middle Eastern/Tibetan instruments and vocal parts on it than the last two.
Of course, yesterday wasn't a real day off, since prerender times and circadian tides wait for no man. Two episodes of Kanon knocked into shape for the video after the current one, and all the Azumanga for the current video is assembled, rendered, and ready to go for tonight. By the way, if anyone for some reason wants grayscaled copies of Hellsing episodes 1-12 with no sound at 720x480, 1500 kbps Divx 5.0 (very good picture fidelity), drop me an email [merlane@hotmail.com], because I've got it right here. This is subbed, but if you can't cut around subs....well.
Current video: Sinergy, "Gallowmere" (remix edit) to Azumanga Daioh. Progress check: 23% complete (still). Expected catalog number: #46. First I thrash myself to death this weekend working on this, then I get in position for the next one, which I can't reveal the song for until it's done. People would throw rocks at me from both camps.
--Kai out
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all quiet on the western front
2002-08-01 08:29:10
....or at least I hope it'll be. Video #45 is technically only 99% done, as I still need to put on the trailer-card, but I won't even think about that until after #46 is finished and the demo stuff is cleaned up, which should put me into the middle of next week. I also have to re-render the whole video to correct some issues with the opening and closing shims, which were not at the correct resolution, but fortunately this is not such a big deal. I'd have to replace those anyway.
Videos #46 through #49 as set right now are all pretty interesting, and pose their own little challenges, but I'll be in serious need of a capture system when I get through them, as I don't have a real grinding metal video to do to digisubs when these four wrap. If I continue on current pace, I'll break the 50-video barrier around the first week of September, hopefully with the Anime-Boston-slated entry that was supposed to be #45.
Current video: Sinergy, "Gallowmere" (remix edit) to Azumanga Daioh. Progress check: 23% complete. Expected catalog number: #46. All rendering and prerendering is finished on this one, so it's going to stay at this completion level until Friday night, when I fall on the four available episodes with sword and fire. I got a bunch of new VDub filters so I can do this one correctly, and between them and the sampling that I have to do from the episode audio tracks and other music, the anticipated completion date is looking a lot more like Monday than Sunday.
--Kai out -
hai dekimashita
2002-07-31 11:06:56
It's done. Or all but. And it's not impossible after all: you CAN get sick of listening to Death. I've had _Fate_ in heavy rotation at work for the past month or so, but I'm throwing it back on the shelf now, because I can't stand to hear "Zombie Ritual" AGAIN every time the damn disc spins up. The video is looking pretty intense; can't wait to see it in full quality. In many ways this is a very old-school Shin Hats video; blasphemic metal, high intensity, and *no internal transitions*. This was not a planned intentional, I just made the video and ended up not having to use any fades. Effects would really be out of place here, anyway; this is a very straight-from-the-shoulder song, and deserves a straight-from-the-shoulder video.
Contacted by the AFO people; all 3 videos I submitted will be competing. These are #32 ('e vol ve'), #29 ('Harvest of Thorns'), and #20 ('heroes') in order of priority, in case anyone is going to be there and cares. Ten or so days until my pro debut at MTAC; video there will be #29 ('and so it ends').
Current videos: Death, "Zombie Ritual" to Hellsing. Progress check: 95% complete. Expected catalog number: #45. Sinergy, "Gallowmere" (remix edit) to Azumanga Daioh. Progress check: 23% complete. Expected catalog number: #46. Video #45 just needs to be assembled and rendered into its high-quality form tonight; video #46 will probably finish Sunday.
--Kai out
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release me from this lonely world
2002-07-30 14:56:28
I hate it when renders don't come quietly. I only need about 35 seconds out of Bible Black (to hit 100% overage and sleep well at night), but I still had to render all 30 minutes, and it wouldn't be nice and scrunch up enough to travel on the same number of disks as any other episode. So I didn't finish clipping last night, I got behind, and I have to finish clipping (probably quick) AND do the draft (not so quick) tonight. At least I won't be tempted to do the HQ tonight; I'll save that for tomorrow instead of staying up stupid late and not being able to function at work.
The next video is already proceeding; hopefully it'll be done Sunday. This one's gonna involve a lot of post-processing, predirection, sampling, nologoing, and other crap that I really don't like doing, but if I don't do it, the idea doesn't work, and there ain't nobody gonna make this vid if I don't. After that comes two more vids (both instrumentals, oddly enough) with less processing but just as unique. On the first of those two I have to do some heavy audio editing, and the second I have to chop up the root-source before/after resizing so that it's even usable at appropriate bitrates.
I really need to get a capture system working again. These ideas are cool, but they're second-runs; the videos I'm supposed to be making right now from DVD source are several dozen times better in concept. I need to get my Anime Boston video out of the way NOW so it doesn't clog up the schedule later, and smash down the other DVD ideas I have. There's so much good stuff on the slate, and so little of it that I can actually do at this point, that I just get violently frustrated sometimes. GO TO HELL ADOBE PREMIERE!
Current video: Death, "Zombie Ritual" to Hellsing. Progress check: 81% complete. Expected catalog number: #45.
--Kai out
there is no hope WHY DON'T YOU -
crashing through the boundaries, lunacy has found me
2002-07-29 11:50:45
It was a pretty good weekend; didn't end up going to MPD because word got out that the openers weren't that great. Still hoping to get out to Worcester for Arch Enemy next week. Even so, I also did a bunch of video work; like 27 percentage points spread over two vids, mostly on the current one but some on the next one in the queue. I also watched what a
truly mind-boggling amount of anime considering the amount of video work I did; the first five Patlabor (TV), the first DVD of Hellsing (crappy subs -- decide what these people's names are dammit!), the first Area 88 (forcing me to find the rest of the series -- bastards), and Silent Service, which I didn't think existed previously, besides introducing my mom to Fushigi Yuugi. Two volumes already -- I may have to find the second box at this rate.
Area 88 was better than I expected it to be, given its video-game-like qualities, but with the director having assistanted for Matsumoto it shouldn't have been so surprising. The story is like nothing so much as The Count of Monte Cristo meets The Cockpit, if updated a bit closer to the present. Matsumoto-style anime occasionally comes off as overdone, but even though Shin is a bit of a weepy bishie, there are enough other elements to prevent it from wreaking unbridled havoc on the rest of the title. I can't wait to find the second volume.
I didn't even think Silent Service was ever made into an anime, even though it was the last legitimate "hit" in manga for adults. The movie only takes the first part of the story, in which there is actual sea fighting, but still addresses the same themes that the rest of the manga explored in greater detail, such as the problematics of having a single superpower, the role of the military in a Japan with world economic and political stature, and the uncertainties of the post-Cold-War nuclear equation. I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who really enjoyed Patlabor 2 -- it's that good.
The worst part, overall, was probably Pioneer rushing through (or simply fucking up) the subtitling on Hellsing. C'mon, people, it's supposed to be _FANSUB_ groups who can't decide what main characters' names are, who misspell obvious ones, and who munge up the grammar. This kind of crap makes Shinsen Gumi look professional. Apart from the fuxored subs, though, much nift. I'd been seeing so much of this show in grayscale that I forgot how cool it looks in color. I'm not going to redo the video, though; it just wouldn't work as well in color with this choice of song and thematics. I have a color Hellsing vid on the slate anyway.
Current video: Death, "Zombie Ritual" to Hellsing. Progress check: 74% complete. Expected catalog number: #45. Hopefully this vid will be done and documented by Thursday. After that, I've got another one roaring to go (which will require much post-production, especially as short as it's going to be), and then some cleanup work to do on demo 3 before I start on #47, whatever it turns out to be. I'd like to get a good capture card running again and do the Jin-Roh or Patlabor 2 vids on the slate, but it'll probably be something else. Poverty sucks.
--Kai out
JOURNAL: Kai Stromler (Kai Stromler)
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