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grave sweet grave
2006-01-27 07:22:27
SH105/106:
- Source rip: complete
- Music: complete
- Precleaning: complete
- Storyboard/planning: next to none
- Clipping: 32/35
- Edit: none
- Postproc: none
- Export: none
While cutting up the next-to-last DVD, I started to notice that the interlacing was getting really damn bad on me. I've seen field orders switch between vobs before, so I checked to make sure I had the right order.
Switching from order 1 to order 0 actually made the problem worse. The decombing filters were doing their job -- but the idiots who had encoded the DVD hadn't. A lot of the resulting mess was cleaned up by the filters I've been using, and more will be cleaned up when I downsize the video to 512x384 after it's finished, but there is no excuse for this kind of garbage encoding job. It's not nearly as shitty as the first disc was, whcih still wasn't as bad as PAL Pokemon, but it's pretty damn dirty all the same.
Clipping will probably finish Sunday, and next week will see editing. I'm not certain when I'm leaving for the US, but one, and maybe both videos will be done before that. Also, it's much less urgent now that I've found out that the deadline for AniBo is the first of April. I may actually have to register and go, seeing as I'll be back, and hopefully still around at the end of May.
--Kai out
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we carry on
2006-01-24 07:32:43
SH105/106:
- Source rip: complete
- Music: complete
- Precleaning: complete
- Storyboard/planning: next to none
- Clipping: 28/35
- Edit: none
- Postproc: none
- Export: none
Got some people poking around the office, so I had to stop playing Ran. Then I ripped through four vobs and went to lunch. From an AMV perspective, this is pretty sweet. From a Ran perspective, it wasn't; I got whacked, lost 2k XP, and more or less had to stop playing for the day, but I have another journal for that.
The last two DVDs look like strictly a mop-up operation at this point. The rate of source gain is way down, which is a good thing since it means I'm probably going to end up with only 20 or so GB of source, and I won't have to uninstall anything. Clipping will hopefully wrap this weekend, and I can start editing soon after that....barely in time for AniBo.
--Kai out
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she sent the moon to heal me
2006-01-22 12:26:28
SH105/106:
- Source rip: complete
- Music: complete
- Precleaning: complete
- Storyboard/planning: next to none
- Clipping: 24/35
- Edit: none
- Postproc: none
- Export: none
Hey, whaddya know, I'm alive. And actually working on the videos. AMAZING.
The good news is that I went through 8 vobs yesterday, and discovered that in actuality I only had 11 more to cover, not 12, and ofcourse this is a lot more like 8 3/2. The last vob in every disc is split between the last ep of one version (on these, the trizicked-out version) and the first ep of the other, and vob 35, the last one, is split between the 1st and 2nd stages. If you've seen any of the 1st and 2nd stages of Initial D, you'll know immediately why I couldn't use both in the same video -- any you'll see in the work on these vids why it had to be the first stage.
Honestly, I can't tell in which season the production values were lower; in the first stage, the print looks like dirt, and I've been having a hell of a time making sure that I'm not taking shots where the characters go radically off-model. The second stage has a lot better panel control thanks to digital, and the print has that new-car shine all over it, but virtually every shot is contaminated with this computer-assisited pan garbage of 30 fps inserts. It's not only cheap but disgustingly obvious, especially when basically nothing else in the picture is moving.
It is more likely now than ever that these videos will be completed, and there's even an outside chance that they'll be done by the end of the month. That would be in time for the AniBo submission deadline, which is the reason I was doing them in the first place. I love it when a plan comes together.
--Kai out
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and hope for | sight
2005-12-13 11:57:26
It's been four years since Chuck left us. It's been just over a year since Dime was taken. And the processes of forgetting are working, perhaps stronger than the processes of memory. There was the ritual news stories, the wave of remembrance marking the anniversary, but it is a wave that recedes with time and will not come back as strong next year. And worse, there are signs that a lot of the scene is paying only lip service to their ideals, and not really getting the message.
There was a shooting at a metalcore concert recently, which while in self-defense was totally useless, and points out the shortcomings that we so desperately need to correct. The shooting was provoked by FSU violence, and if there's anything that Dime's loss should have taught us, it's that irresponsible dickhead violence based on musical preferences is retarded and self-defeating above all. It's a small step from punching someone in the head because they don't fit your idea of "true" to shooting a living legend because he broke up hs legendary band to go in a slightly different direction. We will not ever be able to get the violence and intensity of feeling out of metal -- and indeed, we shouldn't try -- but the release of that energy has to stay in the goddamn pit, mediated by the rules of the pit, which are based on a fundamental respect for fellow combatants/thrashers, and for those in the crowd who don't choose to throw themselves in.
The violence, though, is only half of the problem, because it is created by the sort of stupid factionalism that Chuck fought throughout his life, especially at the end. Because he was able to conceptually unify different strands of metal tradition and practice, hammer various musical influences into a cohesive whole, it gave him the ability to see that the narrow ideas of what is 'true' or even 'metal' are limiting, even fatally so. We should not draw lines beyond that one-way line between 'us' and the 'normals' -- that we who consider ourselves "sworn to the black" are incapable of wholly crossing back over to a live *without* metal, but we should always acknowledge the possibility that those in that mass are also metalheads who just haven't properly awakened yet. As the genre gets more profitable and more high-profile, Chuck's principles of ecumenicism and withholding judgement until presented with the music itself become more and ever more vital. "Support music, not rumors"; "let the metal flow"; to live and believe and honor only these, and we will take substantial steps toward the dream from the sidewalks of Wacken: a metal society of honor, honesty, and community, only periphally tied to mainstream society and indisputably better.
We have a universe of potential at our feet. Our chosen form of music -- chosen way of life -- allows us to express with full power the full range of emotions, and bleed off and release the conventionally negative ones in a way that doesn't injure or offend anyone. We have the potential, then, to be the most clear-sighted and psychically balanced people the world has to offer, bound together in a worldwide community that will have its significant differences, but also its much stronger unifying strands. We can transform our scene, our society; we can build our own apart from the constraints of the system. But we can do this only if we *really* remember who Chuck and Dime were, and what they stood for, and put these principles into action in our own lives.
It is within the power of everyone who had ever bought a CM, NB, or Relapse record to take the power in their own hands and transform their own scene, their own town, and lay the foundations for the rising wave of committed metalheads that wil build Planet Wacken. We can do this. And when we do this, Chuck and Dime are with us, and are alive and vital as when they walked the earth. This is the true remembrance, the true memorial: to carry forward and accomplish what fate and tragedy left them unable to. Don't just watch the tribute specials on VH1; call up some local bands and put up a show in your basement, too. Build something, get the ball rolling.
Let the metal flow,
--Kai out
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when the hangman rolls the dice
2005-12-07 13:04:31
I went through another 200 Metallica video entries today. My cumulative star-score average dropped by another three hundredths of a point. There are some disastrously bad videos out there, and far too few good ones to compensate effectively.
One more day, and I'll be through what I'm sure is the dead-worst part of the pass. Hopefully, when I start hearing some different music (bong - Unforgiven, bing - Unforgiven II, AAARGH - another worthless video), I'll be a little more optimistic about this endeavor. 40 videos today, of which only 8 were even worth saving, and 1 of those worthy of recommendation.
If you think I'm just a dick, or making things up, and still believe that most videos on the .org are fairly good, go do your own exhaustive -- on some popular anime or on a band on the most-used list -- and see what conclusion you reach. The vast majority of videos are unexceptional and moderately boring, and the awful outnumber the great. Which is why it's vitally important that I continue the recs pass and continue to put up with this crap, because the mass of videos are so bad that anyone smart will be intimidated away from digging the few good ones out on their own. I do this so you don't have to -- and if you disagree with my definitiosn of 'good', you're more than welcome to pick up a shovel and try your own exhaustive survey.
If you think you can survive, that is.....
--Kai out
JOURNAL: Kai Stromler (Kai Stromler)
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