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Not dead yet...
2003-07-09 07:29:00
Geh. I really suck at keeping up multiple journals & such. I have a hard enough time using my LJ properly, much less this.
Video work progresses, but slowly- perhaps too slowly. I'm also far too prone to getting distracted- I didn't get any work done yesterday due to working on another project (that I admittedly was enjoying, at least when Photoshop wasn't crashing and losing an hours worth of work). I have more confidence after Mondays fiddling that I can get the new program I'm working with to behave properly with a bit of work- now I'm more worried about getting the notoscoping work I need finished up in time and putting all the pieces together.
I'm also hating the wait for the list of Finalists for Otakon's AMV Contest. If I thought I didn't have a chance in hell of getting in, I'd not be worrying about it in the least. But a decent number of people (admittedly, almost all of them my friends...) seem to think I have a shot at it, so I'm nervous as hell. If I -do- make it into the contest, however- I won't be nervous about the actual contest. I know no matter what category I could end up in, I'll get trounced. :P It'll be great if I get to see the video played in front of the huge crowd at Otakon, though. More people to get hooked on Afro Ken! Woohooo!
I'm quite looking forward to early August now. The Masters vid. is due about the same time as Otakon, so after Otakon I won't have anything really to be worrying about getting done anytime soon- the next contest I'll likely have to worry about will be Katsucon next year- and that will be nearly 6 months away. I've got several ideas I think are pretty good, a few old projects and a few newer ones, and I'm hoping to plan out my videos for next year far more in advance and try and have them done a decent bit before the cons so I'm not rushing as much on things. -
Finally here....
2003-06-24 09:48:20
In the mailbox on Saturday was my long-awaited (well, OK, I was only really waiting about a week or so, but still) Firewire card. Silly me figured, "Yes! I can just throw it in the computer and start capturing video!" EEEEENK. Wrong. Nothing is ever that easy with my computers. First off, simply getting to my computer's case to put the card is a chore- while wonderfully convenient for normal us, my computer desk is simply not designed to easily extact the tower from it, and there is no way to do anything internally with it still in the desk. That was the least of my worries, though. Once I finally got the card installed and detected by Windows, the real fun began. For some reason, I cannot seem to have the computer actualy doing anything with an incoming video stream from the digital camcorder to the Firewire card for more than a few minutes without my whole system locking up and requiring a reboot. And nothing I tried did any good.
However, I was very deterimined to get one thing in particular captured using the card, and after over 4 hours of fighting with the card and lots of very short segment captures, I finally got all of the long-missing No-Brand Videos AMV, "Love is on the Way" captured onto the computer. After splicing it back together, a bit of cleaning-up of the footage (though not as much as I'd like, admittedly), and re-encoding for distro, all of my AMVs are now online.
The link to the video is here - http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=10897
"Love is on the Way" is quite probably my favorite of the original 5 videos I had a part in making back in school. Saigon Kick's "Love is on the Way" had long been one of my favorite songs, and to this day Urusei Yatsura is one of my favorite series despite its age. The two just seemed made for each other. I will admit, the age of this video shows quite clearly, as does my relative inexperience both as an editor in general and with Premiere. It was made in 1996, before DVDs and DVD-ROM drives were anywhere near common or possibly even available, and all we had were the subtitled tapes from AnimEigo of the footage we wanted. This meant that not only was the footage VHS-quality at best (though at least it was off comercial tapes), it was also hard subbed- and the only way we knew to deal with this was by letterboxing over the subtitles. We also hadn't learned to use transitions in Premiere- everything is done with straight cuts. For a dramatic/romance video such as this, we really should have been using fades. Finally, the video does kind of depend on at least a passing knowledge of UY and the episodes and movies the scenes come from. Anyone should be able to enjoy it, but unfortunately I think to get the full effect, you have to know the show :/ I still think people will enjoy it, and I'd encourage you to check it out.
I'm really looking forward to AnimEigo releasing the movies on DVD (later this year, hopefully....) so I can go back and remake this video. I can't truly call it a 'remaster' because I won't be trying to do it exactply the same frame-by-frame, but I don't intend to change any of the scenes. It should be interesting to see what some 7 years difference in my editing capabilities will make.
Jumping back out of nostalgia mode and into the work at hand, my AWA Masters video is actually coming along decently well. With a bit of luck, I'll actually finish the first 'tier' of it roughly when I figured I need to, by the end of the month. I'm rather hating the rules at this point- I really want to be able to get feedback from my fellow editor friends, but can't. I really worry I'm going to finish this part up and show it to one of the few people I can safely have screen and critique it for me and they're going to say "That sucked." I'm probably worrying needlessly, but I wish I were more confident about it. :/ -
Let's slow it down... GRRRR.
2003-06-18 07:33:23
Was lazy to an extent last night and didn't do the title-card for the NES video. But that was because I was deeply embroiled in trying to work on my AWA vid. And not making nearly as much progress as I'd like.
In order to properly do the 24/23.976 fps switch thing, I need to get my audio mixed and finalized before starting the video. The ending to my song is waaay too long, and I'm cutting it off early. Doing this is turning out to be no simple matter. First off, I couldn't just cut off the song. And there was no section of the song that could be used for the ending I wanted. So, I have to play it myself. That I can handle. The problem comes with the end of the audio from the song- it needs to decelereate to a slower tempo for the ending. But, I can't find a way to do this gradually (like a decelerando) and keep the pitch constant... I can do one or the other. AE's time remapping can slow it down, but the pitch drops. Sound Forge can change speeds and keep the pitch constant, but doesn't seem to be able to do it gradually, just go from speed 1 to speed 2 instantly. -
2003-06-17 09:00:20
Videos Status:
NES Project : 99.9%
Project Shallow Diaphragm: 5%
The NES video is for all intents and purposes finished- all that is left to do is to put the 'MTV Style" bumper on the front of it and upload it. The 'Post Script' is also finished. It remains to be seen whether or not the post-script will be in the finished project or just in the individual download version.
With a little luck I'll get started on the AWA video in earnest tonight. There's a good chance this will be interrupted by the arrival (I hope) of my firewire card, in which case I'll be busy fiddling with it and my in-law's digital camcorder. I have been trying for several months now to get my one remaining No-Brand Videos video not available for download converted over from the proprietary hardware codec it was encoded in converted into something I could actually work with, but it appears that the computer necessary to do so has simply died and is not worth the hassle to fix. So, "Love is on the Way" off my master tape will be the first thing I'll be working on trying to record using the camcorder as a A/D bridge. -
unfair to metroids
2003-06-11 09:37:09
Video Status:
NES Project: 97% (90%)
AWA: 5%
The second NES number is if I do the 'post-script' to the video like I'm seriously considering doing. I'll almost certainly do it for the distribution version of the video- but I might endd up adding it on for the project version as well if Fluxy OKs it. I still have part of the last scene left in the NES video to finish up, but it -will- be done tonight. I managed to get through all of the setup for it last night and just have to put all the pieces together tonight. Then I'll have to watch through it and decide if I want to try and sync things up more. Given the song is wholly instrumental (as I think almost if not all of the NES project videos are), I took a slightly looser approach to timing the video. Mainly, I'm just trying to tell the story I want to without the song getting in the way too much. ;)
As I near finishing up watching through the show my AWA video will use, I'm a bit more confident of at least having -something- done for the con. Given the nature of it, there are a number of steps to it- and several of the steps (including the first, for the most part) could be used as the final version if need be. Geh. It's hard to explain without giving too much away, and as I understand it we're supposed to keep our Masters vids fairly well under wraps until after the contest. I do so hope I can finish the whole thing up right in time, though...
JOURNAL: Ashyukun (Robert Babcock)
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