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I am tired...
2001-10-14 17:58:40
Yeah, I just finished to write the review of Jeff's and NighOwl's "Numb" (please note the capital "N" :P) and then I started jerking around and watching some other videos, too really bored/tired to make another review as I wanted.
This morning I was planning to sleep a little bit more, since it was Sunday and I had an average of 5 hours sleep at night this week. It's perfectly ok that this friend of mine from Italy called just at 7:15 AM because "it was a long time that I don't hear from you".
However I appreciated the thought, really (even if my brain screamed the whole day).
Cristina latest video has got another review (thanks Sotero!) and I am happy because it's a very good video. Something that maybe I will never be able to do: telling a story with a clean and polite editing (no effects, minimal cross fades). But I bored you with this crap so many times that I'll stop here right now with this subject.
I feel quite down in these days. Maybe it's becuse of the autumn in New England, to which I am completely new (hey guys, I come from Sicily! I mean: hot and warm all year long!) or maybe I just feel a little bit of loneliness.
I miss Cristina most... oh geez. What the hell am I writing? I'll better stop here this whining or then who knows what people will start to think about me (not that I really care).
Ok, time to go now. Hope to write something more interesting tomorrow,
- Marco
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May the lightning strike me!
2001-10-13 17:57:52
Uff! I feel real bad. My new project (that actually is an old one) is coming out harder than I expected.
I was able to edit only few seconds today and I am completely unsatisfied with that... but this time I am not giving up. I will come out with this video which will be good, or I will die trying!! >_<
Uhm... for all of you who are already there with a tombstone for me well, I guess it's a bit too early, no? Maybe you can try in another couple of weeks :P
I am beginning to believe that remaking an old project (especially if it was considered "good") is maybe more difficult than starting a new one from scratch. I am always scared of screwing up everything and in the meantime I want to make changes that will reflect my new attitude towards AMVs.
The result is that I will probably end up in a very crappy video and will delete the whole stuff a few microseconds after completition.
Bah... unfortunately is time to go know. I can't bore you with my usual "gigantic" posts...
Maybe next time,
- Marco -
Ooooh geez! Sorry Jeff!!
2001-10-11 21:00:23
I just read your last journal post... very glad to have you back buddy!
But now it's time to tell sometihing to all the people around, so...
OK PEOPLE, DO YOU HEAR ME?
Yes? Good. *deep breath*
Oh my God... I really called your video "Dumb" all this time and no one told me!?!? Oh, great... ooooh boy...
This is perhaps one of the most jerky things I never done in my whole life here at .org. But (as always... hehe) I can come out with some explanation for that, so feel free to choose the one that you like most:
1) Your video kicked me so deeply in my soul, and this mispelling has deep psychological roots. I am really "Dumb" when I watch it. It's beautiful, perfect, moving, intense, shocking, outstanding. I can't bear it's perfection, so it leaves me without words (geez, sometimes I think I should give up AMV making and start selling cars).
2) I am really the jerk that I am and I didn't recognized my error until it was too late. Oh gosh...
Anyway, sorry for the dumb thing, okay? Wasn't really intentional... I don't know why but sometimes this mispellings stuck deeply in my mind. Yeah, I know. When one has the brain of a jackass it's far more easy :P
You know, I was thinking that it could be cool to meet each other sometimes... what do you think? I live nearby Boston now, so maybe we can organize something. Naturally this implies that you are not scared to be in touch with a "crazy italian" eheh... maybe I can bring an axe with me so we can "cut" the clips better together AH AH AH!
Ok, I was kidding....
...maybe.
Sometimes I would really like to chop off this stupid premiere when it crashes just before I click the save button!
Well, time to go!
I love this journal.... THANKS PHADE!!!
- Marco
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What a shitty day
2001-10-11 18:50:23
Yeah, I spent the whole day in screwing up all the database-related code of my project. Geeez, it was so pissing! Now it *seems* to work, but I have still to implement undo/redo capabilities.
I was just reading again the last post I made yesterday evening... I am starting to convincing myself that meybe that are not all bullshits. Or maybe I am losing very quickly my brain functionalities...
However all the crap I manage to put into this journal is making its effect: I have only 211 hits... I wonder how many people like EK, Hsien, Jeff or Roy have.
They sure can make more interesting posts than mine, I guess ;)
Today was a really boring day. Few downloads of Cristina's Berserk video and no new opinion at all... c'mon guys! That video is GOOD!! Check it out and let us know what you think about (and with this little "advertisement" I screwed up the tiny group of people still following me :P)
I didn't have the chance to touch my new video for 3 straight days. I was too busy, and I suppose that maybe I need some more planning. I really want to came out with something with a point this time, even if it will take forever to finish.
I'll probably go and take inspiration from a whole load of crappy DBZ videos... geeez.
I am kidding... I surely have to rewatch "Dumb" beacause I like it and I will have to write a review, sooner or later. And in the meantime I can try to steal up something eheh... hey Jeff! What's that shotgun about?
BANG!
Ok (bleeding), I'll try to be the more original I can, promise!
See ya!!
- Marco -
Time to go to bed...
2001-10-10 23:48:07
...but not without leaving you with some of my usual bullshits to think about (yeah, I care very much of you :P).
I was thinking about the "goodness" of a video against it's length, and I am always more convinced that shorter videos work better in the overall. If you dare to follow me, I can give you also a mathematical proof of that.
Ok, say that you want to make a video with this super beautiful 10 minutes song that you got. What's the first thing you have to do? Looking for footage naturally! And there is a very nice non-linear relation between the whole raw footage that you get and the useful one:
Uf = g(Rf)
where Uf = useful footage, Rf = raw footage and g is the non-linear function.
Unfortunately this journal doesn't allow me to make graphics, but we can draw near the g function as a gaussian-type of function (yes, the one with the bell shape).
Now I hear you asking "What the hell does it mean?!?". It means that if you have little footage, you will end up in having lesser useful footage.
Increasing the raw footage in your possession increases as well your useful footage (always in a non-linear manner), but once you pass the maximum on the curve, increasing your raw decreases your useful. How is it possible? Simple: you will end up in a mess of clips and will never sure to have picked the right one. This will decrease the quality of your editing.
At this point I could introduce a nice partial-derivatives approach to the calculation of the *optimal* quantity of footage relating to the lenght of the song... and how much your editing will suffer for lack (or abundancy) of raw material.
But this is not the point I want to get, so lets be less "engineers" and more "jerks" and say that if you want to make 1 minute of video (useful footage) you need at least 15 to 30 times (sometimes more) the raw footage.
Another times I hear you screaming "Why the HELL you don't arrive to the point?!?"... ok, that's it. To make a 5 minute video you could end up in needing even 2~3 hours of raw captured footage, and this has some interesting implications:
1) If you are working with a single movie, you have 1 to 2 hours of it, then you are probably doomed to run out of footage
2) If you are working with a series you have far more resources, but you will end up in passing the g function critical point, lowering the quality of your editing.
So, what I am trying to demonstrate is that if you want to make a video with a *consistent* story and a *consistent* plot, you have to choose your clips very well (obviously all of this doesn't applies to crappy senseless videos). If you plan to do it with a very long musical track you will probably end up in running out of useful footage. This will mean that the quality of your video will decrease, because you will have to "fill up the holes" with what you have.
Plus, we have got a modification in the equation that I didn't taken in account in first approximation: the viewer attention's spot. It is usually very narrow: you have to pick it in 10 or 15 seconds, and then hold on till the end. In normal circumnstances, with a good editing and a nice audio track, the spot is around 3:00 ~ 3:30 minutes.
There are naturally exceptions to this. The most noticeables that come in my mind right now are "Information Highway" from Maboroshi Studio (over 8 minutes and it's never boring!) and "Dumb" by Nightowl and gambitt (7 minutes of intense... dumbness *chuckle*).
Whoa, I didn't expected to make it! I have demonstrated my thesis... and without recurring to an "absurdo" reduction (I love that kind of demonstrations!).
Hope that none has taken seriously anything of the above...
...or you are far more crazy than me...
...however I still think that you can make better job with short videos...
...and so my next one will be over 30 minutes!! YEAAAAHHH!
Just to go against the shitty rationalism...
...ok, I was kidding. Do you really expect me to do a 30 minutes video?!?!
Uhm... really time to go to bed. The level of jerkiness is reaching the red quadrant.
Love & Peace,
- Marco (engineer with nothing more to do than bore you to death)
JOURNAL: turboneko (Marco & Cristina)
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