JOURNAL: Arigatomina

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  • re: QC-inspired funny vid idea 2006-08-23 18:42:32 I put the idea on the backburner for now. I'm working on other things at the moment, one of them time-sensitive. I didn't come up with a main character for the song, either, so it's still up in the air - I couldn't make it right now even if I had the time and wasn't working on other things. I'll come back to it in a month or so if you don't find anyone else to use the idea instead (though I might still do it regardless - I'm sneaky that way). You don't share vid ideas with me unless you don't mind me using them for myself someday. Word to the wise. ^.~ 
  • more random = more actiony? 2006-08-21 03:23:07 I may end up doing a running dialogue for this video. It's too bad I didn't start when I started the vid - it would have made for an interesting read after the project is finished (assuming I finish it).

    So I got to the first action section in the video. I've gotten a little less linear with my editing since getting a non-wmm editing program. But I still like to have my beta play through as much as possible before getting to the undone sections. That's how it is up to the first action section. The buildup makes me giggle (good sign) and I was really excited to see what I ended up doing with that first bash. And you know what I did? I closed Premiere down and started nabbing more footage to work with. ^_^;;

    I'm still working on the assumption that my video isn't looking actiony because I wasn't approaching it right. I didn't gather the right sort of footage so what I imagine with the footage I did gather isn't looking right. Or something like that. The bottom line is I got ready to drop a clip and realized the vid might look more action and less dance/drama if I had more fighting scenes. More characters, more random, less focus on the same people featured for the slow lyric sections. Most of those characters don't have the best action scenes in their respective anime - I chose them because they fit the mood of the slow sections, and they were the first ones I thought of to fit the theme of the song. It was like an instant match with quite a few of them. Then I got into a color-code where I limited myself to only characters with similar looks. I wanted the video to have some sense of it all fitting together despite the fact that some of the anime really have nothing in common with each other at all. That's a drawback when the fast sections are supposed to be random action.

    That leaves me where I am now, still getting yet more footage. I swear, I have enough footage on my external hardrive to make seven videos without ever reusing a clip. I'd even have a few gigs of unused clips left over. That doesn't include one anime I deleted from the clip collection due to realizing - once I tried to lay it in the video - that the character design clashed horribly compared to the others. What sucks the most about this is that...well...I really don't have that much space left on my drive. Heh, this is worse than when I ripped all...is it 32? 112 episodes, 2 movies, 3 ova dvds (4gigs on one, 3 on the other two)...of the YYH dvds at the same time for my Cry For Me vid. Looking on the bright side, I may end up keeping some of the series clips and using them for specific videos when I'm done with this one. Maybe. Probably not, but maybe. It would be less of a waste of time if I did.

    Anyway! I'm back to footage gathering. This time I'm not going to actually do the huffyuv clips for the extra anime. I'm just putting the pertinent vobs on the comp so I can scan them and nab clips as I go along. When I gather a lot of clips like this, I don't preprocess them unless I know for a fact that I'm using them in the video. So it won't be any different from having to rework the huffyuv clips - I can clean them up at the same time I'm nabbing them - only the ones I definitely will use. It's something I picked up from my last few vids. I was shocked to find that my last vid only took up 2 gigs of actual footage - that's huffyuv clips at 720x480. Horrible. Even back when I was planning every single clip in the video out, I averaged 4 to 6 gigs each. If anyone could do this (with a little patience), I won't listen to any more complaints about only having a 6gig harddrive. Complaints about ram shortages, processing power, sure, but not disc space. By the time I'm done with this vid I'll have around 80gigs of clips to delete - and only 2 to 3 gigs of clips I actually used (which can be burned to dvd along with the project file - shocking - so much for having to edit via avisynth if you want to redo your project someday, I can just keep the huffyuv clips).

    Yeah. I'm rambling now. Ripping is boring. I'll have it done by this afternoon so hopefully I can go back to editing by evening. I don't want to lose my motivation by getting distracted with this one. I'm too psyched to see it done, especially since it means I can clear some harddrive space. ;p 
  • action vs drama/dance 2006-08-20 13:01:28 So I'm editing, right? And I get the intro done (probably one of the only 'effect-ish' parts of the video, and hence the longest to put together, export, import, add to, export, etc till completion). And then I start in on the soft parts because I like those parts best. I was aiming for an action video - the song has some fun action sections in it. I haven't done a real multi-anime action video since 'Fallen' - vid #45 in my collection. It's been a while. I thought it would be fun to be random because it's an action video. So why for the love of god is it looking all dramatic and stuff?? Sure, I haven't done the action sections yet, but still. I can tell just by looking at the avialable footage I ripped to use in the video. Even if I make the action as random as possible, the drama 'wannabe storytelling' in the soft chorus's make the entire thing into a drama vid that just happens to involve some action and fast editing.

    Is it because I like character closeups and eyes? Or maybe because I rarely show the nameless villains when I nab action scenes featuring my favorite characters? Or a combination of the two? Or is it the relative lack of flashing effects to make the on-beat punches/kicks/etc look cooler than they already are?

    Just from imagining the sections I've already planned in my head (when I was ripping the scenes) I realize the vid is going to look like a drama/dance vid. What the hell?

    I already knew I couldn't edit action videos well. That's not the question. I should still be able to *make* an action video when I set out to do one. I'm beginning to wonder if my definition of an 'action amv' is wrong. No matter how random and actiony it seems when I'm nabbing clips, the moment I put them on the timeline the way I imagined them, I get 'dance/drama'. It's not even a dance song. It's like soft rock, I think, or maybe angry pop rock. I have no idea what genre the song falls into. I just know that in the hands of any other amv-editor on this site, the video would end up being an action video. Maybe a drama/action video, but the action would be there. It's not fair.

    I don't remember how to make an action video. And I've been here 3+ years. I'm gonna go cry now. ~_~ 
  • Ouran Host Club + general 2006-08-09 03:50:17 I finally broke down and watched a few eps of this series. I've been seeing so many comedy vids to it recently, mostly by familiar editors (which is odd in itself - usually they don't all jump the same anime) that I figured it must be a really popular anime. The last time I saw so many vids for the same anime, it was when Fullmetal Alchemist hit cartoon network, and then the Azumadiaoh chibi-pigtail+cats anime binge. I don't think Ouran is anywhere near that popular, but enough people are using it to make me wonder. I'd already marked it on my 'to watch' list because of the promise of bishonen and a likeable female lead character. I've only watched a few episodes so far, but it's really cute and funny. I don't know if I'd call it refreshing, but it's enjoyable for an anime that's spawned a sudden outburst of comedy vids on the org. Once I finish watching the rest of the episodes I have, I look forward to downloading a few of the amvs I've been seeing announced lately. I'm really curious to see what people have been doing with an anime that's already outrageous and fanservicy. I mean, a lot of the jokes are based on three-second silences followed by extreme character reactions to the dialogue, but there are plenty of shoujo-styled scenes that, depending on the context, could be used for romance or humor. I think this is a case where you'd have to use a funny song to keep the spirit of the 'joke scenes'. Taken out of context, they're no different from the flowery shots in any shoujo romance anime - think Fushigi Yuugi or even Loveless. I've only watched 3 episodes, but I really don't think I could use this anime for a comedy video, let alone a whole mess of them like some peole seem to be doing. It reminds me of Gakuen Heaven. The comedy is reliant on the context of the dialogue and episode setting, so how are they using for comedy amv fodder? My guess is the funny expressions and dramatic 'facefault' shots, but that would only take a video so far. Not having watched any vid for the series, yet, I expect whatever I find they're doing will surprise me. Maybe it'll help me look at some of my 'non-amv-compliant' anime in a different way. After all, if these editors can take an anime I don't see as being good amv fodder and make multiple popular vids out of it, they must be seeing something I didn't catch. I'm not really all that interested in making amvs these days and a large part of that is tied to the fact that I'm not getting ideas anymore, even when I purposely scout out new enjoyable series to watch. I can't wait for this month to be over. I fully intend to download a crapload of semi-recent vids and see if I can get my interest/motivation back up. Maybe I'll even break down and try watching Fullmetal Alchemist again. There are so many fans of that anime, and so many popular vids, that surely it can't be as boring as the first dvd made me think it was. I wouldn't mind rewatching some of my older favorite anime, either. I boycotted YYH unless someone requests a specific character+song match, but that doesn't mean I can't keep rewatching and obsessing over it. Good times. I adore Tsubasa, xxxHolic, and Princess Princess D, but I miss my old shonen anime. The new stuff just doesn't get my 'wanna make a vid or twenty' motivation stirring like the oldies did. I still wanna make a Tsubasa vid, but by the time enough episodes come out to have footage, I might not even be makign vids anymore. Wow, is it ever slow waiting for an anime to catch up to the manga.

    Which brings me to another thing I don't wanna write about that much. I'm afraid I'll start hating Clamp soon. I've heard rumors that disturb me. I heard they quit writing Legal Drug because there weren't enough girls in the story and they prefer drawing girls in their manga. That's herecy to me. I heard Japanese readers of the xxxHolic manga are really disappointed with where they're taking it now (far ahead of the scanlation groups). Makes me really wonder about that "we don't feel like drawing if there aren't lots of girls in it" rumor. How did they ever get so many books for the X manga if they don't like bishonen? And thanks to a spoiler for Tsubasa RC (chapters 140+) I'm left wondering if Clamp doesn't have a really sad obsession with the missing/troublesome eye thing. They already have two characters with that eye thing - maybe three if we assume Subaru has the same affliction he and Seishiro did in X. Now I hear they're doing it to yet another one down the road in the story? Are they trying to be as predictable as possible? They've already reused the same crossover characters so many times that I'm beginning to wonder if they just forgot about their other series. I liked Tomoyo in CCS, and I liked her the first four times she showed in Tsubasa. But honestly, use someone else once in a while. Every episode it's the same old faces, just a different setting. I know it's the same way in most of the manga, but seeing it on screen - with added fillers showing those same faces even more often - is severly annoying. At least I can be sure they won't quit writing for Tsubasa since Sakura is a main character - can't complain about lack of pretty girls to draw when you have the same girl doing five minute still frame closeups in every episode. Yeah, that rumor bugs me the most. I've never heard of a popular manga group just quitting a series like that, especially for such a stupid reason. Not enough girls in the series? Isn't that the entire *point* of the series? Why'd they start it if they knew only stories centered around lots of pretty girls could maintain their interest? Blegh. And I was told they started out doing bishonen-centric doujinshi. Traitors. 
  • computer strangeness 2006-08-06 03:12:35 There are a few websites I visit that have really troublesome popups. I'm talking the kind of popups that auto-download themselves so fast all I catch is the 'cache' bar and then the "click yes to restart your computer" messege. They're gallery websites, so I don't visit them that often, just when I'm on the lookout for a higher quality copy of one of the pics I have for an anime. Since it's only those sites - and I'm warned by past experience before visiting them - I usually open Opera and use that till I find what I'm looking for. For some reason it can read the popup pages without getting the auto-installers that go with them.

    Now for the strangeness. I've been using Opera off and on for over a year. Every time I use it, I have to go into the My Computer folder, into Programs, into the Opera folder and double-click the icon. Every time I have to do that, I make a shortcut of that icon and paste it to my main screen - so I won't have to go into the folders next time. And - here's the strangeness - everytime I close Opera and go back to IE, that shortcut disappears. Sometimes it waits a day, once it waited nearly a week, but it disappears. The next time I go to use Opera, I'll have to create a new shortcut. I've never had the shortcut stick around long enough to keep me from needing to open all those folders to get to the Opera icon.

    Weird. I've had that happen with Nandub in the past - the 'disappearing shortcut' mystery. To this day I have to open My Documents to get to the Nandub folder because the shortcut can't survive on the main page for more than a day before something eats it. The Nandub shortcut I don't mind as much. I rarely even open that program anymore. The Opera one I just don't understand. That program was installed to my main "programs" folder. It *should* have been listed with the other programs in my Start Menu. I shouldn't need to make a shortcut on the main page. And since it's in the 'programs' folder, it has as much place with the other shortcuts I've made as my Showbiz and Premiere shortcuts. It's not like all my other non-microsoft shortcuts are disappearing. Just Opera and Nandub. The big question - Why?

    I'm writing this down for two reasons. One, so that hopefully I'll remember to keep an eye on the shortcut so I'll notice exactly how long it lasts before disappearing. Two, so I have proof to myself that it disappeared on its own. The last few times I tried to pass it off. I thought, maybe I did a system restore and just forgot to replace the shortcut. Or maybe the computer locked up and the most recent changes to the main page weren't saved when I turned it back on. I'm convinced it's something else eating my shortcuts. I just need to catch it in the act. >.> 
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