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Back on track (I'm at work, so Premiere can't see this)
2008-02-04 10:15:53
'Bustin
Pre-edit: 50
Editing: 132
The Good: Z says Uncompressed RGB = None. I can export my AMV. 'Nuff said. Other good things: I replaced my cop-out ending with something a bit more spectacular, which is to say, not boring; my 2/3 cha-ching crowd pleaser AE sequence is now cha-ching all the way, though some of it's funnier than the rest; I tweaked and fiddled with every single synch issue to get them as close to perfect as possible; I am "over" resolving remaining synch issues because it can't be done without ripping apart my AMV in several places...which I'm just not going to do for the sake of synching three frames better.
The Bad: Erm...well, not much. One fix I made last night threw something else off, but that's about it. Also I keep going back and forth on the finale ending (aka Cloud's cool pose) about whether it actually looks right or not. It doesn't...but it took me a long, long time to get it this far and I know very well how dicey the situation is...so...it's entirely possible it will never look right. :(
The Ugly: The faster I can get this thing exported and compressed, the better. I am getting incredibly nervous about everything, now. -
Premiere peeked at my journal, saw the words "finish line" and said "I don't THINK so!"
2008-02-03 20:18:44
'Bustin
Pre-edit: 50
Editing: 131
Yeap. Suddenly I can't export my AMV, crashes Premiere at frame 2849 every single *bleeping* time. Even my autosaves can't be exported. No fancy effects are to blame, I didn't change anything, so I see no reason whatsoever for this to be occurring, and if I wasn't so used to this kind of mistreatment, I might be freaking out right about now. Instead, I'll calmly post my predicament in the forum and see what results.
Nevertheless, there's definitely an undercurrent of hysteria here. This was supposed to be a HAPPY journal entry...
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The finish line is most definitely in sight
2008-02-02 14:52:21
'Bustin
Pre-edit: 48
Editing: 129
I'll bet I hit 200 hours with this project. Maybe. It really depends on how crazed I get at the very last moment and whether something goes terribly wrong during the encoding process, and since nothing - absolutely nothing - I have ever done AMV-wise has gone right the first time I've tried it...well, something's going to go wrong because I haven't done MPEG-2 or MP4 yet. And bumpers for this thing? HA, that'll get me up to and past 200 easy. And at least the bumpers I can take my sweet time with, there's no deadline - well ok, I could theoretically make March 22 the deadline, but I can make that easy.
The good: everything on my to-do list has been done, pretty much. Well, kind of. Let's just say that in doing them, I created other problems that now are going to eat up what's left of my time. Like the creative binge I'm going on trying to resolve a lingering issue relating to the ending, which is related to my oft-expressed concern that 'Bustin doesn't actually represent the kind of editing I admire or like to do. Staring at the ending, I thought - hey, what about my massive white additive dissolve "trick?" It worked REALLY well last time! It gets me out of a bad transition problem, it gets IN a clip I can't otherwise use and it gives the viewer the hint that if I can do this, then perhaps the rest of the AMV was put together the way it was for a reason.
The bad: I'm not sure that the last quarter of the AMV adequately supports my creative binge. I don't want people sitting there like "Woah!! Where'd all THIS come from?!" Once again I lament my lack of resources to put out a beta and test the waters, so to speak.
The ugly: I have a really bad feeling my attempt at MPEG-2 is going to go down in flames, preventing me from entering AB this year. At least if I fail, I'll have a whole year to figure it out and try again. @_@
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Mebbe, mebbe not
2008-01-31 10:17:00
'Bustin
Pre-edit: 45
Editing: 125
I think I MIGHT have gotten the track matte to work acceptably. It's not perfect, I've resigned myself to the fact that it probably will never be perfect, but right now I really need to move on to other things. Really really.
It's kind of funny to me how I never came up with a better title than 'Bustin, since one of my pet peeves is unoriginal AMV titles. The case for its appropriateness can be made, of course, particular AFTER one watches the AMV, but still...WCWSWKIA would have been funnier, if a little too bizarre. At least no one else seems to have called a Ghostbusters AMV 'Bustin...that would be completely unacceptable.
I really want someone to be eating/drinking when they watch 'Bustin and wind up spewing their food/beverage across their monitor at something particularly outrageous I did. That would absolutely make all this worth it. Or they could choke and have a coughing fit, that would be nice, too. I know I personally had a few moments of flat out @_@ !!! XD *cough cough cough* !!! XD !!! *cough, gasp*
Oh well. After this, no one can say I don't have a sense of humor at least. -
My idiocy has got to be legendary by now, and I mean several kinds of idiocy
2008-01-30 12:12:00
'Bustin
Pre-edit: 45
Editing: 124
Spent another two hours on my track matte. Failure is still the operative word. The crux of the problem is that I have two variables controlling what amounts to the location of the track matte: the motion variable and the scale variable. One would think the motion in this equation would be the operative factor, and the scale is just influencing how big the matte is, however it’s the SCALE which is really giving the matte its unique movement because it’s dictating the location of the matte’s components, causing them to move off screen/on screen as they get larger and larger and, essentially, pushing one another out of the way. This is a bad, bad situation, because I think I’m up against some kind of mathematical brick wall that prevents me from achieving the motion and scale I want within the amount of time I have to do it, basically 2 and a half seconds.
I started with one clip controlling both scale and motion. It can’t get the job done alone, though, so I made a nested sequence which adds another layer of scale and motion control. That works better, however the four variables at play (2 scale, 2 motion) have to interact perfectly to avoid screwing one another up. They don’t, and it’s a very, VERY delicate matter, so I’ve got a second nested sequence incorporating the first sequence (which incorporates the first clip) adding another layer of scale and motion to the picture– albeit a minor one, because this thing is “off” just enough to be noticeable, but a twitch in the wrong direction and it falls apart completely…and it STILL doesn’t look right.
I HAVE to get this right, because I kind of suspect it’s at this point that doubting Thomases will either keep watching the AMV or stop completely. The sequences immediately following this effect also takes a hit if one is not trying to catch their breath…I want dazed and disoriented viewers who are susceptible to being taken by surprise, not bored viewers who sit there and tick off what’s wrong with my editing. if this effect isn't right, they're going to be the latter. -_-
This is where not having access to any means of file transfer over a high-speed connection is killing me. I’m sure someone around here could give me some advice, but it’s extremely hard to explain the situation…hmm, maybe I could get a tiny, compressed version of the two and a half seconds small enough to e-mail. @_@ That might work!
The bad part is that I would rather be spending my last two weeks on this AMV fine tuning things that are ok, but could be better, not struggling with a very big effect that might not even be possible to achieve. I've got one version of it right now that will have to do if I can't resolve the situation, but I will be seriously depressed about it.
JOURNAL: DriftRoot (Lauren C.)
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