-
I am so sick of this AMV
2007-09-05 10:13:24
S.A.
Pre-edit: 14?
Editing: 94
I'm also sick for real. Not sick enough (yet) to miss work, which is good since I don't have any sick time left, but sick enough to wish I DID have sick time left.
Sephiration Anxiety is nearly done. I’m disappointed with the quality of the final encode, but it seems like AC is kind of hard to get sparkly clean AND compressed. The DAR and PAR still look bad to me as well, regardless of the fact that I supposedly did it all correctly. At least it doesn't look as bad as some of the other stuff I've seen out there. The goal is to upload the AMV early next week. I have crazy ideas about the intro/outro bumpers that I need to experiment with, but if they turn out to be too much trouble, I’ll probably go with something much more low key. I really want to animate my signature, though. Hrm… -
I will finish this by the end of the month. I swear!
2007-09-04 12:47:57
Of course now you know my hard drive will fail for a third time (the cause of my other AMVs' demises).
S.A.
Pre-edit: 14?
Editing: 92
Finishing touches are being put in place. I’ve realized a little belatedly that worrying about the flow of scenes – making them completely logical – would require me to rip 2/3 of the AMV apart and do it all over again, which is not going to happen, so people are just going to have to give me a break in that department. I guess in this case, having several instances of illogical scene progression is a plus, since then I can obviously point out that if someone’s going to complain about X instance, they’d better complain about all the others (which are less noticeable, granted). I can also make the case that the illogical instances occur at logical places. Besides, Advent Children is so chock full of fast cuts and weird angles and things that what I’ve done is no worse than what the movie does. In fact there’s one place where I think what I did looks BETTER than what the screenplay set up…but that may just be me. ^_^ Ergh, so, after aforementioned touches are done, it’s on to the bumpers and figuring out my colossally screwed up DAR.
I got my far-traveled Aaron Copland CD, finally. Popped it in my car CD player, spent a few minutes trying to find “Rodeo/Hoe Down” and then suffered a claustrophobic sinking sensation when the song came on, very very fast, very very tinny. I actually thought my CD player was on the fritz (despite the fact that all the other songs played nicely) and held out this faint glimmer of denial/hope until I got home and put it in the stereo. Sure enough, Leonard Bernstein turned the song I bought a whole new CD for into an unusable cacophony. So now I either have to stick with what I’ve got, an inferior and incomplete version of the song, or try to find a compilation that presents the song as I’ve almost always heard it, Leo or no. It would help if I remembered who performed the preferred version of the song…I keep thinking it’s the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, but I have no idea why.
Anybody want a brand new Aaron Copland CD? $5 plus S&H! -
Getting closer
2007-08-29 10:33:42
S.A.
Pre-edit: 14?
Editing: 89
Watch. I'll sink exactly 100 hours of editing into this thing when it's finally done. Completely and utterly shameful. It's a darn good thing I don't do this for a living because I take waaayyy too long with this stuff.
I'm not a very fast designer, either, regardless of what my employer thinks. Oh yeah, I can turn out something that looks nice fairly quickly, but more involved or "experimental" projects take an unacceptably (to me) long time. I even used to get in trouble for this in college...almost missed a big competition way back in high school (and a second place award) because I took so long...come to think of it, I did not make it in time, my work had to be entered the following year...not fair entirely fair; I was essentially presenting work I'd done as a junior against that of people who were seniors. -_-
Bleh. Anyways. I'm going camping in N.H. with family for four days, so that will be an extremely welcome break from all things computer and design oriented. Though my mother wants me to revamp her business' logo. Ergh... -
Surprise surprise
2007-08-28 10:20:51
This will make the fourth time I’ve changed my mind about what S.A. is going to look like when it’s finally released. After coming up with a half-ass explanation for why I replaced the more unique parts of the old AMV with various action scenes used in probably 90% of the A.C. vids out there, my own words about not ever wanting or intending to simply rehash Cloud and Sephiroth’s fight finally crumbled my resolve.
S.A. looks snazzier with more of the fight scenes, but those scenes are so overused in AMVs that unless you were completely unfamiliar with AC, it’s nothing anyone hasn’t seen before. This AMV of mine is never going to be memorable for special effects (there are almost none) and by default an AC vid can’t really be memorable simply because of the footage, so that leaves me with the song – which is quite unique ‘round here – and presentation, which I originally took great care with to make as different as possible. The new version’s presentation is a step up from just a play-by-play depiction of the big fight, but not enough by itself to make it a positive, so it's getting the ax!
Oh and SubO, why in the world did you watch my beta version six times in a row and then complain about being bored? What the hell were you expecting from me, something entertaining enough for six runs? I can only think of two or three AMVs that I would even consider watching that many times in a row, and even those would probably get a little "eh" after awhile. Sephiration Anxiety is not Magic Pad!
I think what’s really bugging me is the thought of that originality rating on the opinion scale. Most of my AMV ideas are pretty original* and the idea of making something that people have seen done ten thousand times before is pretty much all it takes to make that idea completely unacceptable to me. If only more people followed this philosophy...imagine how many fewer AMVs there would be and how much higher their collective originality.
*I must not forget the awesome idea I had for my someday Gankutsuou AMV while sweating buckets at the gym last night. I must not!! If I do a good enough job, it could even go in my portfolio! Yay! Using a hobby for personal gain, yay!
-
They sent it to Rhode Island??
2007-08-27 12:16:39
Amazon is getting more and more retarded.
S.A.
Pre-edit: 14?
Editing: 87
I'm still not happy, and that's a bad state of mind to be in when preparing to upload an AMV, but I've kind of resigned myself to presenting S.A. as is. I figure if I make enough self-deprecating remarks about it in the info panel, then maybe I can communicate the feeling of being less than proud of what I've created.
Then WTF is the POINT of making the damned AMV, Drift??
The point is that I finally finished an AMV, went from being quite pleased with what I had to seeing its underlying flaws, attempted to fix said flaws and now am stuck between a rock and a very hard place. What I had wasn't good enough, what I have isn't better in ways that make me feel warm fuzzies, but I'm not going to waste any more time on this project. I did what I wanted to do - on a certain level - and that's the end of that.
JOURNAL: DriftRoot (Lauren C.)
Current server time: Jan 19, 2026 02:56:15