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I hate it when a radio alarm clock song gets stuck in my head
2007-05-07 12:48:47
I also find it annoying when I'm ready to start an AMV project and suddenly several OTHER new songs/possibilities present themselves ... thanks a lot radio alarm clock!
Jenova's Brat is a go as soon as I can stomach working on it. Finally got my footage in order (I think - I'm waiting for someone to yell at me about how I managed to get everything the way I wanted) and my song is nicely chiseled down, with only one audible (to me) bad splice. Why does Audacity speed things up? I don't get it. I must not forget to use the 24FPS WAV, not the original...
For posterity, I'm going to assume the following about J.B. and go from here, because I've kind of lost track of how much work I've put into it, exactly:
Pre-processing: 20 hours
Editing: 10 hours
I've made it one of my goals this year to finish an AMV and actually be happy with the results, although the latter is kind of optional. -
*flops over dead*
2007-05-03 13:02:48
So, in an extreme case of AMV rage, I ripped asunder "Jenova's Brat" and determined to start anew. What I had is easily duplicated, all my special little graphics are still sitting around and I need a higher-quality AVI file because the old one isn't cutting it and Premiere is having trouble switching back to my AVS file.
My new AVI doesn't work. It's showing up black in Premiere, stutters in WMP but plays beautifully in VDM. After browsing the forums, I believe that I've done nothing inherently wrong and will try again tonight - for the fourth time in two days - to make a working AVI file. If I can't, I'm going to have to double check some of my other AMV project files and make sure THEY'RE still working, because perhaps Premiere has developed a fatal glitch and needs to be reinstalled. This wouldn't be the first time that's happened. If THAT doesn't work, well, I'm going to keep beating this dead horse until it's bestirred enough to crash my entire system. Won't that be a joy.
Ha, it's funny (not really) but I've gone through this kind of pre-processing hell with every single one of my AMV projects except my first one. Beginner's luck has apparently worn off. Either that or I'm not a beginner anymore. I think I'd rather be if this is how I'm going to be treated... -
Someone...someTHING is out to get me
2007-04-30 21:08:44
Final version of the pen tool tutorial should be in the hands of the admins now. No idea when it will go up, but I'll keep my eye out and wait for the screams, complaints and general criticisms to pour in. I'm really not looking forward to it.
This is nice: I decided to double-check my AVS script for "J.B.," just to make sure it's working like it should, and it decided it didn't like my oversight and promptly began crashing left and right. Worse, Premiere also felt like rebelling and refused to even consider my backup AVI file anymore. Even worse, VirtualDubMod suddenly became corrupted and wouldn't open - I barely got it uninstalled - and now my AMVapp installer isn't operating, either, and my damned dial-up connection keeps going down on me every time I try to get the program!
Here's what I want to know. After 2+ years of fighting tooth and nail with my computer, dozens of programs and umpteen "weird" issues related to video editing that basically have made it IMPOSSIBLE for me to get more than 1/4 of any of my AMV projects done (1/4? who the hell am I kidding, 1/16th is more like it) am I:
1. Incredibly stubborn
2. Really stupid
3. A glutton for punishment
4. Becoming more crazed by the minute
Number 4 looks pretty good to me right now. Good grief, I'm JUST TRYING TO MAKE A SIMPLE 3.5 MINUTE VIDEO HERE. Is THAT asking soooo much? NO, I don't THINK SO.
I'm trying not to think about the fact that all the work I did over the weekend on "J.B" is now down the drain unless I can trick Premiere into accepting the new AVI file that I am going to have to make once I get everything reinstalled. At .... wow, I almost said "At least I have my VOB files," but that would be pushing my luck. I'm also trying to forget that I'm still having problems with my Dirge of Cerbus files - they won't export nicely as AVI. -
No longer addicted :(
2007-04-28 19:31:15
Well, the 200-hour mark on an AMV seems to be my limit. I decided that I'm completely fed up with "Addict." This occurred after discovering that no, I'm not crazy, I am indeed missing a hefty number of crucial clips ... only SOME of which are on my DVD backups that I have been saving for just this reason. The idea of going back and finding/ripping/decoding/encoding/cleaning up the footage I need made me rather ill....so I decided I just won't.
This gives me the opportunity to shift focus onto "Jenova's Brat," which has several things going for it:
1. Less footage. "Addict" has 17+GB of footage to muck with, "J.B" has less than 3GB in a nicely contained 1-something hour file.
2. Nice quality. Saiyuki is not a model of clarity and consistency, making it impossible to use certain clips back to back without glaring problems ranging from off-model characters to color shifts. "Advent Children" might not be in HD, but it's pretty clean. Let's not get into how it compares to Dirge of Cerberus' FMVs, because I don't want to go there right now and can't find my .PSS player.
3. Clear progression. "Addict" is a hack-fest, lots of funny ideas that are good in my head, and on paper but weren't actually able to come together on screen. "J.B." I can pretty much see from start to finish with no black holes (well ok, except for the very first few seconds of the song, but I'm working on it).
4. Interest. I've been messing with "Addict" since the spring of 2005. That is patheti and the project has become boring and no longer inspires me. Further, I've forgotten half of what I wanted to do with it. Hypothyroidism may be to blame, but I think this is more just normal memory loss.
Whew. Oh yeah and:
5. I managed to cobble together about 20 seconds of Advent Children footage in 6 hours, which is like a world-record for me in terms of being happy with the results, though of course it needs lots of fine-tuning. This is extremely encouraging, however. I HATE it when I cannot get a scene right no matter how much I fuss with is and 99% of the time that is a HUGE red flag to stop and give up because it's just not working. So far, J.B. is working, which is pretty awesome. :D
p.s. Pen Tutorial fine-tuning day is tomorrow. Hopefully the file will be on its way to AMVers soon. -
2007-04-25 10:16:04
Portrait of the Addict
Pre-editing: 95
Editing: 90
Look! I'm getting really close to the 200-hour mark on this AMV of mine, with a whopping 15 seconds of video footage to show for it. Gotta love hard drive failure(s). Granted, I recently deleted a really bad sequence or three, which represented about 20-30 hours of stressing out labor, but I'm not going to keep something JUST because I worked for awhile on it. If it doesn't work, it gets the boot. As long as I'M the one deciding this, not my computer, then it's ok to delete stuff.
Last night I went back to my original plans for the intro, which folks have already told me looks good. After running through all the lyrics again, it dawned on me that this AMV is only about 3 minutes and 52 seconds long, way way WAY too short to be stressing over not having enough footage. Do you know how fast 10 seconds goes by? Pretty darn fast. I always try to cram too much stuff into too small a space, anyways. *sigh* Did I mention some of my notes for this AMV went missing? Yah, and there was some good stuff in there, too.
I'm quite please that my investment in a 250GB internal HD is paying off, AMV-wise, I have not had a single Premiere crash or stutter since I've rearranged my project so it has all the space it needs. I'll be working for about half an hour and suddenly realize that hey, I haven't restarted the program yet! Such a nice feeling...there is no way I'd continue with this if my computer persisted in its past bad behavior.
Note to self: Somewhere in this way too long journal I had an idea that was among the notes that went missing. Go find it.
JOURNAL: DriftRoot (Lauren C.)
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