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2006-02-14 21:09:31
Pre-editing - 95
Editing - 65
AMV completed - less than 15 seconds that I now feel is not accomplishing what it's supposed to: good news is I acknowledge this, bad news is I've got to fix it.
The highs and lows of my recent AMVing are really pretty disturbing- I need to find something else to get worked up about. Good thing I've got this wonderful school helping me to focus on what's really important in life: making sure other people don't screw you over.
Good stuff: See above
Bad stuff: Man...too much.
What I've learned recently that may help others avoid my mistakes:
1. Be careful when importing master timelines from other Premiere projects into new projects, deleting the latter "Sequence 1" timeline in favor of using the other timelines. Premiere doesn't like this at all, crashing may ensue, among other strange events.
2. The PICVideo M-JPEG codec is available to noncommercial users for only $28 - a real bargain. If the the folks at Pegasus send you an "order delayed" message questioning your e-mail or credit card information, they're just trying to make sure you're a real person, not a spam distributor.
3. Don't let other people tell you how to think. Heh.
Someday I'm going to put in all my forum signatures: "If I haven't ticked you off yet, please be assured that it will, eventually, happen. I'd apologize in advance, but that's exactly what you'll be hoping for and, when no apology is forthcoming, why you'll be ticked off. I feel for you, I really do....ticked off, yet?" Someday just turned into now.
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Ahh...much better
2006-02-10 15:57:44
Now that I've accepted being unable to meet the April 1 deadline for AB, my AMVing is suddenly a much more relaxed experience. Of course, now I'm in danger of slacking off.
I have a suspicion the multiple projects I've imported into my current project is causing Premiere major panic attacks. I'm not sure how to resolve the situation, however. The best I can come up with is to save my master timeline as a good sequence, start a whole 'nother project with one of the old, old ones project files and import that sequence. :( I can't bother with starting a new project from scratch because I've got about 18.6 GB worth of clips all perfectly sorted into nice bins and I am NOT going to go through that again. Plus, that has big potential for screwing up all the work I've done so far.
Pre-editing: 95
Editing: add four hours to whatever I had before. I need to remember to check this before clicking on "new journal entry."
Dumb moment of the week: This is building off a forum entry I made, but basically I have a terrible habit of going the most outrageous, complex and difficult route to achieve something when the obvious and simple route (which I end up taking after many detours) will serve perfectly. I've spent more than 10 or 12 hours fiddling with a three or four second piece of my AMV, trying out various special effects, keyframe settings etc. to get the look I want. Attempts to keep "stay simple!" in mind did not win out - or maybe it did on a certain level, I could have gone wild with effects, but my mantra right now is that effects are like makeup: correctly applied, things look beautiful and people don't even realize what you've done. I think I've got things pretty much set, now, and of course it's all really stripped down compared to what I had originally. Fortunately, what I've got now is what I was going for all along, so at least my idea was sound.
More people need to have the ability to recognize excessive use of effects (and why they ARE excessive), put a stop to them and move on. I predict my problem with this AMV is going to be building up more and more effects - I've got a plan, but it's rough. It's going to take me awhile to get things worked out. It MUST be nice, it MUST be logical and it MUST (somehow) be hilarious. So what's this? February 9? Huh, I've got a ways to go. -
The Church Lady speaks, "Well isn't that special!"
2006-02-07 15:40:57
Brief elation has been followed by annoyed resignation. I had a nic yelling-without-yelling conversation with the student advisor of my school this afternoon, told her in so many words that she and everyone else there, so far, has been full of B.S. and experienced some satisfaction by pointing out several bald-faced lies she actually tried to get by me. Does she think I'm stupid, or something? Has she never been told her mantra about the program is seething with falsities? AAARRGHHH!! Heh, the best part was when she answered the phone and I told her my name and there was this 10-second silence as she tried to remember who I was. This, despite the three voice messages I've left, despite the e-mails I've sent and despite the messages I'd left with other people to give to her when she wouldn't return my calls.
Long and short of it is that I'll "restart" the program on Feb. 20, attending classes Mondays and Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays and Thursdays (which actually works out better for me, employment-wise). I'd love to know if they're going to slap the $45 drop/transfer fee on me. If they do, I'll pay by check with a very unflattering note on the memo line. I should report them to the state Board of Education.
This is both bad and good, AMV-wise. Good because now I've got about one more full week of carefree, pedal to the metal editing. Bad because after that, I'm really going to be swamped. I very much doubt I'll fulfill this year's goal of entering a video at Anime Boston. *massive, massive sigh*
I kind of wish I had a partner for this project. Theoretically, we could get it done in half the time. Practically speaking, however, I'm a control freak and would never be able to do such a thing. -
Journal entry take two
2006-02-07 08:58:02
Prep: 95
Editing: 55
This journal entry was eaten by an unfriendly browser. To sum up:
Dumb moment of the week: My audio needs to be 48 MGHZ for AB and I thought I'd taken care of everything. I hadn't, and had to create yet another project to import my previous project into with the proper sample rate. This means all my painstakingly-applied timeline markers are no longer on my master timeline. This will be fixed, somehow, don't worry, I'm pretty sure I know my options.
Happy things: I've reached the 18 second mark or so on my AMV. Not saying I'm done with that 18 seconds, but still, it's nice. Also, someone standing over my shoulder last night said they thought what I've got so far is funny. This is good, but also worrisome, since I've not even gotten to the (hopefully) laugh-out-loud stuff and the humor that's in that 18 seconds is more contextual than gag. I really need to have my Adam Sandler humor -oving sister set up to regularly review this AMV. She loves to tell me I'm stupid and boring, after all.
Not-so-happy thing: That 18 seconds? It took me about 40 hours to get that far, or 2.2 hours per second. Now, above and beyond whatever "average" time it takes to edit one second of AMV footage, for me this is terrible because if I'd known what I was about in the first place, I could have finished those 18 seconds in about 10 hours. Ok, so I'm picky, so I like to fiddle and experiment and mess around with stuff before settling on what's perfect (and I use that term subjectively). I'm debating right now whether to move on and leave the tweaking for later, or make darn sure the finishing touches are in place NOW so I can reference them later and save myself time by copying and pasting effects and keyframes.
Something new I learned: It's important to have several milliseconds of footage on either end of your clip, since you can't center a transition on a cut which doesn't have these extras to work with. Huh? Yeah, it makes sense if you think about it, but I still don't think it's fair. My footage is all very precisely cut, in some cases I cannot tweak the clips to create extra milliseconds. I'll have to turn them into sequences if I get in a jam. -
p.s.s.
2006-02-04 21:30:56
Prep: 95
Editing: 47
Look at that hideousness, I'm almost halfway caught up with my prep time!
There's an AMV.org banner playing right now that gives the ingredients for an AMV. It lists three weeks of work. Erm... back to back hours, or just weeks in general? I've got almost four months under my belt, so far. @_@
JOURNAL: DriftRoot (Lauren C.)
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