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Second time's a charm?
2010-03-21 19:09:05
XII
Pre-edit: 2 hours
Edit: 0
The Good: I've been having some hard talks with myself. About silly things like why I want to make this AMV, why I don't want to, why - in the grand scheme of things - it doesn't matter very much. A small epiphany - mostly me remembering why I see value in creativity - led me to the conclusion that there is really nothing I love to do more than introduce something positive into the world which would not have existed without me. This could be rescuing a trout stuck in a muddy stream (check), donating money to charity (check) or making an AMV that - even for a few minutes - provides people with some entertainment (check). So if I can pull off XII, the creative factor alone would seem to be a pretty goodcattle prodincentive.
The Bad: Why is it taking so long just to rip clips? Usually I blast through this process, but it's taken me almost an hour to clipify one 24-minute episode.
The Ugly: Do I experiment with my grand gimmick before I actually attempt to frame an entire AMV around said gimmick? My experimenting is what drives me up the wall, but it's got to be done - now or later - and as much as I'm afraid to find out if what I have in mind looks terrible, it's the responsible thing to do.
In totally unrelated news: I finally watched that Twilight crap this week. All I have to say is: thank god I'm not a teenager anymore. :| Still, I fear for America's future if these are the role models for today's youth! The worst thing I had at that age to swoon over was...hrm...Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing. My friends and I would watch it over and over all day long, hotly debating exactly what it was he said when smashing in the window of his car. Life was simpler then. -
No AB for me
2010-03-11 20:37:24
This will be the second time I've missed Anime Boston since I first started going. I'm not too bummed, though. Past few years haven't really been the same as back in 2004/05, when anime was really getting up some good steam but hadn't gone mainstream...or whatever you want to call it. I mean BEFORE Barnes & Noble carried shelf after shelf of manga and the dealer's room was like a giant otaku all-you-can-eat buffet.
*sigh*
Getting terribly sick that one time also really put a damper on things. I can't walk around the convention center without thinking: "And there's where I sat half-comatose for three hours waiting for the Masquerade...and there's the video room I huddled in, trying to get warm..." Rather than all the happy memories, those tend to dominate, despite the fact that whole 2008 event is pretty much a blur.
Ergh...watching the AMV competition always gives me a huge boost, and I certainly need it, but no boost for me this year. I believe it's going to rain all weekend, so maybe I'll embark on the daunting task of compiling Gankutsuou footage for the third time. After I finish my AMV Hell failure of a clip. drat I gotta do that....
Bang Bang
Pre-edit: Nothing worth reporting, leftover footage is a great thing
Edit: 3 hours
The Good: This is a new kind of editing for me. Basically I'm not paying very much attention to what's going on onscreen and flinging around hard cuts like cross dissolves are going out of style. Which they have.
The Bad: After awhile I started to notice that what I was putting together made no sense whatsoever. This depressed me. I didn't feel so artsy and free anymore.
The Ugly: Since I'm attempting to parody a rather well-known, very well done parody...the chances of success are pathetically slim. This has never really stopped me before, however, (AMV Gods aside) so I guess I'll keep plowing ahead. I will report back this weekend. -
*scrubs eyes*
2010-03-05 20:31:37
So my tentative AMV plan is to make XII for AWA. This is pretty ridiculous - yes, I do realize that - but I feel I need a goal. I'm not getting anywhere near the creative outlet I used to professionally, however, so XII is a great place to go splurge and it does demand splurging. The bonus in my back pocket is that this AMV concept is rock solid (IMO, of course, but I tend to feel my opinion is a valid one), it therefore "only" falls on me to pull it off. Since my revelation that I'm at liberty to tell any story I want (oh the power!), hopefully things will go easier this time around. Maybe I should call this XII 2.0.
I intend to work on my other AMV Hell entry this weekend. That's a terrible way to spend a weekend and the weather is supposed to be nice, though, so I may let things slide a bit. :| I will be vastly more disappointed if Bacon Bits doesn't make the cut, than...er...what should I call it...
...something with the word "molestation" in it just ran through my head, but that's not quite right. Illicit Gains? Chess is for Queens? Bang Bang? uh...good grief no...AAGGHHH the visuals!! -
Onwards. :|
2010-03-01 07:31:34
Bacon Bits
Pre-editing: 24 hours
Editing: 10
The Good: Theoretically it's almost done.
The Bad: If there's one thing that describes my editing technique (as in working on an AMV), it's never satisfied. This is, for me, a symptom of being bad at editing and, in general, not knowing how to achieve what I want. It's an inefficient way to operate, b/c I often don't know what I want until I accidentally stumble upon it. I made this particular clip in record time, but as usual I'm fussing with the details, which blows up into fussing with non-details when I need to STOP and just leave well enough alone.
The Ugly: After this, I have to make my other approved AMV Hell clip...that's going to be a very difficult project. -
Ok, I admit it. I'm having fun.
2010-02-28 10:54:52
Bacon Bits
Pre-editing: 24 hours
Editing: 6
The Good: Considering this is a remake of a clip I made shortly after my first AMV, it's gotta be a positive sign that I'm about as happy with it now as I was then. It's still got oomph after my watching and critiquing it for several years.
The Bad: Happy yes, but this is a different animal now that it's an AMV Hell candidate. The high point of this clip is meant to occur some 20 seconds in and it still does, just fine, unless I'm creating an AMV Hell clip. Then I must back up the timeline some 4.22 seconds so as to ensure the clip is a coherent whole. Now the beginning is waaayyy too exciting. Someday I need to make an action AMV so I can get all of this out of my system.
The Ugly: This is not as bad as Sephiration Anxiety, but I just did the math and I am attempting to make a 30-second AMV Hell clip out of 35-ish seconds of source material. Not a lot of room for error or wiggling, and everyone has seen this footage so many times that tampering with it too much to eek out another second or two is probably going to be blatantly obvious. We'll see. I'm still probably going to have to tamper. If this wasn't FMV footage it'd be easier, this stuff is rather unforgiving, even compared to AC.
Also, I am still missing some vital source footage. This is absolutely ruinous, because one of the penultimate moments in my clip requires a 640x480 shot, but I can't seem to confirm that this particular shot even exists in a 640x480 format. Far as I can tell, it was shrunk-down (or cropped) widescreen footage with borders slapped on it to make it 640x480, which does NOT work! It looks terrible when resized and cropped.
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Given how many AMV Hell failed entries there are likely to be, that's a lot of wasted creativity. What am I supposed to do with this prized clip of mine that I've sunk so much time and energy into if it doesn't make the cut? I was going to propose an AMV Hell: Purgatory edition for the stuff that didn't quite qualify as damned for all eternity, but then realized the likely response to that and figured I should stop right here.
JOURNAL: DriftRoot (Lauren C.)
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