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Must...write down...idea...
2005-12-29 15:59:48
Uh...what was my idea. Oh yeah, a little disclaimer for my AMV-to-be:
"The creator of this AMV is not a rabid fangirl, does not see Sha Goyjo as an out-of-control womanizer and has absolutely no interest in yaoi subject matter. For those about to be aggravated, titillated, emasculated or hyper-stimulated, please remember that Saiyuki-creator Minekura Kazuya is all about depraved bishounen fantasy, so blame this on her."
:D Yah? Yah? Too bad I can't show this at AB, assuming "Addict" is finished, is entered and gets some screen time, which is really unlikely. *makes a note to ask if things get to that point* God help me, I do NOT need some crazed otaku screaming for my blood at a convention. This disclaimer could be considered a security measure.
Total hours:
What did I say before? 74? 75? Raise it to 76/77. Only three more discs to go! (Or five, if I need more footage.) I listened to my song last night for about 45 minutes straight, got some more ideas and threw out some old ones I was pretty sure were set in stone. Things are on track, which is good. -
Back on track
2005-12-28 14:17:44
Holidays are pretty much over and I'm back at VDM, slogging my way through eight more discs. Raise total hours to 74.
The last disc (3? 4? - I'm starting to lose count) took me almost two hours to go through, but fortunately contained a lot of decent clips (which is why it took me so long). There was a minor setback with Disc 2 because it was encoded differently than Disc 1 and required some significant alterations to its AVS script, alterations which amused themselves by crashing VDM. Yah. Fortunately, the subsequent discs all seem to be encoded the same, so hopefully I won't have to go through THAT again. WHY Disc 1 is hybrid footage if the later discs are all pure interlaced is beyond me.
I am worrying a little about the clips from Disc 2 (fortunately not many), because my AVS script had a very hard time deinterlacing the footage and they look pretty bad compared to my other clips. Lucky for me, I am organizing my clips by disc so I'll know which to stay away from, unless it's absolutely necessary I use them. Another source of concern is how Premiere keeps failing to properly import certain clips. This only necessitates a restart of the program to fix, but it is disturbing - what's going to happen if one of those clips is placed on the timeline and decides to go bad on me?
After helpful help from forumgoers, I've browsed some AMVs that also used manga (to good effect). I dutifully posted my stars and quick comments, as well. Those videos didn't so much provide me with ways to use manga as dump on my brain some fertile ground for my own ideas. I find that, unless I actually sit down and start to write out my ideas/plans, they don't get very far. But I should already know all about this from my college days. Here's a shocking dose of reality that reared its ugly head just now: this fall my high school class will celebrate its 10th reunion. EEK!!! Fortunately, I'm not going! AHAHAHAHAHA!!! -
Thing's I've learned about anime
2005-12-26 10:59:57
You know, one doesn't really begin to appreciate how sloppy a lot of recent anime is until you go back and look at "older" series made just a few years ago. As I understand it (and I've been wrong before...anyways), Saiyuki was one of the earliest anime to be made digitally. If you start going through that series and really looking at how it was put together, it's startling how many special effects easily done in Premiere were applied JUST for artistic merit. It's also pretty obvious which episodes were given to a different animating team (primarily the filler episodes, which are horrible things) - but what's funny is how different the screenplay and effects become in these filler episodes. I can almost see some room full of animators and whatnot gleefully piling on all the "cool" stuff they possibly can just to make their mark on the series.
What this all comes down to is that the later iterations of Saiyuki (Reload/Gunlock) far pretty short of the original series almost excusively because of their lackluster animation. I detest Reload/Gunlock and am only keeping up with them for the sake of knowing what's going on. I expect more than a few people (if my "Addict" AMV is ever finished) who've seen Gunlock will wonder why I didn't include one particular episode that focuses exclusively on Goyjo's womanizing. Well, it's stupid and looks terrible, that's why! Yeesh.
Anyways, the amount of work put into the screenplay of Saiyuki actually is pretty impressive (IMO), particularly as the series is getting older all the time and does not look as slick as more modern ones. It's also worth noting that, many times, they used these special effects in conjunction with some of the nicer animation (not to cover up rampant shortcuts), which makes them look even better. If you are familiar with how Premiere works, then all the effects used REALLY jump out at you when they happen in the series (look, look! they overlayed that track onto the background and made it travel up the screen and then used the border function before flashing a white matte!)
This is both helping and hindering my AMV, because oftentimes effects I would want to apply to a particular scene cannot be, since the original animators already messed around with it too much. On the other hand, there are some sequences of original effects that I probably will use with the added benefit of not having to tweak them myself.
^_^ In audio-land, after listening to my music over and over on my stereo, I fear that the quality is not consistent enough to use for a big event like AB. I ordered the CD off Amazon, and we'll see if I can improve on how my AMV sounds with that. Unfortunately, if I decide to do this, then I have to redo all my audio edits, which will be a massive headache.
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Merry Christmas, you bastards!
2005-12-22 14:21:54
Mmm, so AMV project has slowed to a deathlike crawl (blame the holidays). This is OK, though, because I needed a little break. I verified last night that my Disc 1 clips all work properly in Premiere, and now must burn them to DVD for archival purposes.
So, what's that "Merry Christmas, you bastards!" about? Our annual company Christmas party just wrapped up, and once again I was yelled at, multiple times, for my version of the Yankee Swap, DESPITE the fact that I am the one expected every year to organize it, inform everyone about the rules and generally act as THE authority on how the game is played. Usually the yelling takes place near the beginning of the Swap, but this year it waited until about halfway through. Worse, the person yelling was my immediate superior (though not my most superior, superior, who did not participate in the yelling) and did so in an extremely arrogant, "You are wrong, I am always right" manner. And yes, I'm not exaggerating, it was yelling. -_-
You know, next year (assuming I'm still employed here) I am going to make my displeasure at being argued with extremely clear from the start: "Since you want me to explain the game, I will, but if there are several ways it can be played and you all need to decide RIGHT NOW which one you people want to play: do you want to make the game really quick or do you want to get into it more and give people many opportunities to get what they want" Of course, I said just about exactly these same words today, but was anyone listening? No! Is this my fault? NO! WHY in God's name would I specify that, if you aquire a gift three times, it's your's, if opportunities for you to swap your gift for someone else's didn't occur more than once?? To add to the frustration, people then complained (after the Swap was over), that it was too short and not really a lot of fun (as it's supposed to be).
...........................................!!!!!
Alright, I'm abusing the ORG's journal function, my apologies, but I'm sure I'm not the first one to write about non-AMV issues. Perhaps I should take this opportunity to state that I am, by nature, I very laid back person whose online ranting and raving is more indicative of an active mind than an extroverted, hyper, righteous personality. So, if you out there reading this (someone must be) think I'm really weird, then you're right, but if you think I'd be fun to hang around with in person, I may not be if you're expecting an extroverted, hyper, righteous individual. I'm not, though, a total bore, promise! ^_^ -
Wow, look at the hits. Who's reading this stuff?
2005-12-19 17:09:34
Mmm, yes, so my fussiness over at AB was nicely resolved and now I'm just being ignored, which is fine with me, at the moment. Also learned there that the AMV competition will probably feature both a comedy and a "fun" category, which makes the importance of pushing the gags in my "Addict" AMV all the more important.
Last night I finished pulling clips from Disc 1 (eps 1-5) after several false starts. Apparently VDM will not correctly convert VOB files to AVI unless the script unless the AVS script is somewhat in its final form. Yeah. I did all my clips, left the job to run overnight, and was appalled when none of them came out (at all). So then I did some more, experimenting all the way, and after another hour hit upon a script that VDM liked enough not to screw me over. Thanks a bunch!
I forgot to mention a milestone: Creating a decent AVS script. It took a long time, several minor panic attacks and a lot of growling, but I finally got something that cleans up my footage to my satisfaction. The only complaint I have is that the resulting AVI clips run jerkily, but I'm hoping that this won't be too much of a problem down the road. If it keeps up, though, I'm going to ask about a remedy because I do NOT want my entire AMV ruined by a bad script.
So, work tally (again, I am not counting all the time I spent trying to redo or fix things): over the weekend I probably completed about six hours of work. I've said it before, finally getting down to business putting together this AMV is going to (I hope) go relatively quickly compared to all the prep work that's been done.
That VHD AMV of mine is looking better and better, too bad I lent my DVD to someone else. If school doesn't destroy me utterly in the next few months and I actually finish "Addict," then I will try and finish that project for AB. If not, I'll certanily tackle it next. Heh, I'm almost thankful that my anime collection just HAPPENS not to contain the series I have the best AMV ideas for. Kind of weird, though. Oh well. Onwards!
JOURNAL: DriftRoot (Lauren C.)
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