- 2002-09-03 13:49:56 Heh, oh yeah...I showed my brother a 99.9% complete version of Sappy Self-Indulgence, and he gave me the best praise he's given me on any video since Transformation (he still insists it's my only "decent" work). He said: "It works."
-
in the days...when we were swinging from the trees...
2002-09-03 13:13:15
HOW IS THE GODDAMNED VIDEO NOT DONE YET??
Sigh. It's getting there. Three solid, AIM-free hours of work should do the trick. Then there's the whole messy bit with encoding the video. I also realized late last night that I've completely forgotten about the "cool" intro I was going to do for the video...I think at this point I'm just going to give up on it and just do the standard fade-in for the opening clip.
I think weekends should all be 3 days from now on! This past weekend was still too short, but at least I got to catch my goddamn breath from the previous week of work.
I've got an mp3 for you goons this time around:
http://www.kusoyaro.com/yermom/NothingSong.mp3
Be patient. If nothing else, maybe it'll help you sleep at night.
Friday night I heard about Guns N' Roses' appearance on the MTV VMAs. I mean, Guns N' FUCKIN' Roses! The Use Your Illusion albums were my adolescence. So on Saturday I fired up MTV for the first time in about 6 years and sat through a couple hours of the VMAs in order to see Axl and his new posse.
Watching the VMAs was really odd. The last time I watched the VMAs, Smashing Pumpkins opened the show with Tonight, Tonight. This time through, I hadn't heard of most of the nominees, and had heard even less of them. I'd literally never heard a song by Pink, Shakira, "P. Diddy," Avril Lavigne, blah, blah, or blah. Who the fuck are the Hives and the Vines, and when did they become so popular? From what I saw/heard on the VMAs, they're both awful. The only artist that I had previously been unfamiliar with that I actually found tolerable was Shakira. Apparently she actually has talent...but I'm sure the American music industry is watering it down with generous doses of her T&A plastered all over record stores (which was the source of my only previous impression of her).
But back to the topic on hand...GNFNR!! Okay, I'll admit, their actual performance wasn't that great...Axl was only a shadow of his old energetic self, and it just wasn't the same without the rest of the crew. Those goth freaks that he had playing backup didn't help things any by standing there and looking gloomy. But it was nice shot of nostalgia...I wouldn't be surprised if this were the last we saw of them EVER. Supposedly they have an album and a tour coming up, but eh...we'll see.
Oh, and damn, Kurt Loder looks old now! Whatever happened to Martha Quinn?
I found out that my favorite restaurant in the mother-loving WORLD now delivers to the Duke campus and accepts meal plan points. Their falafel, dolmades, tabouleh, and just about everything else is to die for. My brother spent all weekend tormenting me with messages like, "oh, what? Sorry, I was busy polishing off the rest of the grape leaves." Cheeky bastard. Thacker (not "thewhacker"), I know you're reading this, and I know you're groaning with envy too. Damn those lucky kids!
If I ever do "one last video", I think I've found the song for it. -
and we're calling all the people...
2002-08-30 14:59:09
Video diary (from yesterday):
Two nights in a row with virtually no progress. The first night, I did a tiny bit of work, and actually got down to the very last scene that needs to be "done" before the final tweaking and cleanup (saving the long weekend for that) can begin. So then last night I figured I would finish that last scene, and start the tweaking. Instead, I managed to adjust exactly one frame worth of footage last night, and the rest of my time was shot to hell by other things (Warcraft was only a small part of that).
I WILL finish that last clip tonight! It's 3 lousy seconds worth of lip synching, with lip-flapping only and no movement. I've been encouraged lately by some positive feedback from friends (and their uh...moms). It's sort of unbelievable that I'm so close to being done with these videos, since they've been in my head for almost a year. Very odd.
I was waiting in line at the cafeteria when a new video idea struck me. A really strange one.
Video diary (today):
It's done! Mostly. I'll spend the weekend cleaning it up...and if I ever get around to sending EK the frames I need help with, hopefully I can mail my videos out to Quu by next Friday, just in time to catch the deadline.
And to complete that thought I started yesterday about the new video idea...I don't seem to come up with "normal" ones any more. I really just want to do a "song+source" video with no frills, just cuts and fades, and a good theme/story. No idea has hit me in months. It's mystifying, because I usually get hit with a "normal" idea every week. I kind of feel like I'm blocked, but on the *other* hand, I come up with a new strange and bizarre video idea every week now. I have about 15 weird video ideas stocked up in my head...most of them I wouldn't even have the technical/artistic know-how to pull them off. The one I thought of yesterday involved lots of black and white, stills, filters, repetitive use of footage, and an audience with a long attention span :) And not a single straight cut. Only fades. A very slow video set to a song with a driving beat. One of the many strange and wonderful songs I've gotten from EK...
My video output will probably start getting strange in the coming year, as I try to put some of these ideas together. Maybe that'll be a good thing. I seem to be in a slump lately.
DDR is finally starting to come together. As far as I know there are only 2 people who aren't done with their tracks yet. I'm especially happy with how well the backup editors did...MeriC & VegettoEx and Absolute Destiny in particular.
Oh, and I played Mario Sunshine at the mall during lunch. I was actually kind of excited about it, and even thinking of maaaaaybe buying a GC if Mario and Zelda both turned out to be good. Well, I give Mario Sunshine a definitive thumbs down. It sucked for all the same reasons Mario 64 sucked: 3D. I know it's my own fault and my own taste, but I miss side-scrolling Mario. I just can't get the hang of 3D platformers. I beat all 3 Crash Bandicoot games, but in those games there's no chance of getting lost. My experiences with 3D Mario and Sonic have been abysmal. I usually get disoriented and lost within 2 minutes, and then I just give the fuck up. I tried the first level in Mario Sunshine, and within 30 seconds I was wallowing back in forth in some water, afraid of sinking and completely clueless about what to do next. Then I finally figured out I was supposed to walk across a fucking tightrope. So I did that, then shot some flowers with my hose. And then I was lost again. So I quit and came back to work. Bleh. -
you may fall alone...
2002-08-27 13:32:34
Continuing video diary:
More tedious lip-synching last night. I got some stuff that I was actually semi-happy with. I'm nearing the end now...by tonight, I'll have a "finished" video. Then it's just a few days of tightening the lip synching and editing, and hopefully working through some pesky tech problems. The biggest one seems to be halos around mouths, or mouths that are discolored. Or, in the case of one specific source, frames that jitter and jump. Damn lip-synching. I think the few funny scenes work okay, I'm just afraid that people will find the whole damn thing funny -_-
Anyway, I was talking with another AMV.org-er the other night, and we were both pretty depressed about the current state of the forums. They've truly gone straight to hell. I remember when the Off-Topic forum used to be my favorite of the forums...lots of fun discussions about *actual topics*. Now it's completely degenerated to "WATCH ME SPAM!!" or "POST ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU LOVE PR0NNNNN!" or "[some prominently stupid member], EAT MY ASS WITH A SPOON!!!!!!11111" Basically, a handful of idiots made the forum their own personal playground and ruined it for everyone else. I only visit the contest and convention threads now.
That ghostly-sounding high-pitched instrument in "Good Vibrations" really freaks me the hell out. Especially at the end. God, every since someone pointed that out to me, it's been unsettling as hell to listen to it.
-
and float in space...and drift in time...
2002-08-26 13:37:55
Eh...my journal has really just been a video diary lately. Guess I might as well continue, at least until I finish my AWA videos.
Sappy Self-Indulgence is turning into a hideous, unwieldy beast. It's the most work I've ever put in for the least gratifying output. I probably spent about 15 hours this weekend just doing lip sync...and I still have quite a bit to go. It doesn't even look that good. I don't know what the hell I'm doing wrong. It got to the point where I started feeling demoralized just thinking about the video. So I played a lot of Warcraft instead :P I got my ass kicked pretty much every time, as per usual. When getting killed in Warcraft got frustrating, I went back to editing. Back and forth, all weekend. I cannot wait til the upcoming 3-day weekend. I'll probably still be doing the Warcraft and editing thing, but at least I'll also have time to actually, you know, GO OUT. I don't think I'll be going quite so far out as AXNY, though.
Every time I watch Sappy Self-Indulgence I feel something different. In general, deep down, I think it's a stupid, sloppy video that's going to be ridiculed. I took a 1.5 month hiatus from working on it, and then this past Friday I watched what I had done of it so far for the first time in 6 weeks, and...ugh. I didn't think it was worth finishing in the least. But every now and then I watch it and feel excited at its potential; granted, this doesn't happy very often, and usually only when I've been working on it for hours and have lost all perspective on quality and taste :) The same thing happens when I spend a lot of time editing something intricate like a lip-synched scene. I'll watch a particular clip about 30 times...at first something will seem mistimed and off...but by the time I've seen it 20 times, I think, "You know, that looks fine after all." Then a couple hours I'll come back to it and think, "My GOD, the timing on that is SO off!"
I've finally come to realize JUST how fucking slow a PII450 is. Until this past month, I'd never edited on anything faster. But for Self-Titled, since I was ripping DVDs and not using a capture card, I edited on my new Athlon 1900XP. My god, it was so fast. But now, for Sappy Self-Indulgence, I'm back to editing on the old machine with my DV500...and my GOD, is it a fucking slug! It was so bad I thought Premiere was choking on itself whenever I tried to even move a clip. I just couldn't stand it, so I ended up having to split it up into multiple project files. And for the first time in my life, I'm editing in filename mode instead of filmstrip mode ;_; And it's still unbearably slow.
I've come into work after 10 (I usually get in around 8:30-9) 4 days in a row now. I don't know what the hell's wrong with me.
JOURNAL: Kusoyaro (Hsien Lee)
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