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Three hundred ninety sixth entry - daily life
2007-11-19 00:46:14
Time - 10:56, Noise - REM - "Man on the Moon"
My tails are driving me nuts. Srsly.
(To clarify, "tails" refer to my bangs that I'm growing out. I keep them tucked behind my ears now in a side part, and the thicker side of my hair has a sizable piece that just barely touches my collar now. It tends to curl under and itch/tickle me frequently these days. Blargh. Someday I'll get a more recent picture of myself and you'll get to see the side part and the tails. I honestly look SO much better like this than I did with that stupid headband...)
I was about ready to punch my roommate this weekend. The girl has spent the whole time just loafing around the room watching TV and sleeping. She didn't even leave to eat half of the time. She's finally gone tonight, but I doubt it will last long.
Oh, and another thing. She's getting free pizzas. She calls/texts guys who work at Pizza Hut (strangers, mind you), and for some reason I can't figure out, she's gotten free pizzas out of them four times now. I honestly think it's because she's an attractive girl. Delivery guys sure as hell would never give ME a free pizza, after all. And it's not just pizza. She's getting free one/two liter bottles of Coke and free breadsticks right along with it. I mean, I'm not entirely complaining, as she's shared with me twice now, but something about this whole situation doesn't seem right. It's between fifty and sixty dollars of free food she's gotten now, and all she's had to pay is a tip to the delivery guys.
Any Pizza Hut workers out there that might know of a policy that I don't? Or are these guys seriously doing something that should get them fired?
I keep joking with Sarina that it's "pizza to pants." They're just trying to butter her up - with pizza! - so she'll put out. XD
So on a subject that's actually AMV related, I started my new video. I had already laid down the title some days ago, but I didn't lay down any actual clips. I have two different versions of the intro down now. It's a funny habit I've been getting into since my Oni 4 FMV segment. I'll edit a part one way, then I'll kill that layer and edit the part a different way on the layer below it, comparing the two several times after I finish. In this case, the song has a very gentle start to it, and I didn't want too many cuts. Even long crossfades aren't feeling quite right, so I thought I'd just try to lay down longer clips instead. I'm not sure which way looks better, to be honest. I think I'm just going to leave the intro alone for now and keep working past that. No point in fretting over it, or else I'll get hung up on it and not finish the rest of the video.
Roomie's back. : |
I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but I could assemble SOME of the FMV MEP ahead of time. I can't put the intro, outro, or middle three tracks in yet, but I could put everything else in. I doubt that it would hasten the overall process, but at least I'd feel like part of the work was done when I finally went to put the whole thing together.
And, she just shut off her computer, which means it's time for me to go.
Nighty night, folks. <3
- Jen -
Three hundred ninety fifth entry - naming convention
2007-11-15 16:42:46
Time - 3:26, Noise - the distant din of the bathroom radio
In response to the name change thing... yeah, it bothers me too. I mean, I don't mind quite as much if you're just shortening the name but keeping the main identifiable part of it. For example, TakefujiYami-Sama (I think that's how she had it) became just Takefuji. That's okay, cuz everyone identified her as Takefuji anyway. I could probably drop "the_great" and I doubt many people would care or take note of it. As far as the .org is concerned, I'm dj_ultima. Or just DJ. Or Ultima.
However, complete name changes (ie: not retaining any part of the original name) is pretty obnoxious. A change of name does not change the user, or the personality. I realize that some people quickly pick a newbie name and then are annoyed by it later, but I still think that you should really only change it if you have a hard time remembering it, a hard time typing it (if, say, you put a lot of weird characters in it), or, as I said before, if you want to shorten it.
Of course, everyone is entitled to do as they please, and if you want to change your name fifty times, go right ahead - at least until the mods get sick of you pestering them.
As for me, I considered a drop to dj_ultima, but really... what's the point? I use the full name everywhere, it's easy to type (for me), and its length tends to mean it's not taken on other sites. *shrug*
All things considered, though, I'd rather you just called me Jen. (Or Ulty. I always liked Ulty.) ^_^
See you, folks.
- Jen -
Three hundred ninety fourth entry - long and introspective; reader beware
2007-11-12 23:54:52
Time - 9:50, Noise - Ayumi Hamasaki - "Rainy Day" (Onimusha 4 credits music)
Fun fact: did you know that if you switch the language to Japanese in Onimusha 4 and then let it sit in the opening screen that it will then play the Japanese demo reel with Ayumi Hamasaki's "Startin'" in place of the English demo reel? Awsm stuff. I love attention to details.
Actually, the Onimusha games just kick all unholy ass for letting you switch the SPOKEN language to Japanese instead of just the written language. Not too often that you get that in games. Well, I know that the first and fourth games do it, anyway. Dunno about the second and third, but I would assume so.
Oh, so I have the intro to FMV kind of done. I can't finish it 'til I get all of the finals in and know FOR SURE who is going into the full project. I said before that I had thirteen images and only ten measures to show them in the intro music before, but with the uncertainties three participants (one of whom gracefully and well-meaning-ly exited the project after our last conversation), I decided to simply drop their three pictures. If the remaining two are in the project, hooray - that's why I'm not-quite-finished yet. I'm not adding in the names to the opening sequence 'til I get confirmation. And then they will take their rightful place in project-order like all of the other names. If they aren't in, then I don't have any misleading pictures in the intro.
It's a genius plan. You know it. C'mon. Give Ulty a pat on the head. I promise I'll purr.
There are two troubles, though. The first is that this leaves the lead-in blank. Until I know for sure what I'm doing with the names, I can't do the title leading into my track. I don't know what's overlapping. The second is that when I had twelve participants, I just told myself, "'kay, double up the names and sync them to the beats. Simple and sweet." Now that it's eleven people... well, let's just say that that throws me off of my axis and sparks my OCD to rekindle. My brain demands symmetry, and that just ain't gonna happen with an odd number like eleven. I suppose I could put credit to Take-chan for the mix and credit for the beta testers in the remaining measures, but I'm already gonna have that in the ending credits.
I'll have to think it over yet. Believe me, it's actually to my benefit to have more going on onscreen, cuz the intro is very simple. It's not extremely eye-catching without slapping information down in it, so it's better for the interest factor if I put something there for people to read.
Hey, I remember what this entry was supposed to be about! (Yes, this had a point.)
You know that warm, fuzzy feeling you get after you lay down the very first clip of a new video? It's somewhere after the fanboy/girl-ish squeal of, "ZOMG new video idea made of win MUST MAKE NOW!" and before the agonized moan of, "Why oh why is this video taking me so long???" Y'know. That feeling. The happy one that says everything is gonna be alright. I like that feeling. Maybe that's why I start so many videos I never finish. It's not that I don't want to see them through. I'm eager to see the finished product, of course; it's just that once that initial feeling fades away, it's really hard to get it back in full force.
I think a lot of folks can relate, as I'm sure we've all had that thought at some point or another. Not just in AMVs, but in any creative endeavor (am I the only one who wants to spell that "endeavour"? I must be turning British o_O ). You look at a promising piece of art you've been working on and it somehow loses its magic along the way. Usually, just leaving it be for some time is enough to help you "recover," and you take a renewed interest in the project later. Sometimes, though, there's just those few things that slip through your fingers and you can't get "the feeling" back again. I find this with a lot of my drawn artwork. Not as often with AMVs, and very rarely with my writing. Almost everything I start writing, I intend to finish, no matter how long it must sit and wait.
(Let's have a moment of silence for the lost writings of the HD semi-crash. I seriously had a fucking award-winning story in the making that went kaput with that. It didn't even seem like my own writing, but when I read back over it, it was pure comedic brilliance. Inorite, Ulty 'n comedy? Fuck no! But it happened. And it was good. Now, naturally, I can boast as much as I want about this story, as no one but me ever read it and any copy at all of it is permanently lost. I suppose you could also argue that because I have no proof [ie: no story] to back up my claims that they are then bogus and cannot be believed. But I say you need to QUIT LOOKING AT THE GLASS AS HALF EMPTY AND GET OFF OF MY ASS, YOU PESSIMISTS!! lawlzyeah The long and the short of it is that I miss my story very much. *sad face*)
Um... uh huh. That was an aside, I guess. >_>;;
Whatever "feeling" I had while writing that story, I desperately want to get it back again. Srsly. In fact, it would be nice to get any feeling for writing back. Ever since winter ended my freshman year, I've all but given up on writing. Obviously, I still keep a healthy motormouth in journals (as you can tell), but speaking from the top of my head and plotting out my next epic are two entirely different things. And they ARE "epics," in the linguistically-lazy American sense of the word (sorry, Homer, I'm hijacking and perverting your life's design for a moment - my deepest apologies; try not to roll around too much in your grave).
Anywho, with another sizeable aside out of the way, what I mean by "epic" (and that bitch is staying quotes due to my horrible transgressions against the poor word) is that I carefully plan out every single detail of what I intend to do. From the gentle dampness of a character's showered, half-dried hair to the empty carton of Chinese on the arm of their couch, I do my best to point out everything, usually in a sidelong way - the way you might take note of the wallpaper in a friend's house, without actually assigning any real value to it.
Gah, and my roommate looks to be attempting to sleep soon. God, I fucking HATE having a roommate. Guess I'll live.
Nighty night, folks.
- Jen -
Three hundred ninety third entry - to and fro
2007-11-10 23:24:20
Time - 9:39, Noise - Coldplay - "The Scientist"
Ne, I'm a horrible person. I re-encoded someone else's video... again. ^_^;;
Can't help it, though. It had technical stuff that could be easily corrected - so I did just that. And now, despite the fact that it's an encode of a compressed video, it still looks better than before. Also, while I don't like altering other's work, it's not like I intend to share it anywhere. It's my encode, by me, for me. If I ever wanted to give the video to someone else, I'd give them the original. (And I put "dj_ultima re-encode" in the filename to remind myself that what I have isn't the original.)
The only oddity I've noticed is that the original is an XviD .avi, and mine is an h.264 .mp4 at a smaller resolution, but yet it's still bigger in size than the XviD. *shrug*
Whee... finally finished the white chocolate skull. My RA made them for el Dia de los Muertos. They're the size of a small fist, but they're solid chocolate (and/or white chocolate, ie: the impostor chocolate). I'm not usually a fan of white chocolate, but I was feeling adventurous at the program, so I snagged it. It's actually pretty good, since she took the time to make them herself. They're not gritty at all. Anyway, I've had the thing for almost two weeks now and finally just managed to gnaw my way through it.
I want to make a Cardcaptor Sakura video. I mean, you don't understand. I REALLY want to make a CCS video. I keep thinking about all of the fun I'll have doing one... and then my HD basically just gives me the finger and says "no more clips plzkthx." Damn FMV MEP. I blame this all on having tons of betas, a set of finals, and thirty gigs of clips of my own. I'd be halfway to "Release~!" by now if not for the massive delay on this project.
And believe me, I know how long overdue some other projects have gone, so I'm thankful for the relatively short time that this one has been dragging in comparison to those ones. Just wanted to clear that one up before the MEP veterans start glaring daggers at me for complaining.
Wait for me, Sakura. Please? o.o v_v ;_;
See, this is why I need a bigger HD. Yeah, 250 gigs is a lot, and generally speaking, I do well with this amount. However, it somewhat limits your editing projects. If you're a media whore like me and have a ginormous chunk of that 250 filled with music, other videos, images, etc. (and I suspect that this is most .org members... it kind of comes with the territory), then you have surprisingly little space left for videos. I find that I can have the clips for about two projects ripped at any one time. It also depends on what I'm doing. The Saikano footage was a bitch, so I had fifty gigs of that. Fruits Basket doesn't actually have a lot of Yuki/Kyou footage, so I was running at about eighteen gigs for that, I think. Onimusha 4 runs me thirty gigs (and that's every single scene in the game).
So, speaking of the Oni 4 footage... I guess the main trouble with editing my segment was the fact that I wanted action-y footage, which you get a lot of in the FMVs, but surprisingly little of in the regular cutscenes. Usually, you just see someone raise their weapon and the scene fades out, because the next thing is a battle. THAT is your action, so they're not going to show it in a scene. Great for the videogame; poor for AMVs. I made do with what I had, though, and I tried to surround the lesser middle section with more awsm FMVs on either end. The natural action in those does its job well in my segment, if I do say so myself.
Oh, I finished making the tweaks - I think. I uploaded it to a temporary upload site, but I'm debating if I really want to pester the folks I was pestering before. They helped out a great deal, but to be honest, I like my segment how it is now, after taking their suggestions. I don't really want to change it again, and I'll be sorely tempted to do so if someone points out something more that "could be tweaked."
I'm gonna end up doing it, I know - probably right after I finish this entry. -_- (I'm talking about sending the segment to the folks, naturally.) I'm a sucker for good feedback, especially when this is going to be a part of my baby - the FMV MEP.
...this chapstick tastes NOTHING like cotton candy. I am HIGHLY disappointed in you this time, Lip Smacker. >: |
/off topic >_>
Wow, so I just realized that I could keep typing for quite a while about nothing in particular if I really wanted to. Isn't that what all of my entries are like, though? (sarcastic LAWLZ)
Anywho, that being the case, I think I'll end it here. Besides, I gotta go straighten out the funky little waves in my hair right at the top of my head. (The rest of my hair is naturally perfectly straight, but the stupid little waves appear right above/behind-ish my ears. Annoying as hell, really.)
Well, I'm off. Nighty night, loves and not-so-loves alike.
- Jen -
Three hundred ninety second entry - title!
2007-11-08 20:02:40
Time - 6:17, Noise - FMV MEP mix
@Unlimited Rice - tried to watch that first performance, and while I found it interesting, the incessantly screaming girls destroyed my eardrums. Seriously, what the hell is their problem? People have to learn to NOT scream during performances. Before and after, fine, but not *during* them and not during the announcements/descriptions of what's being done. Ugh.
/me kills annoying audience screamers
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Courtesy of my sister today, apparently at 5 in the morning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bd1Tflywck
Man, I swear elves came in and stole half of my stuff from my supply drawer (ie: the one with all of the duplicates of various things I need at college). I looked for at least four different things lately and realized I had none left when I thought I had at least one double in the drawer. Guess I'm gonna have to have my sister take me on a supply run this weekend when I see her. Glad I just got my ATM card, too, cuz I needed the quick access to money, as I just ran out after buying some necessities. Fucking things are all together the size of a deck of cards and they costed forty-eight dollars in total. Drives me batty. -_-
So... FMV. Yeah. Not dead, just moving very slowly. With a good deal of advice, I realized that my segment needed tweaks, and I hope to finish making those tweaks this weekend. In fact, I guarantee it. I still need to put together the intro (won't take long), after which I'll pester the remaining stragglers. I'm more or less finished with the ending. I can't quite put the finishing touches on that until I get all of the tracks in. It started as a complex idea, and now it's just kinda... simple. Yet, it should be effective. After that, sayde's gotta work his magic on the outro, which he's assured me won't take long either (but like me, he can't start on it 'til all of the tracks are in).
Suppose I should be posting that in the thread, hm. *shrug*
I have another video to work on after the MEP is done; however I already have the clips ripped for it. Thus, I'll have a solid forty gigs free after this Oni 4 footage is gone. I'm gonna make sure to keep at least twenty of that always free for when the second Clow MEP starts up. That way, I can actually get a head start on my track and have it in nice and early. w00t.
Y'know what I realized? I have a really hard time describing my moods in normal terminology. For example, my most common mood is "meh" - and this, in fact, is how I answer everyone when they ask how I am. Even the Spanish teacher, who has a class in the room just before my French class, will carry a perfect English-to-Spanish conversation with me (sorry, I only speak in Spanish strictly when I'm forced to... terrible, I know), and every time "como estas" comes up (fucking lack of accents), I always respond with "meh." (He always talks to me because I'm the only one who's taken Spanish in that room and therefore understands him.)
...there was a lot of parentheses in that paragraph (which probably proves that I just have way too many asides, lawlz).
Oh, and if you're curious, my mood right now is "nyuk nyuk :3" - complete with smiley... which reminds me - I need to edit a couple 'o them forum smilies to better suit my needs.
Heeeeeey~! I totally forgot that I have cans of fruit punch in supply drawer #2. ZOMGWIN.
Well, I'm off - presumably to edit, though after seeing this horrifyingly compressed image from an AMV, I think part of me died inside:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v711/dj_ultima_the_great/?action=view¤t=OMGWTF.jpg
Brownie points if you can ID what that image is from (though if you stand back a few... yards... and you know the source, it should be easy).
See you, folks.
- Jen
JOURNAL: dj_ultima_the_great (Jen )
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