JOURNAL: ErMaC

previous page next page
  • Amazed people read this stuff 2001-10-01 05:05:51 Wow - 50 some odd hits. Funky.

    I'm currently in the process if IVTC'ing a big long file which is every episode of a certain series that will be the video I do after my current one, which is 17 video-seconds away from being completed (i.e. I have 17 more seconds of video to edit). After that it's done. It didn't turn out as good as I'd hoped, unfortunately. It's still funny but it'll probably be one of my poorer AMVs. Again - I guess I'm just not cut out for comedy. I should probably leave that stuff in the hands of Tim and Elizabeth who are far better at it than I. I'll give it one more shot, but after that I'm sticking to action and drama if it doesn't pan out.

    Quu mentioned in his journal that I like my action videos more than drama - on the contrary, my favorite video is Closer to God which is much more Drama than action. My other favorite videos of my own are the other oddball ones - I really really like "I Pray", "Hold On", "Cowboy Blues", "Life is But a Dream", that kinda stuff. With the exception of Soul of an Angel, usually the action videos that I do do aren't meant to be entirely series undertakings. For instance, I try not to spend a whole lot of time on them (Eurobebop took maybe 9 hours, Lord's Prayer took 6, Satan took maybe 8) and I don't really enter them into the big contests.

    Soul of an Angel isn't action in my opinion... I suppose that's the closest traditional category that it fits in - but I prefer to think of it more as a psychadelic/abstract experience.

    Just watched Fruits Basket 4 today - god damnit, yet another f@#$ing amazing Mitsuishi Kotono character. Does she ever NOT give an awesome performance? Not that I've seen. And in a couple forum posts I mentioned that Kawasumi Ayako was playing Touru in FB... not true, it's played by Horie Yui, better known as Narusegawa Naru in Love Hina. (bonks himself on the head) How could I get that wrong? And of course Shigure is played by the ever suave Okiayu Ryoutarou (AKA Yuu in Marmalade Boy, Watanabe in Excel Saga, Kurei in Flame of Rekka, Gorgeous in Maze, Red Mantle in Haunted Junction *AKAMANTO WIPE!* and Inouva in Rayearth). And of course - the show's so f$@#ing crazy because it's directed by Daichi Akitaro, director of Kodomo no Omocha. =)

    See what a veritable fountain of useless anime knowledge I am?

    Whoa that was really weird - an encode of an AVI and that IVTC I was talking about both finished in the span of 20 seconds - talk about odd timing.

    Hmm what should I talk about? I've got another 20 minutes or so until this next AVI encode is done... oh yea!

    I liked Enterprise. Don't shoot, yet.

    DESPITE the fact that they had to start off with a time travel episode ("Temporal Mechanics gives me a headache!") which is usually a bad sign in Trek, it didn't rely very heavily on that aspect at all, and frankly I have very high hopes for the show. There's WAY too much negativity surrounding the Trek fan community - we should really be thankful that we got something as good as we got. Broken Bow is definately one of the best Star Trek premieres ever - The Man Trap was ehhhh, Encounter at Farpoint wasn't that great, Emissary was actually pretty good, and Caretaker, like most of Star Trek Voyager, sucked.

    So I'm damn excited about this series. They don't use STARDATES! They have a LINGUIST! They have SOFT PORN! OK maybe the last one isn't called for (although I was waiting for the boom-chicka-bow-wow music to kick in during the detox scene) but you get my point.

    Basically this show has me damn excited. It doesn't even have Star Trek in the title! They're really trying to do something new and cool, and I'm into that. So stop with the negativity, folks, give it a few episodes before you drill it.

    But the theme song sucks huge ass hairy donkey balls through a straw, I'll give you that. 
  • Eyahyahyahya!!! EEEEEEEEEEyahyahyahya!!! 2001-09-29 22:20:25 ahhh Jinnai's laugh... I don't think I'll ever ever forget that horrible horrible cackle (no matter how I try). But I mean horrible in a good way, really =p

    I just finished watching the first series of El Hazard with my friends this afternoon. I'd never seen it all the way through from start to finish, and I gotta say the initial 7 episodes are really good. Only problem was Pioneer's DVD boxset has the subtitles timed for the Japanese 2 channel track, and not the 5.1 track - so when we listened to the 5.1 track, the subs were offtime an awful lot. Also I can't really agree with a lot of their translations - but that's life I guess.

    I'm actually sitting here at KUCI right now subbing for someone else. Nothing to do as usual to I figure I'd write in the journal.

    Reaction to my Masters video has been pretty darn positive - except for the originality scores. Sheesh people, I know the song is from the series, but it's not like the video didn't take an enormous amount of planning. =p I spent a long time on that video, and I thought it was very original, but oh well...

    Ani-Magic is 1 week away, looking forward to that a lot. I still need to hit a costume shop and get a wig for my Lupin costume to make it really complete.

    Anime Club started again - I'm a Vice President this year! w000pie d33 d00. Heh I don't really do much different this year than previous years, but what difference does it make. Anyways... We're watching Crap of the Stars (ugh terrible series so far, why do people like it?), Trigun (seen it 3 times all the way through so I usually skip out during it), Tenshi Ni Narumon (seen it twice but it's such an awesome series I still want to watch it), Love Hina (see above), Intial D (see above), and then the last show we're watching is sorta in limbo right now... we're not sure what it's gonna be. This week we just showed music videos the entire last 20 minutes (since our breaks had been running long anyways) and next week is Movie Night so we'll have some time to figure everything out, at least.

    DDR is still tons of fun. I haven't been able to beat Healing Vision Angelic Mix on Maniac yet (this is on 5th Mix) but I'll keep trying. That and Electro Sound are the two tracks which are providing the most challenge - although ROMANSU NO (kanji I don't know) is a pretty big challenge too, haven't managed better than a D on it, but at least I survived it.

    Unfortunately, the Catastrophics (9 foot difficulty songs) on 5th mix aren't nearly as hard as previous mixes. There also don't seem to be as many songs, but there are some really really good songs on 5th mix. I wish Petit Love was on it like in the arcade, though. I'll probably wind up conquering all of 5th mix eventually, then start working my way backwards again to Extra Mix, then 4th, then 3rd. 2nd Remix has whacked out timing that makes it extremely unfun to play, and Best Hits doesn't have anything interesting that isn't on 3rd mix or above except for Dub I Dub, which is 8 feet on Maniac.

    Doubles mode... ugh there's something that's daunting. It's sooo different than singles mode... Involves a whole new set of neural pathways I have to develop eventually. I think I'd rather completely master singles first before trying it on a consistant basis, though.

    Unfortunately 5th mix lacks any Endless or Challenge Mode - which is a real bummer! Oh well... It's got this dumb gallery thing but I'm not very interested in it at all. It's still an awesome mix though just because some of the absolutely great songs, like Swing It, The Twist, Healing Vision, that secret one that's all Katakana (the really slow one that has 32nd notes in it, whooooa), and of course Paranoia Eternal and Afronova Primeval. And how could I forget one of the best plain old SONGS in DDR, Right Now by Atomic Kitten. The harmonies on that song just ROCK my world. Still my favorite song/dance in DDR ever is Butterfly Upswing Mix. 
  • Boy I'm pooped 2001-09-25 05:08:07 Well it's been a mighty long two days... sorry I didn't update yesterday very much.

    Anyways, as I said previous my journal entry - my last remaining Cowboy Bebop video has been posted. This one's the tear jerker, the one that gets me almost as much as "Hold On" (still my most emotional video, I think). Anyways, highly recommended - EK says it almost moved her to tears. That's a big accomplishment for a music video, I'd say. =)

    I sent off my AniMagic tape just in time for the deadline - it has 12 videos on it. <laugh type="maniacal">Muhahahaha!!!</laugh> They'll be sorry for leaving no limit on number of entries!! But seriously... it's my 12 best videos minus Closer to God (due to content) and plus Lord's Prayer, since it hasn't been to any cons yet.

    I'm going to be some sort of officer this year at Cal Animage Epsilon - the local anime club here at UCI - but I have no idea what I'm gonna do yet, officially. Unofficially I'm tape bitch/subtitle crew but that doesn't go over well on a UCI Club Application Form. =)

    Parody Dub is coming along nicely - I just need to find more time to work on it. We're editing the whole video together first and then recording audio later.

    Aside from that, I've got school, hopefully I'll have a new job soon, and also the new TV series is starting. Enterprise premieres on Wednesday! Oh yea! w00t.

    I suspect I'll be taking a break from AMV creation for at least a little while as my free time will become far more scarce... Those who got kinda used to the video at least every 2 weeks will become rather disappointed. ^_^ Expect a big lull in new videos from me for quite some time, as I'll not only have less time to work on them, I'll also be saving them up for next year's con season. But undoubtably there will be a few that have no real hope of winning anything at a con, so I'll release them here first. But don't expect anything on the magnitude of my current release schedule!

    Oh yea - Lord's Prayer was my 21st video - and now all of my videos are online. So I have no more completed projects that I'm holding back. I've /never/ been in this situation before. =) Ever since I posted my first videos I was waiting to release them slowly, and also I released a bunch right after Cons, i.e. 4 vids right after Fanime, 2 vids right after SakuraCon, 1 more vid after Anime Central, 2 vids after AX, and now like 6 new videos total in AWA.

    Needless to say I'm pretty prolific already. =) In one year I've made more videos than most other creators have in a couple years. But again, I think that was due to several reasons...
    1) I had lots and lots of free time on my hands... well not so much that I had lots more than other people I just put my priorities on AMVs more than anything else.
    2) I had lots of pent up creativity. Even before I made my first real AMV I had ideas, and I continually come up with ideas all the time.

    Oh yea - after my next AMV, as I said I'm taking a break from AMVs. Partly that's because I want to start doing more Abstract video art stuff. Call me pretenious but I'd really like to try something outside of the standard realm of AMVs. This other thing I'm working on will be really really cool, but it's not an AMV by a long shot. Think Soul of an Angel but without Anime. =) There'll be some in it but it's not the focus nor is it actual cel animation stuff, it'll be obscure other things that just happen to be in a certain show.

    This Sunday my roommate and I went out and bought a whole bunch of shelves and stuff to mount on our wall to put DVDs/tapes/books on, as well as one small shelf which we mounted first that's way up high holding the projector. Now it's in a much nicer position, and it gives us a bigger picture. Only problem is we're getting "keystone" problems. For those who have never worked with projectors - keystoning is where you have the projector hitting the wall at an angle, thus getting a trapazoidal picture. Ours is very subtle but if you look for it it's there. So we'll probably be trying a thing or two to level it a bit so it doesn't sag in the front which is causing the picture to be narrower at the top than at the bottom of the screen.

    And it's up high enough that after we scooted our dance pads back we can still play DDR! =D Oh and I bought a new A/V cable for the Playstation - one that has S-Video and 2 RCA audio plugs. WOW the picture looks SO MUCH CLEARER!!! It's just awesome, highly recommend those with higher end TVs go get these kinda cables - I got one for $10 at Target, but there's lots more. They ain't just for PS2s, folks =) These things work great on regular PS1's. 
  • another quickie 2001-09-24 05:10:43 Just a quickie - I'll update more later today since I have class that I need to sleep for...

    My AWA Masters video is online. Life is But a Dream. Lotsa Bebop Spoilers.

    Also - I got a B in DDR Extra Mix (i.e. Highest grade without comboing the whole thing) on a couple 9 footers yesterday. I'm so proud of myself =) First time I ever did that on a 9 footer. It was Afronova Primeval and Hypnotic Crisis for those interested... 
  • DDR Quickie 2001-09-20 06:01:33 Set of 5 songs in the Arcade:

    Boys Euro Mix (Maniac)
    +
    Dam Daridam KCP Mix (Maniac)
    +
    era (Maniac)
    +
    Hero Happy Grandale Mix (Maniac)
    +
    JAPAN! (Maniac)
    =
    SWEAT COVERED MONSTROSITY WITH FEET THAT ACHE LIKE A MOTHER F#$%ER. 
previous page next page
Current server time: Jan 31, 2025 15:09:05