JOURNAL: Arigatomina

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  • voices 2007-04-05 06:25:57 I've become aware of another reason I dislike using headphones. I'm sure I've noticed it before, but it's the sort of thing I don't let myself think about. Like when I was younger I'd be playing in the front yard and here voices talking in the background and I'd frown a little and think 'stop, just stop' and they'd go away. Eventually it got to the point where I'd notice the second I started hearing them and I'd stop them immediately. I had something similar start up a year or two ago. I relapse, I guess. I'd hear them in the background and they'd go on for a while before I'd actually notice, pay attention, and stop myself from hearing it. It's one of the reasons I like white noise. A television playing when I'm reading. Music in the background quiet enough so I don't pay attention to it, but loud enough to drown out other things I don't *want* to pay attention to.

    I was listening to vids with headphones and remembered the last time I did that for a few days at a time. I hear voices talking underneath the music. There's one particular song where I hear someone who sounds like my mom say my name. I can't even watch that video with headphones on because every time I do I forget about that voice and when I hear it (same part of the song) I take the headphones off because I think my mom's actually calling me. I figured it was just that song - maybe some scratch or fuzz in the encode makes me hear things in places. But it's not just that song. It's most songs.

    I was watching my last vid on loop and it's there, too. What doesn't make sense is that I listened to that song for weeks with headphones before I edited with it and I never heard anyone talking in the background. Now every time I watch it with headphones I hear it. It's not just a word now and then, it's like some really inconsiderate person is sitting behind me and chatting to a friend while I'm trying to watch a video.

    Now before I start ascribing to the "I see dead people" theory, I know it's just fuzz. Background noise. White noise. People can hear anything in that if they want to. My problem is I don't want to. When I was a kid it was just wind and grass and my own thoughts taking third person the same way my dreams do, where it's not me talking.

    What's funny/creepy is that I hear these things the same way you're supposed to see ghosts - when you're not trying to, when you're not looking directly at it. Out of the corner of your eye. If I listen for the chatter, I hear nothing but the music. It's when I'm into the music and not paying attention that I get distracted by those assholes talking right behind me. I can't count how many times I've forgotten to the point where I take my headphones off and look around to make sure I didn't leave a tv on somewhere.

    If anyone's curious, the vid/song where I hear someone calling my name (not singing, I hear her saying it like she's standing in the doorway behind me, or at the bottom of the stairs) is in my "Charmed" video. I can't watch that video with headphones. It doesn't creep me out, it's just really annoying/disturbing. Especially if I'm trying to watch it on loop and she calls me every single time through. 
  • ridiculous 2007-04-01 14:54:42 I may never make another amv again. Jesus, I need to vent. I finished the video last night. I left it exporting and slept. Woke up four hours later to find Premiere had locked up and closed. I wasn't surprised since I had the same trouble trying to export a project in one go last time. I broke it into pieces and exported it by section. I had no trouble till I got to the end. I got stuck on the last...5 seconds or so. There were some effects on those clips, so I figured they were taking too much memory to export. So I shortened the section and tried exporting again. It worked at first - I shortened it to 15 frames and it was good. Then I tried the next 15 frame chunk and lock up. I shortened it to 5 frames. Lock up. I shortened it to 2 frames and it exported. I tried the next two frames. Lock up. I shortened it to one frame. Lock up. I panicked.

    When I was done panicking I exported the clip one frame at a time using Premiere's "export 'frame" option - that let me have the frame in a bmp file. I had 45 of them for that clip. I opened them in vdub and saved it as a single huffyuv file. I imported it into premiere (because I can't append vdub huffyuv files to premiere huffyuv files, don't ask me why). I tried to export that clip from premiere. Lock up. A 1.5 second huffyuv clip and it wouldn't export. I tried converting it to lagarith and forcing the framerate to 29.97000 (because vdub kept saying it was 29.97003). Lock up.

    I went back to the bmp files and imported them in premiere, one frame each, until they made up the original clip. I tried exporting them. Picture files. It locked up. I bitched.

    I ended up exporting the last three "long" clips one frame at a time, taking the bmp and running them through vdub to get huffyuv avi clips. I took all the pieces from my video and tried to append them in vdub (including the bmp turned huffyuv clips). It wouldn't append. I got an error saying that it couldn't append because both frame rates were 29.97000. What the fuck. Usually I get an error saying it can't append because the framerates aren't the same. So I made sure to *make* them the same. So this time I got an error *because* they were the same. What the fuck.

    I panicked. I wondered if it wouldn't be better to have just stuck with wmm where I know how to at *least* export a finished project and put it back together again. I thought about asking on the forum to see if there's an avisynth script I could use to *force* vdub to append those sections. I thought about deleting that stupid combined community codec pack from my computer (I got it for those fucking mp4 videos that *still* won't play without locking my computer up). I thought about reinstalling a fresh version of ffdshow just in case it was huffyuv causing the problem (all the original source clips were lagarith, my first and possibly last time using that). I wondered what the hell I could use to make those huffyuv clips be compatible so I could append them in vdub/mod.

    I remembered my old wmm days. Showbiz. I opened each huffyuv clip in Showbiz and exported it right back to huffyuv. I did the same to those bmp turned avi clips. I appended them all in vdub without a single problem. Converted the video to xvid. Nice. My stomach was starting to lose that I'm gonna cry clenched feeling. Then I remembered I was editing with a cd file. Wav. I converted it to mp3. I remembered you can't attach those in Vdubmod without skewing the sync (badly). I tried the recommended "mp3Wav" option in BeSweet. Sync still skewed (badly). I said fuck it all to hell.

    I opened it up in Nandub and attacked my original mp3. Sync is just fine now.

    And then I laughed hysterically asking myself if it was worthy it. Was it worth it? Hell no! Oh, my God, are you kidding? Of course it wasn't worth it. Would I do it again? Probably. I'm really ridiculously stupid like that.

    At least I got a grin out of the fact that I'm using Premiere and lagarith - new school stuff - and yet I had to default to Showbiz and Nandub in order to put my finished video together. I'm still giggling. So, so stupid.

    And this was a very simple video. I don't even want to think how upset I would have been if it were an effect-ridden-took-forever complicated and pride-worthy video.

    Whatever. I'm cleaning all the old codec crap off my computer and doing a system restore to last year. If I have this much trouble again, at least I'll know to quit trying to get Premiere to export. I'll just go one frame at a time, put it together in vdub, and run it all through Showbiz so it's compatible. Fuck. That's as bad as having to correct the sync of a wmm video one frame at a time.

    Now to stop bursting into random semi-hysterical laughter and go put up a vid description. No local, though. I don't want anyone to download this video for any reason except the anime and/or the song. It's shoddy shounen ai to linkin park. Don't like that? Go away and leave me be. I'm too relieved to have the fucking thing exported and playable to give a rat's ass. ~_~; 
  • M@Ds 2007-03-31 18:37:10 You know what I noticed? A lot of these vids don't have beat sync. I mean they don't have any beat sync. At all. There's continuous effect motion from start to finish, and it changes up every other stanza or so of the lyrics, but it isn't synced. There's none of that drum beat = effect/clip change you expect in amvs. The effects don't even fit the rhythm of the music (that 'flow' we think of when the music pauses before repeating itself, pauses again and switches, pauses again, etc - I've seen it referred to as an 8 meter count once, but I don't speak musician). The scenes just keep going, the effects change up too quickly to seem slow, and the footage is moving until the music stops. Where's the connection? Maybe in the lyric translation. They really are just like your average opening/ending credit for a neat looking anime. The footage is pretty, it moves, it probably has something to do with the theme of the song (but not the actual lyrics) and it highlights the anime so you get to see the characters/best scenes before you watch it.

    I wonder if that's intentional. Maybe it's a style issue. I know it's not the effects. I've seen plenty of "classic" amvs that were exploding with effects. They just exploded in time with the *beats* instead of exploding to make the footage look prettier.

    I think I like M@Ds better. Sure, they're dripping with effects, but if you remove the effects they're poorly timed 3 to 4 minute clips of pretty anime characters doing nothing. They're exactly what excited newbs put together before we get ahold of them and teach them to cut the footage for every beat, flash for the loud ones, chop it all up so no clip lasts longer than .4 seconds and never ever in a million years show a slow pretty clip just because it's a pretty clip that happens to be slow. I'm going to have to find some "bad" m@ds to confirm this. Maybe as the editor gets "better" he learns to put more on top just like 'we' learn to shorten the clips *and* put more on top of the shorter clips.

    As far as good vids go, they're both the same. The best m@ds drown the footage in glitter just like the best amvs chop up the footage with beat sync cuts.

     
  • sigh 2007-03-19 16:56:57 I was watching a vid the other day with a lot of fading and some 'rolling piano keys' used for sync. And afterward I sat there feeling disappointed. Not jealous or contemtuous, just vaguely disappointed in myself for not being able to do that in my videos. I realized suddenly that I'd never be able to do that in my videos, for lack of know-how, and that even if I knew how I still wouldn't do it because it wouldn't look "natural" if I were doing it. That made me feel carelessly disappointed, like I'd given up. I'm too stubborn and happy with my editing to feel actual guilt, but a little "that's really too bad" slips through now and then.

    Just now I watched another vid that used the exact same effect for beat sync - those "rolling piano keys". And it's funny. I still remember when I first started using PhotoImp and Vdub to do my own "stationary piano keys" for beat sync. By the time I figured out how to do it, there was an anti-hype toward the flashing beatsync piano key type editing. I used it for one or two vids and dropped it - I took it and turned it into a way to make actual layers instead (and it helped a lot when I went to do backgrounds on my fananimated vid).

    Now that I look back, I must have had more motivation back then. As soon as I set my mind to doing my own piano keys I figured out a yardsale way to do it with the program I had. It was like instantaneous - I wanted it, I figured out how to get it. This time it took two random vids in the same day with the same effect for me to figure out if that "disappointment" meant I wanted it. I guess I do. Because that part of my brain woke up - that "this is what I want, this is what I have available, this is how I can do a couple extra steps with what I have to get something I could probably do in one if I got a new program" part. One frame to get the 'key' highlighted, transform to get it 'rolling', and transparency/coloradjustment to get the highlighted piece soft. And now I'm stuck here bemused at myself for not realizing how stinking simple that is. So simple in fact, that I don't really want to do it anymore.

    This is where I sit with a droll half smile on my face and wonder why I automatically react. I see something I've never done, assume it's cool just because I've never done it, and as soon as I figure out how I could hypothetically do it, I don't want it anymore. I do that with too many things. "I like the way people do that. But it wouldn't look right in one of my vids."

    I'm officially halfway done with my current project. I can't seem to sit still long enough to edit more than 3 seconds at a time. But I haven't deleted it yet, so that's a good sign. Maybe I'll start keeping incomplete betas and make a compilation of them. ^_^ 
  • dream - starship troopers? 2007-03-15 06:28:06 Had a really stupid dream this morning. For some reason I was a girl in it. That almost never happens. I was part of a military group fighting this plantory menace of bugs - like the movie, I guess. The difference is instead of sending meteors they had flying chunks of what looks like an actual city. Let's see how well I can describe this.

    We were standing on a street on a planet close to the earth. When I looked up I could see the earth in the sky - it was about the size of the moon, kind of cloudy, but clearly blue and brownish green in spots (typical space shot). Our leader gave a little pep talk speech and then we spotted the first "attack". It looked like someone picked up a city block. From underneath the 'flying/falling' block was smooth, like someone had dug under the street, cut up the blacktop, and somehow just picked up a cake-like section of the street, a few cement-looking buildings, and that was it. The buildings were more round than rectangular - that was the only difference from the 'bug city piece' and a 'normal' city.

    The chunk of 'flying city' was going from right to left so me and two other girls (why was I a girl????) went running to the left to stay underneath it. There were other humans on this planet, buildings and stuff, so as I was running to the left to stay under the asphalt of this almost floating bug-city-block there was a line of cement buildings to my left, a street to my right, and then a field and that everclear shot of the earth (motivational spot, that's probably why we picked it).

    I never saw the floating/falling block touch down. Now that I think about it, I didn't have a weapon - the other two girls following me didn't either. I'm afraid we were some sort of "bait" group. We were more concerned with hiding before it touched down than being ready to attack whatever swarm was inhabiting those rounded buildings. There were doors in the buildings to our left but we didn't try to open any of them. Why? Either we knew they wouldn't open, or that wasn't the point. I don't think we were supposed to hide so much as find a good place to hide and then stand right in front of it till the bugs saw us - before jumping into the hiding spot while the 'guys' took them out.

    Whatever we were thinking, it didn't work. I ended up running up a sort of balcony and climbing over/along something that looked like tilted bathtubs lying on their sides. I never looked back to see what was chasing us (or rather *me* since I ended up being the last one running). I squeezed around a wall and found myself standing in a shower room (but roofless - with a square metalic 'sink' like thing, no faucets, and another of those sideways bathtub things). I climbed onto the edge of the sink-like box and looked over the wall. There was a kitchen there, complete with two little girls and an older woman I recognized (in the dream). I couldn't risk the things (were they even bugs?) following me down there and getting them, too, so I stayed looking over the edge.

    No pain in this dream. But eventually I ended up tilting over the edge too much and my blood fell down to where they were - the woman saw it and noticed me. I said something to her, apologizing, I think, and then I fell into the room where they were. I'm pretty sure I was dead before I hit the floor because I switched dreams then.

    .

    I'm assuming the dream was inspired by Starship Troopers because of the 'space-bug' menace. But nothing in it really had anything to do with that movie, including the 'unseen menace.' What really gets me about the dream is those 'sideways bathtub' things. I knew what they were in the dream, and they definitely had a purpose (they weren't bathtubs, of course, that's just the closest thing I could think of to describe them). What were they doing on the roof of that building? Why were the other two girls, who'd followed me fine up to that point, so afraid of that area that they'd rather get killed than run past those 'sideways-tub-things'? It's not because of the deadend. If there had been three of us, I would have told the little family to run and let the chase take us into that building. The only reason I stopped there was because it was just me.

    I think there was some purpose to those structures, something I knew in the dream without really thinking about - like you take the purpose of a slaughterhouse for granted. I'm really curious about that now. I think there was an entire backstory to that 'world' we were running around on and I wish there'd been more time between hiding and dying to think about it so I'd remember it now. Because now that I think about it, that 'flying city block' looked more "human" than the building I was running around on. I never looked to see what I and the two girls with me looked like - just that we were all female and that's why we were doing the running. It would be funny if we were the aliens, keeping some 'human' group hostage on the planet, and that flying "city block" was a space ship coming to rescue them.

    Fun dream. It's one of the rare ones where I didn't mind dying. Not because I really cared about the little family that much, just that it didn't hurt and I didn't look back to see what was killing me. I don't even remember being scared, just annoyed that those other two girls in my group didn't follow me. They must have turned back and gotten killed on the stairs. The idiots. >.<

     
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