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Tar-nation
2001-11-06 13:27:20
EK: You mentioned in your journal a ways back that you had considered a Miazaki vid (specifically including Kiki's) to the Talking Head's "And She Was." I had almost exactly the same idea, except for two points: 1) I concieved it as entirely a Kiki vid (I think there's just barely enough footage there...and will have to reach on a few lyrics.) and 2) I had no idea who sang the song or what the name of it was, so on my list the idea is listed as "the world was moving, she was right there in it, and she was - Kiki's." Won't be able to work on any ideas until I finish up the compilation masters and get them sent off. Have cleared out the remnents of the previous video (after having given up on locating a better copy of GR #7) from my hard drive, but I have a new hobby that requires a lot of drive space to move around in, so I may have to do a significant overhaul of the box. (No, I'm not saying what the hobby is. No it's not porn collection.)
My entire building smells like tar. They're roofing the new building next door, and the high air circulation rate we have in here (due to the culture and chemical hoods) means that the entire building gets saturated with even the mildest whiff of toxic fumes from outside. Hopefully it won't take all day for them to finish boiling and applying the stuff. It's already given me a headache.
Picked up an SVHS VCR from Quu last night at the club meeting. Now all I need are a couple of SVHS tapes and a few minor changes to the titles for the final mastering. It turns out that I misspelled "Nic Niedenbach" differently at every single opportunity. Probably misspelled it there too. You'd think six years of German language lessons would enable me to spell Germanic names properly.
My room has become something of a massive tangle of wires. If I get the SVHS player hooked into the system properly, the connections run something like this: VAT server to SVHS VCR, SVHS VCR to signal switcher. DVD player to macrovision breaker to signal switcher. Signal switcher to VCR. Cable to VCR. VCR to Computer. VCR to TV. Now realize that I live in a 10x10x10 foot cube of a dorm room. In that room also fits: 1 bed, 1 dresser, 1 chest of drawers, 1 bookshelf, 1 chair, 1 footlocker, 6 boxes of assorted tapes, 2 boxes of assorted books, 1 normal desk, and 1 specially constructed computer desk. (Not specially constructed for THIS room, but still.) Yes, I am an expert at klotski. -
With the beat box booming in the belly of the beast....
2001-11-05 18:05:38
Drat, had a bit more free time last night for a journal entry, and just then the site goes down. Bleh. Can't be helped though.
I'm sitting here doing the final test run on the second AWA compilation tape. Looks as though there may not be any room for the pro nominees on either tape, even divided up between them. The Pro nominees get a lower priority than the Masters's simply because of all the judging tapes out there already. It's unfortunate, but we really can't stretch this out to three tapes.
Spent most of Sunday at work preparing for a presentation that I just now find out won't be happening, but took enough time off to go see the new Pixar pic "Monsters Inc." It really is as good as everyone has been saying. Not quite the laugh-riot that Toy Story 2 was, but very funny, and a nicely created, internally consistant world was put together for this film. You really get the feeling when Boo starts following the stars around that they do feel like they've been confronted with a radioactive puppy that just stepped out of the reactor at work. Quite funny, as predictable as these things tend to be, and managed to work the "bachelors with a kid" angle without resorting to all of the tired old schtick jokes we've grown to expect from such situations. (Hell, anime is more rife with these tropes than this film was.) The final action sequences were surprisingly breathtaking and rapid-fire.
However, the previews punctuated something that I've been thinking on for a while. Apparently the next Disney (as opposed to Pixar(owned by Disney, but largely independant from a creative standpoint) film is going to be a sequal to Peter Pan. A musical sequal to Peter Pan. This seems to point out just how much better Pixar is at doing ANYTHING these days than Disney proper. Yes, Pixar did do a "musical" (a whole one song in the movie proper) sequal to Toy Story, but it kept the idea fresh, and took new angles on the concept, new characters, and generally came out with a better film than the first one. Disney, however, has been regularly mining its past for every last scrap of nostaligic dollar value. The new Peter Pan film just looks like a retelling of the first film, with a few details taken straight out of "Hook." (Hook comes back to the real world and kidnaps Jane, Wendy's daughter.) If the singing in previous Disney sequels is anything to go on, the music will be HORRID. I'm not one of the "if it's Disney it must be bad" gremlins, but Atlantis was pretty dang bad on its own, and everything that was good about "The Emperor's New Groove" was stolen straight from Warner Bros. Disney was once able to produce the greatest animation the world ever saw, and provided inspiration for both the Warner Bros and Osamu Tezuka, the "grandfather of anime". It's disappointing to see it rest so firmly on its laurels.
Thus endeth the rant.
(Oh, the previous subject line was from Mathnet...a part of "Square One Television," PBS educational TV.) -
The story you are about to hear is a lie.............but it's short.
2001-11-03 01:17:41
OK, everyone stand back. If my experience with the technical end of AMVs is any indication, I'm likely to break this thing on my first attempt at blundering around in it.
More likely than not this is going to end up being an exercise in futility as I haven't the determination or time to even keep up with the most recent uploads to Waldo's, so regular entries are likely to be a rarity. Hell, there's over 1300 messages in my e-mail account, just 'cause I can't be bothered to go through and clean them out.
So why post at all? Well, I'm sitting here with a Guiness after a dinner of 10 Krystals (Why, yes! I am a college student. How did you know?) and I got a little time to spare. I've just completed the dry run on the first AWA 7 AMV compilation tape. System ran flawlessly, but a few little glitches in the announcement banners are nagging at me since I thought I fixed them a week ago. I thought I was being terribly clever, and, as is the case with EVERY ONE of my videos, a tech glitch makes it look corny. Sigh. Also, everyone should be warned when this actually makes it out to the masses...the titles and bumpers have been arranged for the literate. READ FAST.
Of course, this means I get to gloat a little as I point out that the AWA VAT server is sitting IN MY ROOM.
I will never get any work done ever again.
Actually, it's not been that much of a distraction thus far. Work has been spilling over on me for the past week (wonderful image for those of you who happen to know what it is I do) and other hobbies have been jostling for dominance. I have a few AMV ideas in the works, although I'm not gonna talk about any of them until they actually get under way. (Except for one that apparently EK has also hit upon, although my version was going to be soley to Kiki's, and she had thought of a "various.")
Really disappointing Halloween this year. The nature of my job meant that I didn't even know until six hours beforehand whether or not I would have the night off, so I had to be really non-committal about going to anyone's parties. When I, rather unexpectedly, did get the night off, no one I could find was doing ANYTHING. I realize that much of the season's festivities were subdued due to the war, but still, few were the places I even saw those cheesy construction-paper bats in the window, and the Jack-o-Lantern crop was pretty lean this year. Even my parents were missing out on the trick-or-treaters back home, since they had to spend the night at choir practice. After flipping channels for a while and calling answering machines I just decided to give up and went out to see "13 Ghosts." I'm at something of a loss as how to rank it. Essentially a "B" horror movie with a huge budget. Acting on the part of the living ranged from annoying but acceptable down to a quota-filling stereotype. The real stars were the ghosts. Lotsa flash and bang on their part, disfiguration and weird outfits, and the requisite "nude woman with a knife" ghost made them much more interesting than the family that was the supposed focus. Frankly, I wanted to hear more about the ghosts. What was "The Juggernaut"'s story? Why the prison bedclothes? How did "The Torn Prince" die? Who the hell could do THAT to "The Hammer"? Hell, we only got about a three second look at "The Bound Woman." Final verdict? A movie worth seeing for the "bad guys" and a somewhat interesting story drug out in wrong directions. Worth it for my money, but not sure about anyone else.
Recent critics have continuously quoted how "Scream" has "revitalized" the Horror genre. It hasn't "revitalized" the genre, it gave the genre money. Not necessicarily a good thing. Star Wars did the same thing for Sci-Fi. Sci-Fi used to be a bastion of the low-budget film. People were willing to excuse crappy special effects for a thrilling story of imagination and fantasy. Now the special effects ARE the film, and the stories are coming from the recycle bin. I don't want to see the same thing happen to my favorite genre. Horror does not require great special effects (See "The Others") or name-brand cast (See "The Blair Witch"...and those of you arguing against that, it's a rant for another time). It requires writing, events, and a story that grip the audience and suspend their disbelief against their own will. It does NOT require comedians. It does NOT need to make fun of itself, its protagonists, or its audience for watching it.
Thus endeth the rant.
JOURNAL: MCWagner (Matthew Wagner)
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