Movie Trailer Epicness!

OK... So, I wanted to put some videos that I had on my computer onto my cell phone. Unfortunately, simply converting them into .mov files still kept them too large of a file. Therefore I went online in search of a converter. I found the NCH Prism Video Converter. (Great program, but apparently the free download is only a trial T_T) Anyway, the converter download came with the option of downloading free versions of other video programs... such as:
Debut Video Capture Software
FlashLynx Online Video Downloader
Pixillion Image Converter Software
PhotoPad Image Editor
Photostage Slideshow Software
OK, well, now that I have these new toys, I have to play with them ^_^
Ever since I discovered the movie trailer for "9" last month (see earlier posts), I had thought "God, this and Advent Children would work AWESOMELY together!" Well, I went on good old YouTube and searched... but I'm epiclly horrible at searching for stuff - research papers in college were HORRIBLE! - and so, I didn't turn up anything. Well, with my new desire to play with my new programs I instantly knew what to do. I wanted to re-edit the "9" movie trailer using footage from the Final Fantasy VII movie "Advent Children".
I started off by using FlashLynx to download the official trailer off of YouTube. I then used Debut's computer screen capture to gather up Advent Children footage. Popped in my DVD and hit record... and soon after I realized the the free version of Debut only allows about 30 seconds of capturing! Crap... most of the fight scenes I wanted to capture were about 3 minutes at least... Worst part was that Debut beeps when it starts recording, but it doesn't beep when it stops recording; it beeps when it is done processing the capture. So it records for about 30 seconds, but you don't hear the second beep until about 40 or 50 seconds after you start recording. So I had to then re-watch everything I captured and rewind the movie so that the stop and start overlapped. That way I could re-edit the entire fight scenes together if I wanted. Anyway, this was a rediculously slow process that left me counting out seconds so that I didn't need to rewind and re-watch as much. I also had difficulties with Debut crashing on me about a 1/2 dozen times >_<
The next day (again, starting at about 5pm because of work...) I started working on the edit and nearly cried when I realized that the frame-rate I captured everything in wasn't compatible with Window's Movie Maker. Thankfully, Good Old NCH Prism could not only convert file types, but also frame-rates! YAY! FYI - frame rate is how many single frames make up a second of film. Normal frame-rate for TV is 30 frames per second (FPS), or - more accurately - 29.97FPS. Film is 25FPS I believe (hadn't had to think of anything besides TV Frame-rate for so long I can't recall!) *clears throat* Um... AAAANYWAY... so I converted the frame-rates and was good to go for the edit. Next problem, however, was when I stupiditly decided to re-organize all of my files by creating a folder to store all of the screen captures. Well, if I were using a professional editing system I could just relink everything and we'd be set. But, nope, not with WMM. I told it where to find the files after I switched them, and they still didn't function properly. And so I had to start all over! TT_TT Thankfully, I didn't do too much, but what I had was timed perfectly, so it was still annoying.
What I ended up doing was literally cutting out any "9" movie footage. I left the audio (obviously) and the on-screen graphics from the trailer. I just replaced the "9" footage with "Advent Children" footage. It was a long and slow process (finished at about 1am), but I am very happy with the end result. I watched it at least a dozen times before heading in to work at 11am the next day (October 8th). I then talked about it every time I wasn't with a customer. I was sort of going through minor withdrawals too; the entire time I was at work I just wanted to be home so I could watch the finished product again! I had posted the 2-minute video in about four different places online and I was antsy to see if anyone responded. Would people like it? I was therefore a little irritated when, for the 2nd day in a row, I had to stay almost an extra 20 minutes to help cover the next shift! Anyway, I rushed home to see if anyone commented on my videos... nothing... but I watched it a few dozen more times myself. (BTW, STILL no one has written a comment about whether or not they liked the end product T_T).
I shamelessly sent my video EVERYWHERE. I posted on Facebook for people to check it out. I sent IMs to a few friends asking them to watch the video. I actually sent it to another friend via Facebook for her to watch. I ambushed my sister to have her watch (she gave me a verbal "dude, that rocks"), and harassed her into showing Peter the video (who also gave a verbal thumbs up).
After watching the video about 30 times on YouTube, I finally noticed that one of the "related videos" was another "9" trailer using Advent Children! And it was posted in May! How did I miss this when I first searched!? Oh yea, I suck at searching... >_< So, now I was wondering how good my video was in comparison. I started to go insane comparing the two. I asked my sister for her opinion. I asked the two friends I was harassing on AIM to give their opinions. And I updated my status on Facebook asking the community for THEIR opinions... Quick side note: Parts of Kirakirakingyo's video that I really loved: Cloud floating in empty space, Kadaj diving after Jenova, and Vincent jumping from the beast. Also loved Cloud's dub for "something terrible". I then debated if I should go back and re-edit mine to use these parts of Kirakira's, but I think I'm gonna leave mine be. Anyway, end of side note.
So after watching Kirakira's I noticed someone ELSE had posted that they had made a trailer as well... Exia0929 seemed to have remixed the trailer audio as well... I really liked about 46 seconds in - the clip where Cloud dislodges his one sword by using a second one as sort of a parallel-bar. I think that worked beautifully and I again wondered if I should re-edit my video to put that clip in... And then I noticed ANOTHER TRAILER! How bad do I suck at searching!? Anyway, THIS one was EPIC! If you didn't click the link yet, well, thank you for still reading... but be sure to check it out! AngelDemon101 just used the trailer song "Welcome Home" by Coheed and Cambria, remixed the song to cut out all the lyrics (it was well done), and just did an epic job at showcasing the different characters in the FFVII movies Advent Children and Crisis Core.
Well, after searching YouTube for a short time I started to wonder about the quality of my video. It isn't as grand as AngelDemon's, but it was proclaimed better than Kirakira's by everyone whom I asked. I guess I'm still proud of my work. I like the subtleness that is the Advent Children clips that correspond to the 9 footage. Perhaps I'll find a way to make a video in which both trailers are side-by-side... we'll see if I can figure out how to do that. In the mean time, I went back to what I originally set out to do - convert videos to carry with me on my phone. And guess what video made the cut ^_^ The audio sucks on my cell, but now I can show just about everyone I meet! ^_^

SOOOOOO Obsessed over this! Well... you might as well be obsessed too. Without further ado... my Advent Children "9" trailer! COMMENT!

Week of Win!

OK, so this week's obsession consists of massive awesomeness in my life (I don't get out much...). First up, I got to see Jeff Dunham live on Sunday! Don't know who Jeff Dunham is!? Here's a link for ya! (please excuse the F-bomb dropped at 2:42) Not one of my favorite puppets, but Bubba J here is key to this post. Soooo anyway! The show was awesome. One of my favorite parts was about 1/2 way through when Jeff brought out his tour-mate "Guitar Guy" (I'm sure there's a link off of one of Jeff's YouTube videos....). So Jeff has his puppet Ahkmed the Dead Terrorist start picking on Guitar Guy and this turned into a ten-minute tangent that only ended when Jeff couldn't keep a straight face anymore. This part was only eclipsed by Jeff's encore performance.
The show was at a city by my hometown which, although was technically a "city", it was still a little bit on the hick-side of things. Well, to show our hick-sided-ness, apparently a great many of those in attendance had written Jeff and requested that he brings Bubba J (who hasn't been used in a performance for a few years). So Jeff comes out with Bubba J as his encore, and the audience went insane! Being that the show itself was at a state fair, Bubba J comes out screaming "I'm Home!" Well, Jeff explained how everyone requested Bubba J's appearance and that he's sorry, but he'll have to use a cheat-sheet because he doesn't remember the Bubba J skit too well anymore. To which Bubba J (the puppet, remember) replied "I know all my lines."
Well, now it was time for the audience to amuse Jeff, because when he got to the bit about Bubba J's wife (4:15 into the above linked clip) the entire audience called back Bubba J's lines. The skit was funny enough as it is, being AT a state fair, but hearing HUNDREDS (thousands?) of people calling back Bubba J's lines with him was just too much. About 1/2 way through the skit Bubba J turned to Jeff and said "They know my lines better than you do!" And then Bubba J said "It's like having 2500 voices in my head!" Now keep in mind that the audience is shouting back the ENTIRE PARAGRAPH about Bubba J meeting his wife! The part that made me laugh the hardest was for the line "And then she smiled... what a tooth!" Jeff got to about "And then she-" before he stopped and the audience finished off Bubba J's line! He leaned against the trunk he keeps his puppets in and just stared at us. His look was PRICELESS. He then said that by far this was one of the strangest shows he'd performed ^_^
Ok, second thing for the Week of Win - the movie "9". This is a feature-length version of Shane Acker's 10-minute, 2004 (2005?) Oscar-nominated, short. Here is the movie preview complete with the song "Welcome Home" by Coheed and Cambria (which makes everything epic). There are mixed reviews for this movie - some are uber excited (like me) and others see "Stitchpunk dolls" animated with bits of human souls and think "lame!" Well, if the short film appealed to you than you should DEFINATELY go see the feature film. Granted, it may not be worth the $10 you spend for a movie that is only about 80 minutes long (if that), but I greatly enjoyed the experience and cannot wait for it to come out on video. It is very action packed with one antagonist and three "henchmen" (if you want to call them that). Also, aside from a few key changes, the feature really is a lengthening of the short and I was amused by the elements from the short that managed to work into the feature. Contrary to the jaded idiots on YouTube who think they can review a movie, I was super excited for "9" coming out on 9-9-09, and I'm glad I went to the first showing today (if you ignore the midnight showing they had last night). It's not a RAVE review... but here is one that I feel was fairly just. My only complaint is that I didn't find the ending as abrupt as they did, but that's because I was expecting it after watching the 10-min short.
The last thing I'm UBER excited about is this upcoming Saturday. I am a HUGE Legend of Zelda fan and have been saying for a little while that I would LOVE for there to be a movie (ignoring, of course, that just about ALL movies based on video games suck major ass). I was greatly distraught by the IGN.com April Fools 2008 "Legend of Zelda" movie prank (which, to my defense I didn't see until April SECOND so it didn't even occur to me it was a prank...). Anyway, further research brought me to BMB Finishes who really was making a LoZ movie - but completely out-of-pocket since it wasn't approved by Nintendo. After a 5-year process, the movie was finally completed and premiered in Atlanta in June 2009. Here is the preview for the movie - keep in mind it is an INDEPENDENT film with NO BUDGET and actors/crew donating their time (so think of it as a student movie). Here is the original Teaser Trailer - which got me excited in the first place. Here is another promo for the movie, which is a parody of one of the most famous NES Zelda game Japanese promos. So that is the end of the videos I'm posting (I think....)
Now, you might be wondering what all of this has to do with Saturday, since it already premiered in Atlanta. Well, my friends, BMB Finishes is using its own money once again in order to tour the country (world? They have a showing in Germany...), and their next showing is at Tribeca Cinemas in NYC on September 12th. Yup, that would be THIS Saturday. For more information, and to list your home town as a HoT Spot (get it? Hot spot... HoT spot... Hero Of Time spot? Got it yet? Clever, right?), go to BMB Finishes' website for the movie. And if you're going to the movie, don't forget to register with them at the website to reserve a seat. Since this isn't licensed by Nintendo the movie should be free, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind some compensation for the money they already spent... *shrug*.
AAAAAANYWAY, I'm now done watching "9" so my next obsession is getting to and from NYC on Saturday for the showing of "Hero Of Time" as well as deciding on if I want to make a trip to Hot Topic this week to get a LoZ something or other for BMB Finishes to sign...

Well, this concludes at least a portion of this obsessive impulse. The true conclusion will be on Sunday when I post about the movie. Taataa!!!!