Posts
Well, I'm currently trying to keep my mind off of the AMV contest - since it's not due until, oh, geez, like MAY! Plus, I really can't do much more with it right now... so DISTRACTION TIME!
Usually I'd fall to Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to distract me, but I'm currently in the Water Temple... Annoying as HELL! And the Water Dungeon earlier in the game was the most annoying of THOSE dungeons... I've decided the Japanese must hate water for some reason. Maybe they recent it for keeping them so tightly confined....
ANYWAY! I'm avoiding Ocarina of Time because I REALLY don't want to do the water temple. T_T So then I decided to start up FarmVille on Facebook again. Man, they've changed it a lot, but still, it can't keep you occupied for long periods of time. So I dove back into Webcomic making.
I started off with just the one webcomic (I mentioned this in a below post, but I'll get more in depth about it in a moment), and then I got talked into helping Peter make one - granted, it wasn't too had to "pull my arm" (more on this in a moment as well), and now I have an idea for a THIRD webcomic! Comic overload!!!
Ok, so some info on the first one. I've referenced a few times before that I am a reader of the Game Destroyers comic. In fact, I'm a character in the comic! I'm Scout! ^_^ I'm also impressed that a few of the "original" GDs got killed off, and all of the "honorary GDs" got killed off, but my character - an "honorary" somehow survived and got bumped up to "official." Go me! ^_^ ANYWAY... Back in May, I think, the author was heavily bombarded with stuff for college and went on hiatus. He wanted to keep up readership, so he offered to post any guest comics submitted. It got me thinking and after a little while I actually came up with an idea. I was able to quickly script out 7 non-consecutive strips for the comic. Unfortunately, I can't really draw too well. If I had a base drawing to sketch from I can do really well, however. *shrug* Well, my inability to draw ended up having the author come back from hiatus before I even started sketching my webcomic idea. I still wanted to create the comic after I scripted it, however. So then I went on a search for style ideas. I was thinking of maybe using typical 8-bit styling. I was also thinking something along the same styling of A Modest Destiny. Yet another thought was along the lines of Order of the Stick. I even thought of something like this... Eventually I got sent to Zombie Grammar, which in turn sent me to StripGenerator.com. I checked out a few other strip generators, but eventually settled on StripGenerator's illustrations.
The next trouble I ran into was that StripGenerator doesn't exactly generate the comic the way I'd like it. For one, I can't customise the characters as much as I'd like. And the second, slightly more major issue, is that I wanted the comic strip to be a 6-panel, and I can only do 3 panels on StripGenerator. I then settled on using InkScape to do my comic, based on StripGenerator. I took screenshots of everything in StripGenerator I liked/would need, and then redrew them all in InkScape. Unfortunately, InkScape isn't as user-friendly as Adobe Illustrator, and so I've been running in to a lot of problems with drawing. And so, until I can find an easier way to piece together my comics, this will be a long-winded process in which every comic may take a week or two (depending on free time) to create. >_<
Anyway, that is the end of my own personal webcomicness (which is currently what IS keeping me distracted from AMV making...). The next stage of the webcomic obsessing is due to Peter. One day about a month ago, I guess, I was driving him and Celia to the mall or somewhere and my sister pointed out a very nice church on-route. It has a pseudo-gothic exterior with a gorgeous stone wrap-around porch. She said that she'd love to get married either there, or in a cathedral (she wants a gothic wedding). I was going to add in that someplace with a hedge maze would work really nicely as well. However, I misspoke and said hedge mage instead of hedge maze (I blame the rhyme). Well, those two had a FIELD DAY with my flub-up. "Hedge mage? What the hell is that?" Celia laughed. "That's got to be the crappiest Final Fantasy job," Peter added in. "What can he do? Grow plants? Some spellcaster!" They laughed some more before Peter finally said, "Ya know, I actually love that idea! Hedge Mage! I think I'm going to make a webcomic about it!" He then proceeded to talk to me about the progress of Hedge Mage whenever we saw each other. Well, about a week back he got all excited. Apparently the author of his favorite webcomic (<-- I'll reference this again, so feel free to check out the link) was doing some real-time online chatting the night before. Peter informed the author of his idea of Hedge Mage and the author was in hysterics. According to Peter, he loved the idea so much that he offered to illustrate it for him. Cool beans. Peter than introduced me to the author's comic, Concession (again, I'll reference this again in a little bit). I like the styling, I even don't mind that it's a Furry comic. Peter said that they may decide to go with the 8-bit styling however. I said that it would be funny to put poor Hedge Mage in to the normal Final Fantasy setting, but there are TONS of FF 8-bit comics already on the web. So now Peter is rethinking the character design. Anyway, now back to my part in all of this. The same day Peter informed me that Immelmann would be willing to illustrate, he, Celia, and I were just randomly talking and we kept pointing out "hey, that's funny! That should be in Hedge Mage!" So, Peter finally asked me if I wanted to co-write the comic. YAY, Collaboration! ^_^ Later that night I came up with the descriptions of a 6-character cast, but by the time I was done he and Celia were already well into their game of Final Fantasy XI, and he STILL hasn't taken a look at the descriptions. Prolly best tho, because it seems that one of our character ideas was already used on South Park. Whoops... To be fair, the episode IS 10 years old (couldn't remember it being on SP), and secondly, MY SHP was going to be a sexual deviant, not a man dressed in costume reciting all the SH violations. *shrug* Back to the drawing board - so to speak. Anyway, I'm sure Hedge Mage will take a LOOOOOONG time (Peter is VERY slow at starting anything), but we'll see. ^_^
OK, so now for the last Webcomic idea. This is based off of Concession (Told ya I'd reference it again!). Basically, according to the "About" page, Immelmann started his webcomic while working at a movie theater. Apparently he was having a hard time dealing with the customers'/co-workers' stupidity, and decided to "vent" via webcomic. And even tho the comic evolved past that, and has its "disturbing" situations (depending on how "innocent" you are ^_~), I love the idea of venting about work via webcomic. I even have a few doozies from work that would make for an interesting webcomic of its own. My problem, however, is that I'm not nearly as violent or sexually deviant as Immelmann seems to be, so I'm not entirely sure how to twist my work annoyances into something funny. Anyone want to collab?
Well, there you have it. Three webcomic ideas, would any of you read any of them? Either way I'll keep you posted on their progress(es).
OK, off to work on my pirate/ninja webcomic. Byes! ^_^
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
What the Fridge!?
Ok, so as mentioned in an earlier post (*cough* yesterday *cough*), Mina and I are trying to come up with a name for the collaborative production company we are creating for our AMV making. I had suggested that we use an inside joke, but alas, we don't really have too many that can be summed up in a short enough phrase to be a studio name. The closest I came was based on a quote of hers from about a year back. You can see our family's American Flag from my bedroom window, and once when Mina was visiting I happened to have my blinds drawn and she could only see the silhouette of the flag flapping in the wind. She called out, "Oh my god, it's a stalker! Oh wait, it's your flag." I found it hilarious. Anyway, I had suggested Stalker Flag or Flag Stalker as possible production names. Not the greatest, but better than others I came up with.
Well, I think we had a breakthrough today. A new girl started working today and our boss was showing her around. There wasn't really anything for Mina or I to really do, so we just wandered looking for busy work so our boss wouldn't yell at us. One of the things I decided to do busy-work-wise was to check to see if we needed back-ups of any of our food products. After a brief moment I turned around and rejoined Mina out front. She commented on how quickly I checked on the back-ups and I responded with "Yeah, the fridge door is slightly open. Sal must be showing her the fridge layout." Mina then laughed and replied "so that's what they're calling it these days." We laughed and quietly joked about being "in the fridge" for the next few minutes. Finally, I turned to Mina and said, "That should be our production name! In The Fridge Productions!" And she actually agreed with me! So there you have it. I think we officially named our AMV studio "In The Fridge Productions" ^_^
I went home and quickly googled "In The Fridge Productions" in an attempt to see if any other AMVers had taken the name yet. Strangely enough, I actually got 3 hits! On professional production companies no less! Granted, none of them were specifically "In The Fridge" productions, but still. Check them out! On the plus side, no one with "fridge" in their studio name showed up on AMV.Org... So I think we're still good on the name ^_^
Anyway, my next task after verifying the production name was to start working on the logo bump. I started with some simple refrigerator clip art, but then I remembered that a lot of AMV studios actually use anime clips as their bump. So I hopped on to YouTube and searched "Anime Fridge" and stumbled upon something awesome. Cowboy Bebop had an episode where they were invaded by something from their moldy fridge and there were a few AMVs about this episode put to "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Livin in the Fridge". I had forgotten Weird Al did the song Livin in the Fridge. I was originally going to use a royalty-free song off of KillerTracks, but Weird Al typically has no problem with his fans using his songs for fan-vids, so perhaps I'll grab a copy of the song from Remy and use that for our production logo bump....
In the meantime, I'm waiting for Mina to navigate her way through the invasion of her sister and 2 friends coming home from college, get to her computer, and answer my questions about using cowboy bebop and/or Weird Al... Update posted soonish I'm sure. ^_^
Well, I think we had a breakthrough today. A new girl started working today and our boss was showing her around. There wasn't really anything for Mina or I to really do, so we just wandered looking for busy work so our boss wouldn't yell at us. One of the things I decided to do busy-work-wise was to check to see if we needed back-ups of any of our food products. After a brief moment I turned around and rejoined Mina out front. She commented on how quickly I checked on the back-ups and I responded with "Yeah, the fridge door is slightly open. Sal must be showing her the fridge layout." Mina then laughed and replied "so that's what they're calling it these days." We laughed and quietly joked about being "in the fridge" for the next few minutes. Finally, I turned to Mina and said, "That should be our production name! In The Fridge Productions!" And she actually agreed with me! So there you have it. I think we officially named our AMV studio "In The Fridge Productions" ^_^
I went home and quickly googled "In The Fridge Productions" in an attempt to see if any other AMVers had taken the name yet. Strangely enough, I actually got 3 hits! On professional production companies no less! Granted, none of them were specifically "In The Fridge" productions, but still. Check them out! On the plus side, no one with "fridge" in their studio name showed up on AMV.Org... So I think we're still good on the name ^_^
Anyway, my next task after verifying the production name was to start working on the logo bump. I started with some simple refrigerator clip art, but then I remembered that a lot of AMV studios actually use anime clips as their bump. So I hopped on to YouTube and searched "Anime Fridge" and stumbled upon something awesome. Cowboy Bebop had an episode where they were invaded by something from their moldy fridge and there were a few AMVs about this episode put to "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Livin in the Fridge". I had forgotten Weird Al did the song Livin in the Fridge. I was originally going to use a royalty-free song off of KillerTracks, but Weird Al typically has no problem with his fans using his songs for fan-vids, so perhaps I'll grab a copy of the song from Remy and use that for our production logo bump....
In the meantime, I'm waiting for Mina to navigate her way through the invasion of her sister and 2 friends coming home from college, get to her computer, and answer my questions about using cowboy bebop and/or Weird Al... Update posted soonish I'm sure. ^_^
Thursday, October 15, 2009
AMVs = Fun+Craziness+epic time consumer!
OK, first AnimeNEXT-themed post (Already!? Yeah, I know... >_<) As do just about all anime conventions, AnimeNEXT has an AMV (anime music video) contest (as well as a non-competition screening). So naturally I MUST submit something to the contest! I’m still on the high of doing so well on my movie trailer (see below post) – even if only one person voted (Thanx Remy since I’m sure it was you! LOVES!) and one person commented. ANYWAY, the high off of that, plus still feeling pretty good about my Helsing AMV “Bloodsucker Alucard” that I edited in time for last year’s Halloween (I think…). I also felt like I did well for my two Game Destroyers (webcomic, see below post) promotional videos: the teaser, and the music video. I’m on an editing high right now and I think I could pull off a really kick ass winning video. But what to do!?
Well, Mina had previously expressed wanting to learn how to make an AMV (or something of the sort), plus she can actually get footage – as opposed to my method of downloading a crapload of AMVs off of AnimeMusicVideos.org, slicing the AMVs apart, and then re-assembling them as my own work… ANYWAY, Mina can get the footage, and the music, and she wanted to learn how to make an AMV, and she introduced me to AnimeNEXT in the first place, AND SOOOOO I decided to have her help. We’re gonna collaborate on an AMV to submit. If Remy or Celia want to join in on the efforts they can, but it’s mostly us two girls (me and Mina).
I’m super excited about this effort – maybe obsessively so *blush*
It’s a good thing we work together, because any chance I get I harass her about something new about this AMV that doesn’t even need to be STARTED until April… First, it was wondering on the musical choice. We decided on upbeat because it’s more fun that way, and it would appeal to the male viewership a lot easier. Next, Mina commented that she loved “Bloodsucker Alucard”, and that it was a shame I couldn’t submit it to the contest because of the watermark logos and opening credits I have in the video (stupid contest rules!). She said she loved that the video not only had a song that fit really well with the feel of the anime, but that it was a song she was unfamiliar with. She informed me that one of the main reasons she watches AMVs is to get introduced to new songs. Based off of that, and both of our love of the song I used in the end credits of “Bloodsucker Alucard”, we decided on staying with the vampire theme and use the song “Deception” by the Cruxshadows. We then talked about WHICH vampires to use and decided on D from Vampire Hunter D. It doesn’t hurt that Mina has both of the Vampire Hunter D movies.
OK, so we have a song and an anime to use, we’re on a great start. Now I needed to research my competition. I went back to AMV.org and downloaded all of the videos that claimed to have submitted to the 2009 AnimeNEXT AMV screenings. There were 27 hits, and only 5 I couldn’t download for one reason or another. Most weren’t uploaded as .wmvs, and so I had to convert them. Thank you NCH Prism Converter (see below post)! Problem being, that apparently what I had downloaded was a free trial, so now I had to decide on whether or not to buy the program. Eh, it was on sale (until the 15th – that’s today, folks) for like $30, and I already used it an insane amount of times, so *shrug* why not. Purchased! Wait! I get an additional 10% off if I purchased something else within the next 4 hours!? Well, might as well get the full version of the FlashLynx download program (see below post). That was only $14 with the added discount. Sweet. Purchased! Then I debated to do the hat trick and just purchase the Debut Video Capture software (see below post), but I decided to wait until I actually put my latest paycheck into the bank…
AAAAANYWAY (I segway a lot, don’t I?), I downloaded and converted all of those AMVs, and then went through AnimeNEXT’s list of competitors/winners. I have a winner and/or runner up for every category at least. That’s when I started getting nervous. Most of them were REALLY good. At least two of the emotional ones made me tear up. Thank god Mina and I decided to NOT do sentimental >_< $800 on a copy of Adobe Premiere, so I’m stuck editing with friggen Windows Movie Maker! Yeah, I can do some mean edits with that crappy program, so just imagine how good I'd be with a professional one, but still… It will be tough to be any sort of competition with friggen WMM! Worst part about the program is that you can only move 7 frames at a time! I can’t cut something down frame-by-frame, and that hurts a lot of stuff – especially dubbing. It’s also hard in WMM to re-edit the timing of the video (like I MAJORLY had to do for “Bloodsucker Alucard”). It’s definitely gonna be a hard-ass battle to get up to par with these videos! Strange thing though, the ones I thought were AMAZING didn’t even place in the competitions, and most of the winners I was like “eh” when I watched… so who knows how the audience is gonna feel that day. *shrug* Great, 8 months of stressing about this damn AMV! >_<>
Well, Mina had previously expressed wanting to learn how to make an AMV (or something of the sort), plus she can actually get footage – as opposed to my method of downloading a crapload of AMVs off of AnimeMusicVideos.org, slicing the AMVs apart, and then re-assembling them as my own work… ANYWAY, Mina can get the footage, and the music, and she wanted to learn how to make an AMV, and she introduced me to AnimeNEXT in the first place, AND SOOOOO I decided to have her help. We’re gonna collaborate on an AMV to submit. If Remy or Celia want to join in on the efforts they can, but it’s mostly us two girls (me and Mina).
I’m super excited about this effort – maybe obsessively so *blush*
It’s a good thing we work together, because any chance I get I harass her about something new about this AMV that doesn’t even need to be STARTED until April… First, it was wondering on the musical choice. We decided on upbeat because it’s more fun that way, and it would appeal to the male viewership a lot easier. Next, Mina commented that she loved “Bloodsucker Alucard”, and that it was a shame I couldn’t submit it to the contest because of the watermark logos and opening credits I have in the video (stupid contest rules!). She said she loved that the video not only had a song that fit really well with the feel of the anime, but that it was a song she was unfamiliar with. She informed me that one of the main reasons she watches AMVs is to get introduced to new songs. Based off of that, and both of our love of the song I used in the end credits of “Bloodsucker Alucard”, we decided on staying with the vampire theme and use the song “Deception” by the Cruxshadows. We then talked about WHICH vampires to use and decided on D from Vampire Hunter D. It doesn’t hurt that Mina has both of the Vampire Hunter D movies.
OK, so we have a song and an anime to use, we’re on a great start. Now I needed to research my competition. I went back to AMV.org and downloaded all of the videos that claimed to have submitted to the 2009 AnimeNEXT AMV screenings. There were 27 hits, and only 5 I couldn’t download for one reason or another. Most weren’t uploaded as .wmvs, and so I had to convert them. Thank you NCH Prism Converter (see below post)! Problem being, that apparently what I had downloaded was a free trial, so now I had to decide on whether or not to buy the program. Eh, it was on sale (until the 15th – that’s today, folks) for like $30, and I already used it an insane amount of times, so *shrug* why not. Purchased! Wait! I get an additional 10% off if I purchased something else within the next 4 hours!? Well, might as well get the full version of the FlashLynx download program (see below post). That was only $14 with the added discount. Sweet. Purchased! Then I debated to do the hat trick and just purchase the Debut Video Capture software (see below post), but I decided to wait until I actually put my latest paycheck into the bank…
AAAAANYWAY (I segway a lot, don’t I?), I downloaded and converted all of those AMVs, and then went through AnimeNEXT’s list of competitors/winners. I have a winner and/or runner up for every category at least. That’s when I started getting nervous. Most of them were REALLY good. At least two of the emotional ones made me tear up. Thank god Mina and I decided to NOT do sentimental >_< $800 on a copy of Adobe Premiere, so I’m stuck editing with friggen Windows Movie Maker! Yeah, I can do some mean edits with that crappy program, so just imagine how good I'd be with a professional one, but still… It will be tough to be any sort of competition with friggen WMM! Worst part about the program is that you can only move 7 frames at a time! I can’t cut something down frame-by-frame, and that hurts a lot of stuff – especially dubbing. It’s also hard in WMM to re-edit the timing of the video (like I MAJORLY had to do for “Bloodsucker Alucard”). It’s definitely gonna be a hard-ass battle to get up to par with these videos! Strange thing though, the ones I thought were AMAZING didn’t even place in the competitions, and most of the winners I was like “eh” when I watched… so who knows how the audience is gonna feel that day. *shrug* Great, 8 months of stressing about this damn AMV! >_<>
WHAAAA!? I'm going to a Con!? No ways!
My friend Mina is fairly big on anime, and therefore anime conventions. I have been quite envious of her because I have wanted to go to a Con for a long time. And while she manages to not only go, but also makes really good costumes to cosplay in, I, on the other hand, must stay home and wait for the time in which I have money.
In college, one of my professors had each of us write up a "hundred things to do before I die" list (now known as a "bucket list" - things to do before you "kick the bucket"). Mina found the list and offered to help me cross some of the things off. First was going to the amusement park Knoebels in Pennsylvania. One of our mutual friends was getting married, and since the whole lot of us are far from the "strip club" type, we had the bachelorette party at the park. Very fun indeed. Anyway, Mina noticed that another one of the items on my list was to go to a con. And so it was her sole mission for the past 6 months or so to find us one. And she succeeded.
There is a con in the PA/NJ/NY tri-state area. It rotates the state that houses it or something, but whatever – not important. The important thing is that it’s called AnimeNEXT and if we register before the end of the year we can go the entire weekend for just $35! Best part is that we can all commute to and from the con, so no added dough needed for hotel rooms. We could even BRING food and save a little more cash! I could pull off $35! Mina for the win!
I even have Remy agreeing to come with. He’s asking some of his Otaku friends if they’d like to join, and I have Celia and Peter deciding on my end. If we get a large enough crowd we may get even MORE knocked off with a group discount. Plus that means more people to split gas, so we each pay less! Win again! TOTAL WINAGE!
ANYWAY, the only problem is that the convention isn’t until JUNE of next year! They don't even have any information up about the 2010 con except for the location and weekend! I have to wait 8 months (roughly) for this convention! GAAAH! I can’t wait that long!!!! I’m totally obsessing over it already! Eight months of obsessing!? At least this blog will fill up quickly. >_<
In college, one of my professors had each of us write up a "hundred things to do before I die" list (now known as a "bucket list" - things to do before you "kick the bucket"). Mina found the list and offered to help me cross some of the things off. First was going to the amusement park Knoebels in Pennsylvania. One of our mutual friends was getting married, and since the whole lot of us are far from the "strip club" type, we had the bachelorette party at the park. Very fun indeed. Anyway, Mina noticed that another one of the items on my list was to go to a con. And so it was her sole mission for the past 6 months or so to find us one. And she succeeded.
There is a con in the PA/NJ/NY tri-state area. It rotates the state that houses it or something, but whatever – not important. The important thing is that it’s called AnimeNEXT and if we register before the end of the year we can go the entire weekend for just $35! Best part is that we can all commute to and from the con, so no added dough needed for hotel rooms. We could even BRING food and save a little more cash! I could pull off $35! Mina for the win!
I even have Remy agreeing to come with. He’s asking some of his Otaku friends if they’d like to join, and I have Celia and Peter deciding on my end. If we get a large enough crowd we may get even MORE knocked off with a group discount. Plus that means more people to split gas, so we each pay less! Win again! TOTAL WINAGE!
ANYWAY, the only problem is that the convention isn’t until JUNE of next year! They don't even have any information up about the 2010 con except for the location and weekend! I have to wait 8 months (roughly) for this convention! GAAAH! I can’t wait that long!!!! I’m totally obsessing over it already! Eight months of obsessing!? At least this blog will fill up quickly. >_<
Saturday, October 10, 2009
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!
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!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
TV... oh how many hours have been wasted watching you!
TV's Fall line-up actually looks pretty good. Which is usually a bad sign for me.
Whenever I like new shows they always tend to get cancelled... Moonlight, Pushing Daisies, My Own Worst Enemy (although I do like Christian Slater's new show The Forgotten), The Black Donnellys, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (which ironically was replaced BY The Black Donnelly's), DayBreak (the Taye Diggs ABC show before he was put on Private Practice), Eli Stone, Trust Me, Traveler, Dark Angel... you get the idea.
*side note... I'm not really sure if it's getting picked up for a 2nd season, so I don't know if I should put Mental here with the cancellations, or over in the "good luck" categories below...
Basically, any show that I liked and required any semblance of intelligence to watch it... it gets cancelled within the first 2 years... And if they don't get cancelled, something happens that makes me not really care about the show anymore, such as Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Smallville, and Heroes - sure I still WATCH them, but I could easily do so on the internet, whatevers.
However, if I jump on the bandwagon after a show established itself, it seems fine. My current “established” shows are: The Office, NCIS, Criminal Minds, How I Met Your Mother, Two & a Half Men, Hells Kitchen, Mythbusters, Big Brother , and the age-old The Simpsons (which I phase in and out of throughout its 20-years).
So, in hopes to at least remember the titles in the future if my curse continues to thrive… I would like to wish good luck to my shows entering their junior and sophomore seasons: The Big Bang Theory (OMG hilarious!), Castle (Such great chemistry, Nathan Fillion is brilliant), Fringe (intense and humorous – LOVE IT), and Dollhouse (Dark Angel meets My Own Worst Enemy meets Joss Whedon’s genius). Here’s hoping you don’t stop at 2 years (or 3 with BBT)…
And now for the newbies this season - here's hoping they get at least ONE season under their belt: Accidentally on Purpose (great comedic timing, Jenna Elfman still has it if you ask me), The Forgotten, Hank (poor Kelsey Grammer is still trying to recreate the success of Frasier...), The Middle (not terribly funny, but it is amusing), and Flash Forward (AWESOME pilot! Here's hoping it's the "New Heroes"...).
I'd also like to comment about the show Merlin even though it was only a summer-season show and is no longer on. It was awesome and I'm hoping it got enough buzz to come back, and not just over the summer. Same goes for the quirkey office show Better Off Ted. Those summer seasons are way too short. For instance, I also watch My Boys and it feels like there is only like 9 shows every “season”… if they are going to do that, couldn’t TBS have like 2 or 3 “seasons” each year, like how America’s Next Top Model and Survivor have multiple “cycles” per year?
Well, anyway, there we have it, the list of the shows that I love right now. Quick recap? Sure!
-How I Met Your Mother
-Accidentally on Purpose
-Two & a Half Men
-The Big Bang Theory
-Castle
-Heroes
-NCIS (trying to give the Los Angeles spin off a chance, but the magic just isn’t there)
-Hell's Kitchen
-The Forgotten
-Hank
-The Middle
-Criminal Minds
-CSI (mainly the NY version, although I used to be a fan of the original)
-Mythbusters
-FlashForward
-Grey’s Anatomy
-Fringe
-The Office
-Dollhouse
-Smallville
-Desperate Housewives
-The Simpsons
-Merlin (summer show)
-My Boys (summer show)
-Big Brother (summer show)
-I Survived a Japanese Game Show (summer show)
-Wipeout (summer show)
-Better Off Ted (summer show)
Oops… tis TV watchin’ time! Byes…
Whenever I like new shows they always tend to get cancelled... Moonlight, Pushing Daisies, My Own Worst Enemy (although I do like Christian Slater's new show The Forgotten), The Black Donnellys, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (which ironically was replaced BY The Black Donnelly's), DayBreak (the Taye Diggs ABC show before he was put on Private Practice), Eli Stone, Trust Me, Traveler, Dark Angel... you get the idea.
*side note... I'm not really sure if it's getting picked up for a 2nd season, so I don't know if I should put Mental here with the cancellations, or over in the "good luck" categories below...
Basically, any show that I liked and required any semblance of intelligence to watch it... it gets cancelled within the first 2 years... And if they don't get cancelled, something happens that makes me not really care about the show anymore, such as Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Smallville, and Heroes - sure I still WATCH them, but I could easily do so on the internet, whatevers.
However, if I jump on the bandwagon after a show established itself, it seems fine. My current “established” shows are: The Office, NCIS, Criminal Minds, How I Met Your Mother, Two & a Half Men, Hells Kitchen, Mythbusters, Big Brother , and the age-old The Simpsons (which I phase in and out of throughout its 20-years).
So, in hopes to at least remember the titles in the future if my curse continues to thrive… I would like to wish good luck to my shows entering their junior and sophomore seasons: The Big Bang Theory (OMG hilarious!), Castle (Such great chemistry, Nathan Fillion is brilliant), Fringe (intense and humorous – LOVE IT), and Dollhouse (Dark Angel meets My Own Worst Enemy meets Joss Whedon’s genius). Here’s hoping you don’t stop at 2 years (or 3 with BBT)…
And now for the newbies this season - here's hoping they get at least ONE season under their belt: Accidentally on Purpose (great comedic timing, Jenna Elfman still has it if you ask me), The Forgotten, Hank (poor Kelsey Grammer is still trying to recreate the success of Frasier...), The Middle (not terribly funny, but it is amusing), and Flash Forward (AWESOME pilot! Here's hoping it's the "New Heroes"...).
I'd also like to comment about the show Merlin even though it was only a summer-season show and is no longer on. It was awesome and I'm hoping it got enough buzz to come back, and not just over the summer. Same goes for the quirkey office show Better Off Ted. Those summer seasons are way too short. For instance, I also watch My Boys and it feels like there is only like 9 shows every “season”… if they are going to do that, couldn’t TBS have like 2 or 3 “seasons” each year, like how America’s Next Top Model and Survivor have multiple “cycles” per year?
Well, anyway, there we have it, the list of the shows that I love right now. Quick recap? Sure!
-How I Met Your Mother
-Accidentally on Purpose
-Two & a Half Men
-The Big Bang Theory
-Castle
-Heroes
-NCIS (trying to give the Los Angeles spin off a chance, but the magic just isn’t there)
-Hell's Kitchen
-The Forgotten
-Hank
-The Middle
-Criminal Minds
-CSI (mainly the NY version, although I used to be a fan of the original)
-Mythbusters
-FlashForward
-Grey’s Anatomy
-Fringe
-The Office
-Dollhouse
-Smallville
-Desperate Housewives
-The Simpsons
-Merlin (summer show)
-My Boys (summer show)
-Big Brother (summer show)
-I Survived a Japanese Game Show (summer show)
-Wipeout (summer show)
-Better Off Ted (summer show)
Oops… tis TV watchin’ time! Byes…
General Obsessive List... moving on...
Truth be told, I haven't really be obsessive lately - I KNOW! RIGHT!? - anyway, I just haven't really in the mood to do just about anything... so I'm actually working on a lot of little things...
1) I am attempting to put together a webcomic, but I'm not very good at drawing, so everything is on the computer. I didn't have the money for Photoshop and/or Illustrator, so I downloaded a free vector-drawing program (kind of like a free Adobe Illustrator). The program is called InkScape and even though it helps me accomplish what I need, it's not terribly user friendly. And since I had spent a semester of college doing computer graphic design through Illustrator, I'm frustrated at the shortcomings of InkScape. I know, you get what you pay for and yada-yada, but it's still annoying to think out "ok, I just do this, this, and this" but then not be able to do ANY of that because the layout of InkScape doesn't allow it... so then I have the fun of trying to figure out how to do it in InkScape and get the same results. Quite annoying... Regardless, once I start working on sketching something out I tend to not stop until a)something else (like hunger) stops me, or b) I get too frustrated with the program.
2) I read multiple webcomics - one of which gave me the inspiration to start my own. So when I need to kill time I tend to catch up on them. I'm all caught up with the one that inspired me, Game Destroyers. It has a forum attached with a small community involved. I tend to take the 3 minutes or so to read the comic - which is updated daily, but WHEN each day is the trick... - and then head over to the forum, but since the author went on a hiatus back in May the forum has kind-of died... TT_TT. The second one I mainly read is Order of the Stick. But again, I'm all caught up and the author of THAT one doesn't seem to update at even the remotest of schedules. It's usually a 2-second look to see IF he updated, and then another 3 minutes or so to read the comic. It saddens me that he updates so infrequently since it's my favorite comic that I read. The third one I spend a lot of time on is 8-Bit Theater. I started reading this one after watching the Flash animations a fan did to help promote the comic. However, I lost track of the comic and only picked it up again earlier this year. So now I still have like 5 years worth of comics to catch up on (just finished 2004 - booya!) so this is the one I just sit and read (usually in month intervals). Other comics that I read, but only on rare occasions are: Sluggy Freelance (one of Remy's favorites aside from Game Destroyers), DM of the Rings (Dungeons & Dragons meets Lord of the Rings - literally, it's screenshots of the movies and scripted like a D&D campaign...), Lackadaisy (honestly, I've never read it, but it was recommended reading and the illustration is nice), A Modest Destiny (a great comic that I'm all caught up on and the author seemed to have abandoned... so I'm just waiting out it's return...), Zombie Grammar (introduced to me by one of my friends, very amusing - and instructional - and also showed me the site I base my comic characters off of).
3) I play an online game called Ikariam, however it is a VERY slow-paced strategy game, and so I just do this, that, and the other thing (which usually takes all of like 5 minutes to do) and I'm basically done for the day... If you want to play with I'm on Theta with the name Lycorinea (kinda a Greekified version of LycoRogue... right?)
4) Remy's one friend Jake recently got Diablo II (well the whole battlepack), and so he got back into the game and tried to drag me along. I actually really like both Diablo and Diablo II, but I'm not much for those games. I like RPGs that require puzzle solving along with them. Plus I never know which equipment to keep and to sell and how to build my character... I'm kind of like Jack Skellington: It confuses me, but I love it... ^_^ Remy and I used to play Fiesta, but we haven't done that in a few months now. I kind of want to jump back on again...
5) I was going to write about my Fall Line-up obsessions, but it got too long, so that will be the next post...
6) My biggest obsession right now, especially after watching "The Hero of Time" (see last post), is playing Ocarina of Time again. I'm maybe 1/2 way through the game (only like a 1/3 if I try to finish all the side quests....). I'm a HUGE Legend of Zelda fan (duh), and so I play quite often (actually was almost late for work yesterday because of it...). However, it's just not as much fun on the computer as it is with the actual controller in your hand, so *shrug* Perhaps I'll con someone into getting me an N64 emulator controller for x-mas....
Well, there you have it, the little obsessions that fill the void that is the non-work/non-sleep portions of my day ^_^
1) I am attempting to put together a webcomic, but I'm not very good at drawing, so everything is on the computer. I didn't have the money for Photoshop and/or Illustrator, so I downloaded a free vector-drawing program (kind of like a free Adobe Illustrator). The program is called InkScape and even though it helps me accomplish what I need, it's not terribly user friendly. And since I had spent a semester of college doing computer graphic design through Illustrator, I'm frustrated at the shortcomings of InkScape. I know, you get what you pay for and yada-yada, but it's still annoying to think out "ok, I just do this, this, and this" but then not be able to do ANY of that because the layout of InkScape doesn't allow it... so then I have the fun of trying to figure out how to do it in InkScape and get the same results. Quite annoying... Regardless, once I start working on sketching something out I tend to not stop until a)something else (like hunger) stops me, or b) I get too frustrated with the program.
2) I read multiple webcomics - one of which gave me the inspiration to start my own. So when I need to kill time I tend to catch up on them. I'm all caught up with the one that inspired me, Game Destroyers. It has a forum attached with a small community involved. I tend to take the 3 minutes or so to read the comic - which is updated daily, but WHEN each day is the trick... - and then head over to the forum, but since the author went on a hiatus back in May the forum has kind-of died... TT_TT. The second one I mainly read is Order of the Stick. But again, I'm all caught up and the author of THAT one doesn't seem to update at even the remotest of schedules. It's usually a 2-second look to see IF he updated, and then another 3 minutes or so to read the comic. It saddens me that he updates so infrequently since it's my favorite comic that I read. The third one I spend a lot of time on is 8-Bit Theater. I started reading this one after watching the Flash animations a fan did to help promote the comic. However, I lost track of the comic and only picked it up again earlier this year. So now I still have like 5 years worth of comics to catch up on (just finished 2004 - booya!) so this is the one I just sit and read (usually in month intervals). Other comics that I read, but only on rare occasions are: Sluggy Freelance (one of Remy's favorites aside from Game Destroyers), DM of the Rings (Dungeons & Dragons meets Lord of the Rings - literally, it's screenshots of the movies and scripted like a D&D campaign...), Lackadaisy (honestly, I've never read it, but it was recommended reading and the illustration is nice), A Modest Destiny (a great comic that I'm all caught up on and the author seemed to have abandoned... so I'm just waiting out it's return...), Zombie Grammar (introduced to me by one of my friends, very amusing - and instructional - and also showed me the site I base my comic characters off of).
3) I play an online game called Ikariam, however it is a VERY slow-paced strategy game, and so I just do this, that, and the other thing (which usually takes all of like 5 minutes to do) and I'm basically done for the day... If you want to play with I'm on Theta with the name Lycorinea (kinda a Greekified version of LycoRogue... right?)
4) Remy's one friend Jake recently got Diablo II (well the whole battlepack), and so he got back into the game and tried to drag me along. I actually really like both Diablo and Diablo II, but I'm not much for those games. I like RPGs that require puzzle solving along with them. Plus I never know which equipment to keep and to sell and how to build my character... I'm kind of like Jack Skellington: It confuses me, but I love it... ^_^ Remy and I used to play Fiesta, but we haven't done that in a few months now. I kind of want to jump back on again...
5) I was going to write about my Fall Line-up obsessions, but it got too long, so that will be the next post...
6) My biggest obsession right now, especially after watching "The Hero of Time" (see last post), is playing Ocarina of Time again. I'm maybe 1/2 way through the game (only like a 1/3 if I try to finish all the side quests....). I'm a HUGE Legend of Zelda fan (duh), and so I play quite often (actually was almost late for work yesterday because of it...). However, it's just not as much fun on the computer as it is with the actual controller in your hand, so *shrug* Perhaps I'll con someone into getting me an N64 emulator controller for x-mas....
Well, there you have it, the little obsessions that fill the void that is the non-work/non-sleep portions of my day ^_^
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)