|
Post by thatyourefuse on Nov 17, 2011 14:56:55 GMT -5
Day 2, pt. 1This draft now contains onscreen character death!Progress has been made! I mean, about five seconds of actual clips-on-the-timeline progress, not as much progress as I hope to make today, but I have been staring at this thing so long I’ve gone cross-eyed and missed two buses, so I’m making the executive decision to give it a rest. And if I post saying I can’t figure out what the rest of this line is supposed to be, I’m almost guaranteed to have a bright idea the minute I stand up. Draft streamOutlineSpreadsheetTimelineRight, so. That all seems pretty self-explanatory to me; as you can see, the outline’s starting to explode as I start thinking things through. Which is good. I don’t really have anything much to add about my process (it was fiddly and insane and frustrating, as per usual, and also as per usual I still can’t tell whether it’s fucked up, and I spent way too much time trying to figure out whether the first two new clips were too long or too short), so I’m going to talk a little (read: at length) about some of the narrative choices I’ve been making. my devil’s on roller skates/(my devil’s on roller skates)/down at the roller rinkRight, so. If you go back to the version of the outline I posted yesterday, you’ll see that I didn’t have Fiona on there at all until halfway through the second chorus; I had an idea in my head about not showing her at all until then, but I figured out pretty much immediately this morning that that would be catastrophically fucking dumb of me. I mean, it’s not just that her death is pretty much the motive force for everything else that happens in the verse and probably also the chorus, there’s this thing called "not knowingly confusing the hell out of people..." I mean, basically opening with her death (like, all of it! not intercut with anything!) still feels thuddingly unsubtle to me, but if the beta process for Jacob Marley’s Chain is teaching me anything, it’s that in vidding as in so many other fields, what I think is subtle and graceful registers with most people as "... huh?" Which is not an aspersion on anyone’s uptake skills! My brain is wired in non-code fashion and works almost exclusively in inductive leaps; I don’t think from A to B to C, I go straight from A to Q, and it’s actually a struggle for me to go back and show my work. The thing is, everyone else does not live in my brain, and I tend to lose people when I expect them to make that leap with me without providing any bridging material. Expecting to then be followed from Q to ΘΣ is right out. Especially when the A -> Q -> ΘΣ process takes place in three shots, in about two and a half seconds. Especially when I can’t count on anyone else knowing the source. Besides, I really don’t know what else I thought I was going to put there. I still don’t even know what the roller rink is, for God’s sake.
|
|
|
Post by voodoochild on Nov 17, 2011 19:55:58 GMT -5
I continue to be amazed by how quickly you've picked this up, as well as curse your name for dragging me with you. Seeing your process is really helpful, though, and it's absolutely fascinating to see how the vid comes together (though I did see a bit of "Jacob Marley's Chain", yes). <i>Expecting to then be followed from Q to ΘΣ is right out.</i> Ahaha, I see what you did there.
|
|
|
Post by thatyourefuse on Nov 18, 2011 0:15:31 GMT -5
Day 2, pt. 2Ugh. It has just taken me two hours to add four clips. I mean, in my defense, I was doing several other things simultaneously and it took me several tries to find a sequence I didn't hate too much to let sit as filler (I still don't like it, it's too abrupt a shift, but I like the idea of it), but still. Draft streamOutlineSpreadsheet (note mislabeled clip; this is what happens when you pull from another clip folder, have to trim down, and forget to check the numbering.) TimelineSo the reason for stopping is that I have hit the same damn wall I always do; I have a lovely nebulous idea of what I want to put on a given line, and my brain screeches to a halt when asked to come up with actual clips. In addition to which I am growing startlingly tired. So, task for tomorrow: figure out the damned sex:violence ratio for the "picking up chicks for me" lines; I know exactly how I want to end the verse, but that's a lot of verse before then. I actually want it to be about even, but then the shift to principally violence on the chorus isn't as sharp as it ought to be. Or I might think of something completely different. One never knows.
|
|
|
Post by legoline on Nov 18, 2011 7:40:46 GMT -5
I'm just sitting here making clappy hands going "Adaaaaaaam!" (And I hated the Ana thing but if the vid demands it I'm okay with it ). Also, "Free Mind" looks shiny! I should try it out. I think I'm way too lazy to adjust brightness and contrast on each clip. I just ran a complete video through SonyVegas once to do that and risked that some clips would get too bright ;D (OMG you have an idea for "Weapon"? I loooooove that song!)
|
|
|
Post by thatyourefuse on Nov 18, 2011 17:04:21 GMT -5
The vid is currently demanding it, yeah. (I mean, you find me a reading of "my devil's on roller skates... he's picking up chicks for me" that doesn't tie into that little fit of post-traumatic manwhore syndrome.) And FreeMind is seriously the best, really. And yes! The brief for "Weapon" is "Ros/authority issues" -- I actually have a wee bit of draft completed, but I'm the kind of stalled on it that means there's something really wrong with my conception and I haven't figured out what yet, so I'm letting it sit.
|
|
|
Post by thatyourefuse on Nov 18, 2011 21:18:55 GMT -5
Day 3This draft now contains a certain amount of blood.Today was a day of many, many small, fiddly timing tweaks, and I’m almost positive one of them sort of works. (Although, god, possibly the only thing less enjoyable than watching the same thirteen seconds of video over and over searching for the single clip that’s two frames off the beat... is watching the same thirteen seconds of video in which someone dies &c.) I think the sequence from “Fiona dying 20” to “London pan adjusted 96” is still fucked up, but I’m afraid that if I poke at it any more I’m going to make it worse. I keep losing the beat I’m cutting to in a tangle of other noise; I can hear it, but I keep missing it. I also feel like I’m overusing the crossfade, but one does want that feeling of everything blurring together at great speed, so maybe it’s excusable. Oh, and apparently my S6 files are playing at a completely different framerate than everything else, so that’s nice. Draft streamOutlineSpreadsheetTimeline(As regards the filenames: yes, well, I do have to have some fun in this life.) he’s picking up chicks for me/ones that push and push and push till it hurts/push and push till it hurtsQOTD: (6:36:22 PM) isabelstant@gmail.com/C56E208A: Rrrrg. I need footage of Adam getting the shit kicked out of him. I mean, for the vid, I didn't just wake up with a craving. Okay, so what I’ve got here is a kludge of the first water, and probably most of these clips will be replaced, but you can see where I’m sort of gesturing in the direction of some form of significance. Sex and violence shifting and running together until they turn into the same thing, yeah? And specifically violence where Adam is the subject, for the most part, because -- well -- whatever you want to say about the Ana thing, it’s not not massively self-destructive. I’m also sort of poking around the edges of another theme, roughly summarizable as “a hero is somebody who gets other people killed,” but I’m not sure if that’s coming across at all, much less if I’m keeping it. It might be a bit manpainy, and, well, Adam Carter, but I would like to keep that to a minimum. Anyway, chores for the next... sometime (I’m going to a reading tomorrow and I should probably get to some of this homework at some point, so I don’t even know when my next update is going to be): watch the rest of the damned source, and think about what I’m putting on the chorus. I have vague ideas, but I should probably have more than that.
|
|
|
Post by thatyourefuse on Nov 19, 2011 1:07:46 GMT -5
Ahem. The version posted above? Kind of sucks. A slight improvement: here.(I still need to take out the rest of the damn crossfades, but I have run out of brain cells.)
|
|
|
Post by legoline on Nov 19, 2011 5:51:11 GMT -5
I need footage of Adam getting the shit kicked out of him. I mean, for the vid, I didn't just wake up with a craving. See, I could have totally woken up with a craving like that I really like this so far, actually. I like the fast cuts towards the end of the video.
|
|
|
Post by thatyourefuse on Nov 19, 2011 10:31:08 GMT -5
Thank you! I'm just nagged by the feeling that they're not quite on-beat and they're maybe even not fast enough. And the crossfades are seriously bugging me.
(And yes. It is an understandable craving.)
|
|
|
Post by thatyourefuse on Nov 19, 2011 15:02:53 GMT -5
... okay. Proper progress update later this afternoon/evening, but could someone please look at this and tell me if it's any improvement on the last version posted? I swear to god, I can't even tell anymore.
|
|
|
Post by voodoochild on Nov 19, 2011 15:24:46 GMT -5
First off, WOW. It's definitely getting better and better with each version. The sex/violence ratio seems to be on point so far, and I LOOOOOVE that shot of the rushing water on "push till it breaks". Everything seems to be on beat, and I can't see any glaring weirdness.
Awesome, you.
|
|
|
Post by legoline on Nov 19, 2011 17:40:53 GMT -5
First off, WOW. It's definitely getting better and better with each version. The sex/violence ratio seems to be on point so far, and I LOOOOOVE that shot of the rushing water on "push till it breaks". Everything seems to be on beat, and I can't see any glaring weirdness. I second all of this
|
|
|
Post by thatyourefuse on Nov 20, 2011 18:11:49 GMT -5
Day 4-5Okay, so yesterday turned out a little hectic and I so did not have the brain cells to put an update together, but I also basically didn’t do anything, so that was all right then. I did, however, finally get rid of almost all of the damn crossfades, and discover quite comprehensively that the veryvery fast cuts I was planning for the chorus are just not going to work. I’d show you the render with the 6-frame clips, but I’m just... I’m not going to. So I’m thinking about longer shots now, but the problem is that I still want it to be action, and finding a usable second-long shot in a Spooks action sequence is... I’ll figure something out. Oh, and apparently I seem to be doing this, like, the really, really hard way? Huh. Draft streamSpreadsheetTimeline(I don’t think I edited the outline at all, so if you’re desperately curious, you can go back and look at Day 3’s.) The only measurable change, aside from getting rid of the damn crossfades and starting to play a little, very cautiously, with varying clip length, is that I changed the roller rink yet again; I’m liking this version slightly better, although I still don’t know if I like it. I’m really worried about the clip of Fiona dancing, because it’s not a terrible motion match with the one after it, but I feel like I’m probably going to need that same shot at a later point, where it’s going to make more of an impact. Still, it’s a good placeholder. (I’m actually thinking about -- oh god -- crossfading those two, if I keep the dancing clip in, but the footage really doesn’t allow me to cut either of them longer, and it’d screw up the timing if I didn’t. Or I could cut really fast back and forth -- hrm. Hrrrrm.) Of course, I wouldn’t need a placeholder if I’d been able to find the shot I wanted for the spot, which -- well -- I went into clipping 4.07 positive that I could find a good skyline shot of Damascus, considering what the episode is about and all, and I found one. Literally one. And it’s about twelve frames long. And there’s text across the bottom. *sobs* I did have a brief argument with myself about swapping in a shot of a different Middle Eastern city, from a different episode, but, erm, aside from the difficulty of cutting to avoid, like, actual Turkish flags and what-not, I promise I don’t assume they all look alike. And I’d know even if no one else did, so I went in a different direction. And so I also, if I keep that, have to keep an eye out for a general Middle Eastern subtheme in future footage, because Adam pretty much occasionally decides he’s Lawrence of Arabia, and that might be interesting to play with as well. And that’s really it for this last two days, unless I do something tonight, which I’m not certain about because I’m rethinking the chorus and oh god do I need to do some homework. So I probably will vid more, really.
|
|
|
Post by thatyourefuse on Nov 23, 2011 17:35:42 GMT -5
Day 6Absolutely no real updates; I've been preoccupied with the Jacob Marley's Chain beta, and it was a lousy day for creativity. (N.b. when you find yourself hating yourself, your project, and every single change you've just made to it, STOP.) It was, however, an excellent day for scutwork. Also for stumbling over jarrow's handout on aspect ratio, taking another look at the absolute panoply of slightly different aspect ratios on display in my stock of Spooks episodes, and facepalming. Hard. Hence: I have gone through and stretched/squished everything into proper 16:9 (I think) and I'm almost sure it looks better now? At least it's got rid of those black bars at the top and bottom of the frame, anyway, which I'm almost positive is a good sign. I don't know, the whole subject makes me want to hide. Draft stream
|
|
|
Post by legoline on Nov 24, 2011 3:21:04 GMT -5
I have no real input, I'm just happy to see you're still working on this
|
|