On a roll

[gwyn]

Today turned out to be a surprisingly productive day, all things considered. I didn't think it was going to turn out well when I went to the pharmacy to renew my prescriptions and they told me that I was no longer insured, even though I paid the astronomical premiums for COBRA coverage so I wouldn't run into the dreaded pre-existing conditions crap if I get re-employed. So I wasted entirely too much energy being upset that I'd had to pay another $100+ for medicine that should be covered by the gajillion dollars I just paid to the (*%#@* benefits company. Then I decided since I couldn't do anything about it till Monday (as if I didn't have enough to stress over, when I have that test for Dream Freelance Job on Monday morning), I'd tackle the housework, and got a lot done there (though, feochadn, the lawn mower wouldn't stay running after about ten starts, and I finally gave up and put it back).

Then, miracle of miracles, I wrote. Actual writing. Not writing exercise writing, or creative non-fiction or journalistic writing, and most decidedly not fanfic. An actual short (very short!) story, that I didn't abandon after a few paragraphs because it sucks, or because I think I'm crap. I actually wrote the whole thing down, and touched it up a bit, and put it away for a while. It's terrible and needs a lot of work, but I got the bones down, as they say. It couldn't be less interesting nor more poseurish (can you get any more twee than writing in a second person narrative voice? I ask you), but I wrote a whole honest to god short story for the first time in I don't know how many years, without letting my inner devil beat me down.

And then I poked around on Dream Freelance Job's website, cooked a real dinner, played with Photoshop Elements some more (not that I am making any progress in how to use it, but I can pretend), tried to figure out how to network the laptop and the iMac together unsuccessfully, and then... finished my Firefly vid. Which is total crap, but at least I have a finished draft. In my head it was a gorgeous vid, very sad and beautiful. Somehow translating what was in my head to reality was a harder row to hoe this time. I need to get a plugin for better slo-mo, but the mechanical part is finished, anyway. Why do I always finish vids when there's no one around for days and days to give me a beta? Curse my strange circadian rhythm and hermit-like lifestyle!

Comments

[luminosity]

I need to get a plugin for better slo-mo,

What are you using to edit? I'm not familiar with Final Cut, but I can tell you a trick I learned for slo-mo in Premiere. Clips that have been sped up or slowed down artificially usually have a "jerky" look to them, and doing this step can minimize that. When you change the speed of a clip (this works for speeding it up, too), highlight the clip or group of clips, right click, go to Clip/Video/Field Options, choose Flicker Removal, and then render.

Of course, this may be totally useless to you, but there you have it--Lum, blithely dropping editing hints like Little Bunny Foo-Foo. :)

I'm in the middle of a Firefly vid myself, and I have this recurring nightmare-fantasy that every Firefly vidder *on earth* is vidding this same song. Say it ain't so!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I wish I had a high-level program like you guys do, I'd definitely follow this. It surprises me that this is a problem in Premiere, too! I'm using the little iMovie program that came with my Mac, so you can imagine how basic it is. barkley explained the herky-jerky problem to me as one of frame interpolation, that it essentially uses frame 1, then repeat of frame 1, and so on, without interpolating the frames, so in iMovie there's no real correction for this.

I found a plugin that says it interpolates, but as always, it's money and I'm not employed, so I'm weighing the benefits of being able to do what I want visually with being frivolous. But I have a Wes/Lilah vid I want to do for Vividcon, and that one would use so much slo-mo, that maybe the plugin will be worth it.

Oh, now I'm all nervous about song choice -- you're probably right. What are you working on? Mine is to a song called Cannonball, by Damien Rice (the radio remix). Since he seems to have developed quite a following, I'm sure that others have/are using it, but I travel in fairly limited circles. ;-)

I love your icon!

[luminosity]

Well, sorry that my hints weren't useful to you, but you never know who'll be cruising through here, right? :)

I'm working on something so very obvious, but I had never heard this song get any airplay when I first decided to make the vid. Now? I heard it four times yesterday. (I'm cringing about this) Anyway, I'm doing Godsmack's "Serenity." You know how it is--trying to twist to my will. I hope. I'm at steps 10-12 of my vidding cycle ("I suck!"), and I've been spinning my wheels there for about three days now. I hope that this forced reprieve from vidding in the form of work will shake me out of it.

Thanks about the icon! It had to be said.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

No, really, the tips were actually useful to me -- just because when I'm all growed up, I'm hoping to have at least Final Cut Express to work with, so now I know a trick once I get it. Sometimes I feel so hopeless with iMovie in that there's so much it *can't* do, and I'm making vids that are really not much different from my VCR vids. I'm limited to dissolves and fades and such, but at the same time, I'm so damn happy to be able to do even those, and vid digitally at all that I can't bemoan my fate too much. Even a crappy slo-mo is better than none -- and this vid looks so much nicer than than My Beautiful Reward that it feels like light years' difference.

I heard Serenity twice yesterday! And I never even made the connection, d'oh! It's such a bitch when you find a song and then suddenly it's a hit, isn't it? Then you're looking around going, okay, who's going to jump on the bandwagon? But your stamp on it will be the gold standard. i can't *wait* to see it -- this is your first Firefly vid, isn't it? I hope you can get to stept 13 -- I will be very excited to see it.

[luminosity]

I heard Serenity twice yesterday! ... It's such a bitch when you find a song and then suddenly it's a hit, isn't it?

I cringed when I heard it on the radio for the first time. This has happened to me several times now. Mad World, The Other Side, and Evil Angel have all had a lot of airplay months after I vidded them. I had been "hoarding" There, There ever since I ripped the bootleg of it back in the fall of 2002, and it became the big hit from Radiohead's "Hail to the Thief" album. FWIW, I'm *still* hoarding it. Maybe everyone will have forgotten it when I finally vid it. heh

this is your first Firefly vid, isn't it? I hope you can get to step 13

Yes, this is my first attempt at Firefly. Totally NOT my palette, and that makes me question every clip choice even more than I usually do. I just want it to work, you know? Thanks for the vote of confidence, though. I appreciate it. I've seen three FF vids--yours, bonibaru's and Laura Shapiro's. I know that it's not like any of those, but who can say what the collective vidding unconscious is doing? LOL

[rainkatt.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a great day, even with the frustrations.

[umbo.livejournal.com]

Yay you for finishing stuff, even if the story and the vid aren't *finished* finished yet--that's great!

And good luck on working out the COBRA bullshit....

[wolffire.livejournal.com]

A thousand yays for not stopping writing!! May the next time be even better!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

It's the laptop! You were totally right about the laptop -- it might not be business, but I bet there's no way I would have sat down and typed it in if I didn't have the laptop!

[darkwoods.livejournal.com]

I'm coming out of my own hermit-like lurking to tell you how much I worship and adore you. Seriously, I'm always amazed when a writer as talented as yourself expresses doubts, and then goes right on creating. You're an inspiration - I mean it.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, that is so kind -- though I feel like the least inspirational person around, because I spend all my time whining about what I don't have, or how I have no self-esteem, and all. But if anything, this was a really important reminder that I *can* just do it if I try, even if I don't get far with it. It's the trying that counts.

[barkley.livejournal.com]

tried to figure out how to network the laptop and the iMac together unsuccessfully

Are they both Macs, and do they both have firewire?

If so, run a firewire cable from one to the other. Shut down the one you want as the "other" computer. Then, when you boot it up, hold down the "T" key. It will mount as an extra harddrive onto your main computer and it should put a harddrive icon onto your desktop and you should be able to click and go from there.

If not, and they are still both Macs, and they both have an ethernet card, then run an ethernet cable from one to the other (this might need to be a crossover cable instead of a regular ethernet cable...I just did it at my brothers's last week, but they have a hub that I connected through...) and then go to system preferences, click on the network button, click on Appletalk, click on "make appletalk active." You should be able to see the other computer when you go to Finder and on the menu choose "Go" and then choose "Connect to server."

If they're not both macs then I'm not quite sure what will work. *g*