Another new old vid (yawn)

[gwyn]

Much to my dismay, I recently found a glaring number of boo-boos in my Spike-moves-on-from-Buffy-to-Angel vid Santa Monica. Like, a lot of them. I never saw them (flash frames from the interlaced edit points) before in the countless checks, but they seem to appear only on the Mac DVD player, which I guess I never checked it on. Even though lots of discs are already out there with the vid on and it's been up for nearly two years, I couldn't stand the thought of it looking like that. So, since all Angel and Buffy eps are now on DVD, I figured I might as well remake the whole thing. I know there is probably even less interest in this than in the other old remastered vids, which is already pretty low, but I posted it anyway. Password is the same as always; if you don't have it, you can get it via the email link on that vids page.

The new, improved Santa Monica
Fandoms: Buffy and Angel
Artist: Everclear
File: QT Divx avi 21.9MB
Spike moves on with a little help from his friends.

It's pretty much a clip for clip remaster with only one completely different clip (because I could not find the landscape shot I'd used originally no matter how hard I looked) and a few tweaks to timing and such. I've always been amused by how amused people were about this vid when I first made it. But my favorite reaction is still the comment by the person I consider the dumbest person I've ever met in fandom, after this was shown at VVC, when she complained that there "were all these lyrics about living by the ocean, but there were no clips in the whole vid with water in them." Yup, that's me -- missing the literality since 1993.


And if by any chance someone actually watches it who can tell me how to fix the type in the credits, I would be grateful. The original credits, made in iMovie, work fine in that typeface. For some reason, I cannot get Final Cut Express to give me anything usable -- it either loses the ascenders and descenders completely, or if I bold it, like in this, it becomes a pixelly blob. I find the type control next to useless in FCE, but I've used fussier faces and still not had this kind of problem. I'd almost say it's related to anti-aliasing, but I haven't changed any settings and I'm not sure why this one is turning out far worse than any other credits. I am going to keep poking around, maybe even resort to making them in iMovie and seeing if they will import, but if the problem is in FCE, then that might not fix it. V. v. frustrated.

Comments

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Sweet, a vid!

As I was working on my own movie project this weekend, I was thinking that the tutorials we're learning from are the Best Thing Evar. I think you should sign up for an account and go through the Final Cut lessons, to sharpen your skills and maybe learn something new. (The teacher is a total pro and is great about learning things in the right order and being organized. He could teach monkeys to vid, man.) You can go at your own pace and everything.

Check out lynda.com if you like.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Are they worth it for a vidder, though? A lot of the stuff I've worked on, including the book everyone told me to get with a tutorial DVD on how to transition from iMovie to FCE, really didn't have as much use for the specific situation I was in. The title thing is probably the biggest instance of where vidders diverge from the general movie maker. And I guess the other question is it about FCE, or Pro? Because everything seems like it's all about Pro, which I don't have.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

I haven't gone through all of the tutorials so I'm not sure how much he covers titles, but it's pretty comprehensive. And it is about Pro, but I've found it just as useful for working in FCE (which is all the school has).

If I see you before the end of the quarter, I'd be happy to log in and show you the tutorials. There are probably some that are available for demo viewing, actually.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Eeee! Yay! It is one of my favorite Angel vids ever, and now it is even bigger. I fail to see how this could be a bad thing.

*heads off to download*

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Probably a good thing for everyone who likes the vid, but a bad thing for me -- I have to completely remake the finished DVD it's on, too. Woe is me, because man, that is going to take hours.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

*curious*

What's involved in making (or remaking) a DVD? I honestly have no idea.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Well, any normal, *smart* person would have kept their working files on a bunch of discs somewhere, but I have limited space. Basically I made our first collection and then called it done -- I was close to the GB limit for the disc, and I figured that my transition to Final Cut was a good stopping place. Once I had the finished DVD, I made a disc image copy on my hard drive -- it takes up considerably less space than an iDVD working file, and is much faster to burn using just the disc utility program in the Mac. But, of course, by doing that, it means the disc is really finished, and I no longer have the working file, so I can't just delete the bad vid and replace it. I have to pull all my full quality .mov files off the backup discs, drag 'em back into iDVD, wait for all gajillion of them to render, remake the menus, and then do a test burn. I hope this time I catch all the bloody errors!

A lot of folks have much more sophisticated programs and are better with their tech and have lots of drive space. I just sort of muddle along pathetically with what I have and make mistakes like this!

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I love this vid so much. I'm really glad to have it big and shiny. (:

Re the text problem you're having, I only have one idea. Sometimes when I don't have all the files necessary for a font, it renders weirdly onscreen. For instance, if you were using Garamond, it's possible to have the screen font file for Garamond but not the print font file for it, or vice-versa. If you have a graphics program, I would try making a title card using the same typeface and see if it looks bad in that. If it does, that might indicate that you have incomplete files for that font.

I know a lot of people who do their titles exclusively in Photoshop or Illustrator and then bring them into their editing program. You have a lot more control over the type that way, but of course you then have to animate it by hand in the editing program rather than using any built-in type effects it might have. If you have the option, though, you might try that.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

It is definitely of the shiny. Except those damn credits! I don't have a graphics program, really, to test it on. It worked fine in iMovie before, but I'm not sure if that means I have the print font file or not, because iMovie is a goofy lil thing. I fiddled with everything last night -- interlacing, antialiasing, you name it. Nothing helped. So, I might try to go into iMovie and create a title sequence and pull it into FCE and see what happens. I've had mixed luck with sequences in iMovie, but maybe this would work -- at the very worst I'm still at square one with super ugly titles.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Hm. If it worked in iMovie, it's probably not what I said. I think your solution sounds like a good one -- exporting a full-size MOV from iMovie and pulling it into FCE should fix the problem, because then FCE isn't having to render the type.

Let me know if it works.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I swear, something is seriously wrong with this face or with font utilities or something... no idea. I tried to make new titles in iMovie and had the same problem with stair-stepping and blobbing. So, I cheated. ;-) I dumped in the original .mov file of the old vid, cut the two sections with the credit lettering, and added them in. Voila. They're not perfect, but they will do a lot better than I seem able to get making new ones. I am bewildered, but then, i seem to be that way all the time with this stuff. I've uploaded the new avi, too, so that's there with the better titles now.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Now I'm *really* curious. That does sound like you're missing one of the font files. If you want to get diagnostic, I'd try creating some titles in a couple of different typefaces and see if you still get the same problems. If not, it's a problem with just that font, and that's fixable (you buy the font and install the new font files).

If the problem persists, there's something wrong with your system, and that might be a bigger deal.

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

Thanks Gwyn - I love the song and what you've done with it.

[spikendru.livejournal.com]

I came here via the su_herald, but could not dl the vid. I couldn't get a password because I don't have account wizzard or whatever the thing is that pops up and says I don't have it when I cicked on the "Get Password". So . . . no vid for me.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Um, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. If you click Get Password, it should open your email program if you're set up that way, and then you will get an autoresponse with the password and username. There's no wizard or whatever. If you can't get an email window, then you can just use the email address, which is gwynethr at gmail dot com.

[spikendru.livejournal.com]

If you click Get Password, it should open your email program if you're set up that way, and then you will get an autoresponse with the password and username.

No, I'm not set up that way. You have to have Account Wizzard enabled to do it that way, and after our computer crashed and burned in Dec. 2004, the friend that put as much stuff back as he could find said not to go that way, as it's a source of potential viruses, so I just use the e-mail that comes with my provider, ptd.net. I'll e-mail you through ptd, then. Thanks!

[spikendru.livejournal.com]

I got it! Diolch! And I noticed a Lindsey/Angel vid there that was just crying out for me to dl it, too . . . so I did. And while I was at it, I also picked up Shelter. Going off to watch all the lovely new vids.

*snuggles you*