"Like even today. I woke up this morning and the sun was shining and everything was nice, and I thought... this is going to be one terrific day, so you better live it up, boy, because tomorrow, maybe you'll be gone." James Dean. Rebel Without a Cause
During the currently in progress pandemic social distancing guidelines and lockdown that started back in March, a lot of people have been trying new things to break the monotony of the new normal. Some have been learning new skills like wordworking and gardening, other refining and perfecting skills they already have a start in.
I fall into the latter. I’ve always been interested in video editing on a casual basis. I love putting together videos celebrating my kids development, or holidays, or other significant events. In the last year, I’ve started creating more videos celebrating my neighbours and neighbourhood. I’ve been diving into the very robust video editor LumaFusion on the iPad. It can do a lot more than I can, so I try to add a new skill or feature to every video I make.
I’ve just uploaded a few new videos to my YouTube channel if you’re interested in seeing them. I haven’t uploaded them before, because I usually just Whatapp them directly to friends and family. Theey’re fun to make, but I worry that they’re the video eqivalent of listening to someone describe their dream from last night, only intersting to those directly involved.
Regardless, I do love editing with LumaFusion, and I have a few sketches written and locked away in my notes that I might film some day. Until then, I’ll stick to snapshots from my life.
A few months ago while I was unemployed and seeking cheap ways to entertain and educate myself from home I discovered a bunch of interesting YouTube channels with a science slant to them. One such channel turned out to be by a guy from West Vancouver, Derek, and he had a video from his home area. The video was about the Earth and why it rotates, and used a very cool looking object located at Dundarave Pier to illustrate the reason.
As soon as I saw it I wanted to visit it, so last weekend, while Claire was playing DnD, I ventured north and west across the bridge. It was as cool as I had hoped, but I had no-one to share it with. So today I dragged Claire and two friends back to see it again, and we all marveled at the two and a half tonne granite wonder. I even did a quick video blog, my first in over a year!
Here is Derek's video featuring the globe, from his channel Veritasium. Check out his stuff, it fun and informative, and I've learned lots from watching everything he's done so far!
I totally forgot to link this here when I posted it to YouTube! Anyway, this was recorded on the 28th of February and uploaded a few days after.
In other news, we now have, finally, gotten internet sorted in the apartment. Should be getting some blogging, Flickring and general online socializing done soon enough.
I'm playing catchup today with Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the CG cartoon series due to start it's third season soon. I loved the first season, chewing through the entire set in a matter of days, but I waited until season two was finished before really starting in on that one.
I have to say I love the clones! Every one of them is voiced by Dee Bradley Baker (met him once), and every one of them is awesome. I've always been a fan of the clone armour designs. I love the addition of colour to the otherwise stark white body suits of the galaxies elite troopers. Having an entire series that uses clones in almost every episode is just too much fun for me to watch.
The action in this version of the Star Wars universe is a pleasant trade-off between what we see the live action actors do in the movies and the crazy, super over-the-top antics of the earlier Clone Wars animated series by Genndy Tartakovsky. I never really got into that series. It was just too crazy and far from what we had seen in the movies. But this CG version has fantastic moments of action and combat, stunning lightsabre duels and mesmerising space battles, without sacrificing the impression that these warrior monks could really do this.
And it's surprisingly dark at times. People die, and not just the unnamed clones. Jedi are electrocuted to death, colonies are wiped out by the Trade Federation and, in the episode I have on while writing this, we see flame-throwers being used on sentient bug creatures. Evil, Separatist bug people, but sentient none-the-less.
Which brings me to why I started this, all to show off this one, 60 second scene. In the Star Wars universe, I have always gotten the impression that the Jedi were just good. Through and through. They would never sacrifice their ideals to achieve a goal. The Sith and bad, the Jedi are good. Sith use Force Lightning, Jedi use Force Push. That kind of thing. And it is why I absolutely love this series. Here, even the Jedi are not beyond forcing information out of a prisoner of war to get what they need.
Two weeks ago I finally got to put up all my sketches from Comic Con 2008. My awesome sketchbook is one of my most prized possessions, and filled with incredible art and signatures from the most amazing people. As well as the complete Flickr Set, I also created a nifty video showcasing the sketches, for my own pleasure.
As we reach the end of another school year, I find myself once more stressing out over things I know will be fine and work out easily in the end. Mostly, it's the video we put together using all the photos we took during the year to show parents all the work their kids did and how utterly adorable they are. Except... well... go back and read the last sentence, starting at "mostly" and replace "we" with "I".
I've done this every year that I've been working in the preschool, and every year I run into new problems. The first year it was all the teething issues. Video files not playing nice with the software, having to find appropriate codex's to edit proprietary video camera movie files (oh, while I'm on that subject: Fuck you Sony), recording too much background noise and then having to try to clean up the audio as best I could, and many, many more. The second year was more of the same, but with the added stress of having to one-up myself from the previous year, coupled with how attached to the group I had gotten. It was the first time I had to let go kids I had been teaching for two years, and they were an amazing bunch of kids.
This years problems started and finished with Windows Movie Maker. In past years I have had the luxury of using advanced, expensive, professional and complicated software to help edit or re-encode the video. This year, however, may be the last year that I do this, if plans fall into place (See future blog), and the preschool manager wants to be able to do this herself next year. The preschool manager is, however, very computer illiterate, and advanced, expensive, professional and complicated software to help edit or re-encode the video is far, far beyond her abilities.
So I decided to limit myself to three programs. The bulk of the work was done between Movie Maker, Windows free built-in basic movie editing tool, and Picasa, the awesome, free and simple-to-use photo editing tool. Let it be said here that I love Picasa. It is far from a professional tool, but it's great for the amateur photographer who doesn't really care too much about the final product. And it can produce very slick looking video compilations of your photos in a widely accepted format with zero hassle. But enough ass-kissing, back to the point. The third and final program was a simple and free video converter program I needed to convert the video files we shot using the camcorder from a proprietary video format to a Movie Maker readable format (once again: Fuck you Sony).
I could do everything I needed to do, and in record time, using only these three programs. AVC would re-encode what I needed to, Picasa would put each sections set of photographs together into a beautifully presented clip, and then Movie Maker would add the soundtrack and produce a single, 12 minute long movie to be shown on this Friday. Except... It didn't.
No matter how often I tried, Movie Maker would not produce a movie. It got to 25% every time and then froze, the "Estimated time remaining" figure slowly climbing upwards as no further progress was had. After three failed attempts at getting it to work, I eventually produced each section individually. Picasa had produced three photo compilations for me, and those, along with the video segment of the children talking about what they want to be when they grow up, meant I had four sections that needed a music track. So I produced four segments of photos with soundtrack in Movie Maker, each one working perfectly, then I put them all together and produced a completed movie. I have no idea why Movie Maker refused to edit the segments together and put the soundtrack on at the same time, but happily edit the four segments with the soundtrack pre-attached without complaint.
Either way, it's all done. I set the whole thing up and showed it to the preschool manager today and we both got all teary-eyed. That's why I don't have my projector or Xbox here tonight and instead I have time to blog. They're in school waiting for Friday. I would normally wait until Thursday to bring all that stuff up, but I'm going to a friends wedding tomorrow instead. Two days left in school, and I take one off! Ha!
BBC have released a wonderful promo for their Winter/Spring 2010 drama lineup. The promo introduces us to new shows such as "Lennon Naked", starring ex-Time Lord and comic-book evil geniusChristopher Eccleston and "The Deep", starring the always fantastic James Nesbit as he gets stuck on a submarine, as well as the welcome return of old favourites "Ashes to Ashes", "Being Human", and of course, the eleventh Doctor makes his appearance in "Doctor Who". This is the fifth season of the relaunched classic time travel series which brings it up to an astounding 30 seasons of Who since it's launch in 1963!
As well as an enjoyable piece of viewing, the promo is wonderful to listen to thanks to the track "The Cave", from Mumford & Sons, an English folk rock band from London. I loved the piece as soon as I started watching the promo. This is the second time I can recall an advertisement introducing me to an artist I'd never heard of before. The first time was Vodafones advertising campaign featuring Regina Spektor, though it took talking to Cian before I knew whose voice that was.
Anyway, watch the promo and enjoy. 2010 on BBC looks like it's going to be another wonderful year.
Edit: I'm really digging these Mumford & Sons guys, even more since reading the first paragraph from their latest News post. Come back Knuckles!! All is forgiven!
In an age when it is far too common to see trailers for movies a full 12 months before release, I'm surprised this one has waited this long! I wish I had a better quality version to link to, but as of writing, there doesn't seem to be one online. Edit: Awesome! HD version available and embedded!
"You look like you've got a... real Bad Attitude."
Oh dear... This trailer shows up as I was just about to engrave Iron Man 2's name on the 2010 plate on "Denis' Favourite Movie Of The Year" perpetual trophy. I was so certain this was a no-brainer.
Now I have to wait until after June 11th to get it engraved.
Just look at that cast list!! Alan Tudyk, Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup and Vinnie Jones, to name just a few! Even WWF legend Sgt Slaughter makes an appearance! He had a GI Joe action figure back in the day, and got to voice his own character in the cartoon. Awesome!
Seeing the unequaled talent of Sir Anthony Hopkins delivering the final monologue from Bladerunners Roy Batty, played by the incredible Rutger Hauer, sent shivers down my spine when I saw it just now on TV. The dialgue is haunting and beautiful, and to hear Hopkins recite it so naturally is surprisingly emotional.
Ironically, despite the fact that this is an advertisment for Sky HD, there is no HD version around! Harhar!
The original Bladerunner scene is easily one of my favourite moments from cinema history.
All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain.
Thank goodness for that. I was beginning to feel very much like an artificial construct designed to aid an organic sentience in its interactions within a virtual environment. Now, thanks to Xbox.com, I know that I'm just a Real projecting my personality onto an Avatar. Phew. This short presentation may help clear things up for all you other Reals suffering the same confusion.
As most of you know, Christian Bale is starring in next years newest installment of the Terminator franchise. It doesn't have a lot going for it. The previous movie was weak, the series is a child of the 80's, and the director has both Charlies Angels movies on his credit list (they were beyond awful! Sorry Brian), and it has a Rapperin it's main cast... Hmmm...
But the newest US trailer from earlier this week is frikkin' sweet!
And here's the brand new International trailer, released just yesterday. Mostly just a different edit of the same scenes, there are a small few new shots involved.
Oooh.... Don't get excited Denis! You'll only be bitterly dissapointed. Please, please, please... was that a 30 foot tall Terminator?!? Oh sweet! Frak! Wow! Awesome! I do so love my giant robotic death machines!
Not that there is any nudity or anything in the video. You don't even need any sound for it, as the comedy is all in the actions. In fact, there isn't really anything said in the video anyway. But I think you'll be hard pressed not to laugh out loud. I had tears running down my face!
Grab your shotguns! Turn up your obnoxious high pitched music! Release the flu virus across the population! But above all else, someone get Will Smith on the phone!!
The aliens are back, and this time, they're invading from the depths of our planets oceans, those clever so-and-sos.
Not a hoax, not a fake, maybe some hyperbole, lots of inaccurate assumptions on my behalf, National Geographic has the full, fact filled, non-sensationalist story, with video! But who wants that?!?
Ever since I got back to Cork I've been itching to run a new RPG, using the Spirit of the CenturyFate 3.0 system. My last game was a huge success, of completely unexpected levels, filled with action, combat, danger (sorta), guest stars, a growing core cast, and generally a good time for all involved. It was the very first campaign I ran that lasted more than three sessions, and by the time we got to the wrap-up, we had put in 14 episodes, which is the Fox equivalent of a great first season!
With the upcoming release of Starblazer Adventures from Cubicle 7, Brian Caball putting me on to the 1990's setting Torg, my good friend Gar's Travelleravailable from Mongoose, the brand new Flash Gordon comics from Ardden Entertainment, and the recently started Monday Night Gaming here in Cork, I have tonnes of inspiration, adventure ideas, story arc seeds, characters and more to play with, all swimming around in my head, all battling for center stage.
In fact, I have so much stuff, I actually have three RPG's in various stages of development. I just like the setting of Torg, but haven't come up with much of a campaign concept yet. I really, really want to run an idea I have for a deep spaceTraveller/ Starblazers/ Spirit of the Far Future campaign but need to flesh out a few opening adventures before I'm happy with it yet, and finally, I have my most prized campaign seed, which, I have to unfortunately admit, Brian Caball inspired/ fully created!
This third one is the campaign I most want to run right now. It's also the one I have most ideas for already, and have started detailed research on. I like my games to be fast and easy, without the requirements of too much specialised knowledge on any areas, but at the same time, I like having hard facts upon which to hang my crazy adventure story.
So off to Wikipedia I went, and there I got lost. Thankfully, I was not alone in the depths of information overload; my wife* Claire was along for the adventure, clicking links on her laptop behind me, and passing back and forth interesting facts that caught our attention. If you have ever spent time on Wikipedia, you know this story already: you search for a subject, while reading that you click on an interesting link, repeat several times until you've forgotten where you started or you're reading an article on wet t-shirt competitions.
In our case, we started researching the origin of one of the English names for this chunk or rock we live on, Earth. From there, we got on to the etymology of the word Earth**, but not really being certain of the spelling of that term (I always pronounced eN-tim-ology, which is closer to a very different area of study), I wikied "origin of words", and discovered this interesting page as the third link! The list includes the obvious, such as banshee, as well as a few that surprised me, such as phoney, slob and Tory! And you'll be surprised where the word kibosh originates from!
I love tangential learning. Leaning things that you have an interest in is so much easier than being force to learning something that you might consider boring. I guess that's why I love to research facts for RPGs. It gives me the chance to learn about so many things that I otherwise might never have looked at. And, in a weeks time, in a months time, even in a years time, I'll still remember these facts. I'll still know who the various religions and cultures that worshipped Mars are, and the names they all gave it. I'll still know where the word galore comes from (it's obvious if you think about it as an Irish phrase).
Thankfully, I don't have to explain anything about the concept of tangential learning, or why it's valuable, not only in RPGs, but for books, comics and computer games. Daniel Floyd, with the assistance of James Portnow, has created a short video explaining the benefits of this method of learning. Click play below, and hopefully you'll learn something along the way.***
Via Rock, Paper, Shotgun; via Edge Online
*- I really need to actually add the post about all that to the blog at some point! If there is anyone out there reading this that hasn't heard that I'm now a married man, I'll try to post something soon! **- Turns out, no-one knows!! Hah! ***- See what I did there? Yeah. I hate me too...
I just found a few muppet videos that are worth sharing with all of you! It seems that the Henson Company very recently (July '08) went and did a few videos featuring the muppets for YouTube! Nice.
"The Blue Danube Waltz" by Gonzo and the Perfectly Pitched Poultry "Ode To Joy" by Beaker "Habanera" by Swedish Chef and Beaker, with the assistance of Animal "Stars & Stripes FOREVER!" by Sam The Eagle and Company All of the above have a short piece with Statler and Waldorf at the end, but everyones favourite hecklers get four of their own short videos as well, including the one embedded above.
And of course, no Muppet show would be complete without some bloopers, so here's one of the best.
Continuing my limited series of cheap posts with yet another YouTube video. I've been following Matts exploits for some time now, having seen his original video a few years back. This new one is awesome!
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