Tag: video (page 1 of 2)

Back On Track

Train

The holidays can throw everybody for a loop. I’m no different. Travel schedules, inclement weather and other factors unique to this time of year tend to play havoc with routines and timetables. Things have started to normalize a bit and it’s time I took a bit of stock of where I am now and where I’m heading.

Writing

Citizen in the Wilds is out for test reading. I’m eager to get some reaction and feedback, even if it takes the form of “CHANGE EVERYTHING ‘CAUSE IT SUCKS.” I’ve started compiling and expanding some notes I’ve jotted down on the next Acradea book. I’m going to edit The Jovian Gambit for this Saturday’s Free Fiction, and after that? I’m not sure. Possibly a hard-boiled Cthulhu detective story in the style of C.J. Hendersen, or perhaps a sequel to Akuma. I’m also getting back in the habit of writing for my Warcraft characters, both on forums and in the game proper.

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX!

The feedback on the first ICFN video has been generally positive, if somewhat cautious. I’m somewhat trepidatious myself, if I’m honest. I think I’m going to shoot for a new video every month and traditional audio enties in the intervening weeks. The poll will return for those audio entries, and as for the videos, I have a few films in mind. Stay tuned.

Dungeons & Dragons

Everybody in the group’s been a little off their game, no pun intended. We’ll be resuming our normal schedule of Tuesday night games, which means I’ll be returning to posting the adventures (or misadventures) of Andrasian, Krillorien, Lyria and Melanie on Tuesday afternoons. After this current printed advneture (Reavers of Harkenwold from the Dungeon Master Kit) I may move them into homegrown content rather than shoehorning Caern of the Winter King from the Monster Vault into the campaign. Or Wizards might have worked a smooth transition in already. More to come on this.

Magic: the Gathering

The local comic/gaming store has free casual play on Thursday nights, $5 FNM events on Fridays and special events like previews of the upcoming expansion Mirrodin Besieged. Attending paid events is a matter of my entertainment budget, and considering it’s something I enjoy alone and the entertainment budget must cover activies for both my wife and myself, it’s hard for me to justify the expense at this time. And I tend to watch my ICFN audio entries the Thursday night before I post the review. There’s simply not enough time, usually. Again, more to come.

World of Warcraft

Cataclysm has rekindled my interest and enjoyment of this game even more than I’d expected. Between the new areas, the promise of dungeons being challenging again (until the next nerf hits) and the resurgence of interaction with guild mates, this game is the other reason I’ll likely have less time for other activities. However, since I play it with my wife as we have since we’ve met, it’s a much more comfortable expense to work into our slender budget.

Classholes Anonymous Podcast

This is more dependant on Black Eagle’s band schedule than anything else.

This Blog

I plan to keep updating every day. Sometimes I’ll have a notion in mind for days before I post it, and some days – like today – I’m stumped up until lunchtime. Comes from everything else on this list as well as the day job and the other responsibilities of adulthood, I guess.

Until I rebel.

Courtesy Hyperbole and a Half

Have A Plan

Courtesy Disney

I think part of the problem with the previous deadlines for my upcoming video project was I didn’t establish any guidelines for what to do before the deadline hit. So let’s fix that, shall we? It should make the week to come more organized and the overall project a bit less intimidating.

Today I will re-record the audio. It will be of better quality, have a slightly different ending and be paced so I can match the screenshots with the narrative easily.

Monday I’ll be downloading appropriate screencaps from the film. If I can’t find something I need from it, I do have the DVD on loan from a friend so I can grab one the old-fashioned way.

Tuesday will find me downloading other images, such as actor portraits, pictures of the directors and other such things. I’ll also be making sure I have Premiere set up for the proper resolution for YouTube.

Wednesday I’ll work on my avatars, which will be appearing along with the screencaps and other images, as well as other touches such as the intro sequence. I don’t know yet if I’ll be opening directly with the Blue Ink Alchemy logo, or going right into the ICFN intro.

Thursday is when put it all together. Pretty straightforward.

I hope you all are excited as I am to see the end product and for me to stop putting it off.

48 Hour Hiatus

Powerless

It’s been a long, long year.

I’ve maintained a schedule for most of that year, with posts every day and Netflix every Friday. I want to move the thing forward to its next logical step, but that requires time and energy. Most of the last couple weeks, I haven’t had the time. Today? I just don’t have the energy.

I’m taking a break here, guys. Not a long one, not more than a couple days. Just stepping away from pushing myself to hit these deadlines as much as I have. I’m not quitting, and I still have big plans for the new year, I just need to throttle back a bit for the next, say, 48 hours or so.

So, no ICFN this week. New fiction tomorrow will be available in the post at first, and I’ll update the Free Fiction page when my moritorium on blogging ends.

I hope everybody has a safe & happy New Year celebration, and I’ll see you on the other side.

Something A Bit Different

In addition to doing a little writing (less than usual, I’ll admit), I thought I’d try a little experiment.

I recorded a little audio related to my Portal review while I had the room to myself this past Friday. I brought that audio into a program called Melodyne which, I understand, is the same software used by Valve for voice editing. Someone on YouTube had already played around with it to do the sort of editing required to make Ellen McLain sound like GLaDOS. Following those instructions yielded some interesting results.

Unwilling to post just another snippet of audio, and also wanting to make another attempt at doing something with AfterEffects, I started dropping in the results of Google Image searches for things like ‘Portal gun,’ ‘Chell’ and ‘Testchamber’. A few areas of text here, some interesting other images there, and suddenly I had a video presentation slightly more interesting than your typical corporate PowerPoint offering.

I added a little bit of Portal’s music as a last touch, but my hard-drive space failed me due to a bunch of old crap floating around the data section. So, while getting some Monday morning mundanity out of the way, I rendered the video from AfterEffects and then compressed it via Premiere.

Here’s the result. Let me know what you think.

As of 12:40, YouTube says it’s still rendering, so we’ll see how it looks once that process is complete.

EDIT: If it won’t play for you, click this handy dandy source link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMuIPsSw6zY

Thinking Outside the Tube

Courtesy Slashfilm

Today’s update is going to be quick and dirty, folks. Let’s just dive right into my thought processes about how I’m wasting spending my free time.

Last week I tried to put together a video supplement for my preview of Star Trek Online. Since Flash is the ‘new media’ platform with which I’m most familiar, I figured that the least time-consuming method for achieving my goal would be to use that platform. Sadly, I was mistaken, and I ended up burning a lot more time on the project than I probably should have. And the end result wasn’t even in a video format easily disseminated to other formats or venues.

With some measure of disgust, I filed that project away and got back to work. I have a day job, after all, no real time for dilly-dallying or rumination upon how to improve upon something that, to me, didn’t turn out very well at all. But as time went on and I thought more about the various tools at my disposal and efforts I’ve made in the past to branch out beyond static text, I thought back to Powerless.

Remember that? Powerless, my attempt to break into the high-profile world of the Escapist’s video elite? The concept of talking about things gamers can do to amuse themselves without relying entirely on electricity still strikes me as solid, I think my effort got bogged down with trying to add a story element to what is essentially a vlog. That’s “video blog” for those not up on the lingo.

Anyway, Powerless was assembled using Adobe AfterEffects. For some reason, I had filed that program away as something to only be used when actually recorded video is involved. But, au contraire! A video is images matched with sounds along a timeline, right? And my Star Trek Online preview is – anyone? anyone? – images matched with sound along a timeline. So why not use AfterEffects, reassemble the video portion of the preview, and plop it on YouTube as per my original thought?

This opens the door for other possible projects, as well. Perhaps some images to go along with the soundtracks for IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! or a revamped and more focused Powerless series solely about the tabletop games without any major trappings. Except maybe the bursts of static for transitions. I’m not sure. All I know for certain is that this can’t detract from The Project, my work for Polymancer or any other writing gigs that come my way. Or the day job either. Insert weary sigh here.

What do you all out there think? What would you like to see me vlog (if anything)?

Older posts

© 2024 Blue Ink Alchemy

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑