IJVP - Day 3!
It's Day 3 of the IJVP and, in the words of Anchorman Ron Burgandy, "I immediately regret this decision!" Hee.
No, no, today actually went pretty well, I've just been really busy with non-vid related stuff and then, in a fit of insanity, I decided to change my idea for this vid so drastically that I had to re-rip source and re-cut the song today. *shakes head at self*
Today's vidlet was suggested by brynnmck, it's a Battlestar Galactica vid to Eastmountainsouth's "Rain Come Down."
For those of you who are just here for the vids - please right-click and 'Save Target As.' The file is DivX AVI, and, you might notice, bigger today because I realized I was saving at a reduced kbps, which was affecting file size and quality.
Rain Come Down (18 MB)
Please let me know if you're unable to play the vidlet.
Lyrics
dark clouds rising
thunder bolts rolling
master Jesus riding around
with a rainbow round his shoulder
rain come down, rain come down
hear Him above riding around
rain come down, rain come down
hear Him above riding around
My Thoughts; What Works; What Doesn't
Originally, this vid was going to use a different intro stanza, one that started out "seek all, you seeker." It was going to be sort of a Roslin POV vid, how she pulled Kara and Lee to her side ("come go to glory with me"), but I couldn't get it to work with the chorus. And then I remembered that brynn actually had specified miniseries/early S1 and so I decided to rip everything from the mini through "Bastille Day." You'll notice these are all clips from the miniseries. Best laid plans and all that, but I think it works really well this way. And it ends, IMO, thematically much the same as "Jesus Walks" did, with the sense that they're all moving forward, to continue the hard work of surviving. Except in re-watching, (and if you don't want it ruined, then don't read this next sentence) I see that to get that pull-back effect, I had to make the Galactica fly backwards. Shhhhh, don't tell.
Aaaaaanyway, I like this vidlet. I love the shifts in mood, from dark and driving to more explosive and action-y, back to a quiet, somber note. BSG is in my top 2 favorite source material, because it's so shiny and has so much going on internally, and some very cool explosions. Plus, flippy ships! Which I used here. I like the motions on beat, especially the quick pull-back and explosions on the cymbal crash from :35-:37, which is my favorite part of the vidlet. I think the coloring works for the most part, although the two clips that have fire in them both look awkward with the blue RGB filter applied. I desperately wanted to have the very first clip drop in like rain, but I couldn't find anything in FCP that would let me do that, so I went with the waves instead. I'm not happy with them, but I felt like that intro sound needed something. The section with the Galactica on fire at :41-:43 has too much motion going on and, again, the fire looks weird with the extra blues. I should have gone with a different clip there. And the quick light flash at :54 doesn't work for me on review, although I like the one at :49. And the last shot of Apollo and Starbuck needed to be held longer.
The final zoom out of the Galactica crew into the ship itself looked much, much cooler in my head. Heh. From an emotional and thematic standpoint, I think the vid works very well, and I'm happy with just how gen it turned out, as my original idea was not very gen at all. I tried to hit on enough people that you got the feeling that everyone had a stake in it, hence that final shot of the crew and the fleet. Although I brought in Helo early and then never came back to him; he was problematic to fit into the end with everything switching to space. I really should have had Cally in there, since she's in that final shot with the Chief. I also realized I never come back to Baltar either. Phooey.
What I Learned
I thought it was going to be a lot more difficult finding effects to fit into this vid, but then I realized I really wanted to try to make the first clips harsher and brighter than the later clips, so I relied on my trusty RGB Baseline filter and added in a Levels filter, which is new.
Lots of slowing-down and speeding-up of clips to get things timed correctly. To get the light-flash effect, I keyframed a Gamma filter across a couple of frames. The first wave effect is from the wave filter supplied by FCP, keyframed, of course, for amplitude. The last effect is using the Motion tab on the crowd shot, keyframing Zoom from 100 to 0. I also applied a soft edges filter to the shot, and keyframed it from 10 to 20 as it zoomed away.
What else, what else...we watched the next ep of Wonderfalls, "Safety Canary," today.
Safety Canary - Eric is still hot, especially when he's confronting Jaye. Jaye actually annoyed me in this episode, I'm sorry to say. Well, not through all of it. through most of it I liked her, but about 3/4 of the way through, I was fed up with her talk about how she couldn't help herself, she would just break his heart. And then Eric made the comment that she was protecting herself, not him, and she also realized it (which is what really mattered to me), and I felt better. And then - aw, poor Jaye! Heidi returned! (Although I did squee unnecessarily because it was Jewel Staite. I knew she played Heidi, but it was still fun to see her.)
P.S - Mahandra+Aaron = ultra-hot. And how fun, they'd be a riot together, I bet.
I swear there was something else, but I keep delaying and now I'm really tired so it'll have to wait. I'll respond to comments as soon as I can, but things look to be getting busier through Saturday so I'll be scarce except for IJVP stuff. Thank you to everyone who has taken time to watch and comment on the vids, though. I've already learned a lot.
And there may be an unexpected delay in IJVP this Friday to visit with LJers coming in from out of town! Which I feel is a perfectly acceptable reason to delay IJVP. :)
Oh! I remember what I wanted to talk about now. We watched Stargate: Atlantis during lunch today (yes, we actually waited for the new eps to air live). I knew when Nera started snuggling up to Sheppard that she was up to No Good. And John is quick-on-the-uptake as always when something is not quite right, and manages to turn it all into a chance for the ships to blow themselves to pieces at the end, which was a good ending. I admit to laughing hysterically at the "they just keep sending them" line John had about the clowns. It still makes me giggle thinking about it. And I realized today that while I like Rodney, I looooooove David Hewlitt. He did a great job as meth!Rodney.
So, uh, does anyone have any Carson/Elizabeth fic recs? Because they could definitely be a comfort 'ship. Very nice and snuggly.
Now that really is it.
No, no, today actually went pretty well, I've just been really busy with non-vid related stuff and then, in a fit of insanity, I decided to change my idea for this vid so drastically that I had to re-rip source and re-cut the song today. *shakes head at self*
Today's vidlet was suggested by brynnmck, it's a Battlestar Galactica vid to Eastmountainsouth's "Rain Come Down."
For those of you who are just here for the vids - please right-click and 'Save Target As.' The file is DivX AVI, and, you might notice, bigger today because I realized I was saving at a reduced kbps, which was affecting file size and quality.
Rain Come Down (18 MB)
Please let me know if you're unable to play the vidlet.
Lyrics
dark clouds rising
thunder bolts rolling
master Jesus riding around
with a rainbow round his shoulder
rain come down, rain come down
hear Him above riding around
rain come down, rain come down
hear Him above riding around
My Thoughts; What Works; What Doesn't
Originally, this vid was going to use a different intro stanza, one that started out "seek all, you seeker." It was going to be sort of a Roslin POV vid, how she pulled Kara and Lee to her side ("come go to glory with me"), but I couldn't get it to work with the chorus. And then I remembered that brynn actually had specified miniseries/early S1 and so I decided to rip everything from the mini through "Bastille Day." You'll notice these are all clips from the miniseries. Best laid plans and all that, but I think it works really well this way. And it ends, IMO, thematically much the same as "Jesus Walks" did, with the sense that they're all moving forward, to continue the hard work of surviving. Except in re-watching, (and if you don't want it ruined, then don't read this next sentence) I see that to get that pull-back effect, I had to make the Galactica fly backwards. Shhhhh, don't tell.
Aaaaaanyway, I like this vidlet. I love the shifts in mood, from dark and driving to more explosive and action-y, back to a quiet, somber note. BSG is in my top 2 favorite source material, because it's so shiny and has so much going on internally, and some very cool explosions. Plus, flippy ships! Which I used here. I like the motions on beat, especially the quick pull-back and explosions on the cymbal crash from :35-:37, which is my favorite part of the vidlet. I think the coloring works for the most part, although the two clips that have fire in them both look awkward with the blue RGB filter applied. I desperately wanted to have the very first clip drop in like rain, but I couldn't find anything in FCP that would let me do that, so I went with the waves instead. I'm not happy with them, but I felt like that intro sound needed something. The section with the Galactica on fire at :41-:43 has too much motion going on and, again, the fire looks weird with the extra blues. I should have gone with a different clip there. And the quick light flash at :54 doesn't work for me on review, although I like the one at :49. And the last shot of Apollo and Starbuck needed to be held longer.
The final zoom out of the Galactica crew into the ship itself looked much, much cooler in my head. Heh. From an emotional and thematic standpoint, I think the vid works very well, and I'm happy with just how gen it turned out, as my original idea was not very gen at all. I tried to hit on enough people that you got the feeling that everyone had a stake in it, hence that final shot of the crew and the fleet. Although I brought in Helo early and then never came back to him; he was problematic to fit into the end with everything switching to space. I really should have had Cally in there, since she's in that final shot with the Chief. I also realized I never come back to Baltar either. Phooey.
What I Learned
I thought it was going to be a lot more difficult finding effects to fit into this vid, but then I realized I really wanted to try to make the first clips harsher and brighter than the later clips, so I relied on my trusty RGB Baseline filter and added in a Levels filter, which is new.
Lots of slowing-down and speeding-up of clips to get things timed correctly. To get the light-flash effect, I keyframed a Gamma filter across a couple of frames. The first wave effect is from the wave filter supplied by FCP, keyframed, of course, for amplitude. The last effect is using the Motion tab on the crowd shot, keyframing Zoom from 100 to 0. I also applied a soft edges filter to the shot, and keyframed it from 10 to 20 as it zoomed away.
What else, what else...we watched the next ep of Wonderfalls, "Safety Canary," today.
Safety Canary - Eric is still hot, especially when he's confronting Jaye. Jaye actually annoyed me in this episode, I'm sorry to say. Well, not through all of it. through most of it I liked her, but about 3/4 of the way through, I was fed up with her talk about how she couldn't help herself, she would just break his heart. And then Eric made the comment that she was protecting herself, not him, and she also realized it (which is what really mattered to me), and I felt better. And then - aw, poor Jaye! Heidi returned! (Although I did squee unnecessarily because it was Jewel Staite. I knew she played Heidi, but it was still fun to see her.)
P.S - Mahandra+Aaron = ultra-hot. And how fun, they'd be a riot together, I bet.
I swear there was something else, but I keep delaying and now I'm really tired so it'll have to wait. I'll respond to comments as soon as I can, but things look to be getting busier through Saturday so I'll be scarce except for IJVP stuff. Thank you to everyone who has taken time to watch and comment on the vids, though. I've already learned a lot.
And there may be an unexpected delay in IJVP this Friday to visit with LJers coming in from out of town! Which I feel is a perfectly acceptable reason to delay IJVP. :)
Oh! I remember what I wanted to talk about now. We watched Stargate: Atlantis during lunch today (yes, we actually waited for the new eps to air live). I knew when Nera started snuggling up to Sheppard that she was up to No Good. And John is quick-on-the-uptake as always when something is not quite right, and manages to turn it all into a chance for the ships to blow themselves to pieces at the end, which was a good ending. I admit to laughing hysterically at the "they just keep sending them" line John had about the clowns. It still makes me giggle thinking about it. And I realized today that while I like Rodney, I looooooove David Hewlitt. He did a great job as meth!Rodney.
So, uh, does anyone have any Carson/Elizabeth fic recs? Because they could definitely be a comfort 'ship. Very nice and snuggly.
Now that really is it.