Monday, February 04, 2008

Expanding my capabilites

I was able to get a small digital camcorder so I can take original footage. I did a test of a video log down at the river next to the salmon hatchery to try it out.


I'm going to have to get a lot better in front of the camera if I'm going to do some more of these, but it could help me a lot with the way I express myself and how I communicate if I practice more.

It does give more dimensions to my blog in addition to the animation, videos others have done, images, links to web pages and diagrams I have been using to get my points across. I have had trouble actually writing more personal stuff so maybe if I can say into the camera then it'll get across better with my tone, expressions and body language.

The camera has limited features, good for the price, but not really suited anything professional. Once I get used to it, I probably can do a lot more with it, when I get the hang of adapting methods of composition and the best positions to put it in for the best angles.

Hopefully if I work out all the details of the shots with storyboards, then I can tell better stories when combined with animation and compositied shots, like HappySlip does in her videos. I could do a story that has me with Promicin abilities where stuff comes out of VR into RL and people interact with it.



That would be cool to be able to put together videos like that, since it would probably sell more DVD than The Writer's Nightmare. Which I'm having trouble with getting it on CreateSpace. I sent the master copy of the DVD to them on 12/21/07 and UPS delivered it on 12/24/07. I guess that wasn't the best time to do it the day before Xmas. I had to wait until 1/14/08 to find out that something had happened to it and they couldn't read the DVD to produce the proof copy.

Either UPS screwed it up with other holiday packages falling or spilling on it or the shipping/recieving department at CreateSpace damaged it during an Xmas party. Or they just lost it completely and forgot about it then just gave me that excuse that it had been messed up when they got it.

What pisses me off is that I had to wait that long to find out about it and only after emailing them a few times to be told of the problem. If they couldn't read it, then they should've told me a lot sooner that I needed to send them another master copy.

But it will probably work out for the best because since I have to send them another DVD anyway, I'm taking the chance to fix all the flaws in the other one. I've went through and added time to the parts where the text is on the screen so people can read it easier. I fixed some minor glitches with the comic balloons and some typos in the text. That ought to make it a better DVD, but I think it's going to have to be a two disc set now since it's too long for one DVD now.

That does make it easier to have it in episodes now though since I have the time to put the menus I was planning with iDVD now that the semester has started and I can use the Mac Lab again. I can put 18 episodes on the first and 17 on the second with the promo footage also.

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