Memories updated

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

The memories for the community have been updated all the way through this one.

*collapses*

ETA: sineala did most of them! I only started toward the end of 2004 :)

Meneer's Garden

[ex-frahulet.livejournal.com]

Title: Meneer's Garden
Fandom: Serpent's Kiss
Focus: Ewan/Garden
Song: Rain Dance by Will Ackerman
Run time: 2.08 with 1.42 being content and the rest as credits.

Cut on Final Cut Pro 4.5 with titles from Livetype.


Summary: The real otp from Serpent's Kiss for me was Meneer (Ewan) and his garden plans. This is my first ever vid and I wanted something small and managable that was still pretty and sensual. I cut this in about a day but took around a week for beta and refinements and finally lots of headbanging over the credits which turned out sort of...meh. I like the concept but I still have a lot to learn about Livetype.

Both are in Quicktime.


This one is the 3.3 mb medium quality link:
http://rapidshare.de/files/3974474/meneer2.mov.html
This one is the 12.1 mb high quality link:
http://rapidshare.de/files/3973839/meneer1.mov.html

If you have trouble with the quicktime, micehell was able to use www.videolan.org, a free software, to view them successfullly.

Please let me know what you think.

Blade Runner vid: "Made for Market"

[adraefan.livejournal.com]

Title: Made for Market
Focus: Deckard/Rachael and the replicanty love in all of us.
Source: Blade Runner, the coolest movie EVAH.
Size: 19MB
Music: "Made for Market" by Ampop (lyrics)
Notes: Hello, my name is not Aeneid and I make Blade Runner music videos in my spare time. This vid features all of my fave BR moments - blood in vodka! Blood in sink! Dove on shoulder! Upside down make-out session and running around on dystopian rooftops! God, I love this movie.

DOWNLOAD HERE (Megaupload external link)

Adventures in Mac vidding

[par-avion.livejournal.com]

For crowie and anyone else who is interested.

Specs: I'm using iMovieHD and running OSX.

I have a vidlet that I wanted to convert to DiVX. Not having done this before, I started with the mac vidding guide from amv.org. It has pictures -- screenshots of the programs used -- which I find easier to understand than technobabble. I'm not actually very computer literate when it comes to codecs and conversions.

"Making AMV's with iMovie guide" by Dennis 'Kirin' Ramos.

Since the vid is short, I experimented with two methods. Here are my results:

Full size project when exported from iMovie: 225.4 MB DV file (for one minute) (that's not a typo).

Export to DiVX using D-Volution.

Simple. Only one program to DL. Program is easy to use and conversion is very fast.

Result: 9.6 MB DiVX .AVI file, better quality for the size than I got with iMovie exporting to CD-ROM format.

Export to XViD using ffmpegX

Note: there is a caution in the tutorial that you will get errors if you use the DV file, but I used the DV file and it worked for me. Both iMovie and ffmpegX have been updated since the tutorial was posted last August, so I suspect that the bug has been fixed.

Using ffmpegX was a bit more complicated than D-Volution, but the quality was much better (it's almost as good as the original DV file) and the file was only slightly bigger.

DLing and installing the various components wasn't that difficult. You have to go the websites and DL two things. Remember to unzip the zip file (which will give you two of the three components). Click locate, and find the files on your hard drive. Then enter your OSX password and click install. (Follow the links that come with the version of ffmpegX that you DL, not the exact ones in the tutorial).

Kirin's tutorial is interactive -- if you click on the Video, Audio, Filters, Options, and Tools tabs, you will see exactly which options he checked. The screenshots match well to the text descriptions, but sometimes there are additional suggestions if you are using DVD source, such as to check the Deinterlace and Denoise tickyboxes.

Also, for the QMin and QMax, Kirin says to leave those blank, but the screenshot has numbers there.

The conversion process is much slower than with D-Volution. It took about 20 minutes to convert 60 seconds the first time. And then I realized I'd made a mistake and had to redo it. So I would suggest checking the 5 second preview -- that will quickly give you the last 5 seconds of your vid and you can tell if, for example, you checked the wrong aspect ratio. Then uncheck it and run it againto get the full file.

Final result: 10.4 MB XViD .avi file, more buttons to check, slower conversion, excellent quality.

All files are 720x480.

I don't really understand what I did, and I don't have an opinion about the other options available, but it worked! And the quality is impressive for that file size.