Hey Ya!

This is neat, check it out.. :)

http://www.venisproductions.com/movies/heyyacb.html

PS: My websites are down right now for some reason. Of course, as this is the case, you won't be able to actually read this message until they're back up. I'm just posting this now to remind myself later. They were working this afternoon, and my host's website is working, so I dunno what's wrong. Must be some kind of blip.

Finally!

Here we go! I finally remembered to log onto this thing at home and upload a pic.

I hear the voices, don't you?

Downloaded a sound recording/editing program and gave it a shot. It seems like it'll be very useful! I ran a test where I recorded myself with the camcorder, talking, and at the same time I used the sound recorder to record audio to my PC. Once the video was uploaded to the computer, I synced it with the separately recorded audio, and it was definitely much better than the audio captured by the camera! This is good. I can load this software onto my laptop and plug a mic into it to capture audio while videotaping. It'll be useful for voice-driven scenes. I'll just have to get a good mic with a long cord and figure out a way to use it to capture voices without it being in the shot. Typically this is done with a boom, but who's got a boom?? And I certainly don't have a crew either, to have someone holding/guiding a boom! I could use Robert Rodriguez's method of filming MOS then recording the audio later. It's just a tiny bit harder. After the filming is done, you set up to record audio then have your speakers say their lines again, hoping they do it exactly the same way again, so you can sync it up later. A bit harder, but doable. The audio will be much crisper and more pleasant if it's recorded digitally by a computer and inserted later, rather than recorded by the camcorder. I even have options to make multiple tracks and send one more to the left while another is more to the right, which will be invaluable for doing conversations. Oh, and for when people have to record their lines separately, the easiest thing to do is set up the camcorder to play back whatever scene is being recorded, so they can copy themselves. I'll have to put this one to the test!

I want to put up a pic of my new haircut, but I keep forgetting when I'm at home! And I can't while I'm at work. Ah well... eventually! And I have a new webcam program too, which creates automatic feed to a website. So maybe there'll be an ENP Webcam site someday! "Ya, this is where all the work gets done. Yes, that's us watching 'Buffy'. We're working... honest!"

Why's it a firewire?

Went out to visit with mom today. Picked out some carpeting that I like for the basement, then went to Value Village and found some really cool photo collections of Vancouver, London and Expo 86! We had lunch and talked a lot about things, then went off to the mall. I went back to Future Shop to get a camcorder bag and a FireWire cable, which I needed to transfer video from the camcorder to my PC. There was only one cable to choose from, and it was $90!! Ouch. But it works and I had fun tonight transferring practice video and experimenting with various codecs.

Canon Optura 20

I went on and on about the Hitachi DVD cam, but as fate would have it, I was not destined to have that particular camcorder. Last night I got a chance to check Future Shop and London Drugs for it, and neither of them had it. Both had it's lesser version, so when I got home that night I started up the research again, to see if that lesser model would be worth it. It might have been, but my research prompted even more scouring of the 'net for info, and I finally decided that a good MiniDV cam would be perfectly fine! I came upon some really good, in depth, review sites and narrowed it down to the Sony something-or-other 22 or the Canon Optura 20. When I got to Future Shop today, the Optura 20 won! Very sweet little camcorder. Kok came out for some girl time, so we did some running around town, then we went back to my place to hang out, play with the camcorder, and watch tv. Ooh I can't wait to get filming something!

ENP To Make Purchase

Well, I'm starting to get set up to start my own independent filmmaking, finally. For the first while it's only going to be practicing, but even practicing needs equipment, and good equipment at that! I'm partly set up already. My PC is now completely ready and able to edit video and audio, I have a lovely little laptop that will be great for recording information, taking notes, writing on the go, recording digital audio when necessary and even transferring video to if necessary while away from the PC. Now, what's missing? The camcorder! Okay, I do have a Hitachi 8mm which has served me well, but if I'm serious about this, it won't work for what I want to do. It's fine for taking video and messing around with it to get used to editing, but what if I get to the point that I'm ready to produce some shorts? The old 8mm just won't cut it for video or audio quality. So what's an aspiring filmmaker to do? Invest some money into her future. I've done the research, taken my notes from my filmmaking handbook, and discovered the perfect camera for my needs and budget. And what's best is it's on sale!! It's a Hitachi DVD-cam! These are the latest in personal camcorders, and the best thing about them is that they record directly onto DVD-R or DVD-Ram discs, which means they are digital from the start - no degradation in transferring to the PC!! The recording quality is fantastic, and this particular model is even up to MPEG-2 standards, which is excellent. It's a 2003 model, so luck is upon me if I can find it. It's on sale! Not a listed sale, but a price drop since 2004 models will be on the scene soon. The Future Shop website lists it, so I'm just crossing my fingers that I can find it when I go there tomorrow! Hitachi has even won an Emmy for their DVD camcorders and the quality of them, so I'm pretty sure this thing will be more than adequate for independent filmmaking! I've already got ideas for some shorts, so I'm really excited to start practicing. Plus, I have a nice list of locations I know I can use without needing permits, for whenever I do want to start. Oh, and this lovely little camcorder also has a digital camera option for still pix, so I can use it to scout these locations, taking stills to review later! Brilliant!

(B&B mode)*Darren!*(/B&B)

1:08 PM
Gah! So annoying! The cleaning lady came in early today and I noticed her putting the paper from the big recycle bin into the garbage can! I told her it was to be recycled and she was like.. "Oh.." :P I don't know how many times Judy has reminded them that the paper gets recycled, but still they don't do it! Then she asked if the shredded paper gets recycled or in the garbage! Umm.. let me think... paper... umm... geez! I can't wait to talk to Judy about this on Monday. I will freak if they've been throwing away the paper all this time!! We go through SO much paper here!! I don't even want to think about how many trees would be destroyed thanks to us if we weren't recycling.. and I've finally got all the supervisors using the recycling, so what's the point if our janitors don't do it right?? Growf.