Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Pardon Me While I Sleep
It is finished.
*collapses from exhaustion*
Last night, I finished adding subtitles to my history video around 11. Then, I realized that it was about 30 seconds to a minute too long, so had to work on cutting that down. At about 1 or 1:30, it was time to begin compressing this file that was over a gigabyte in size down to something much much much much more manageable.
I had no idea how to do this.
I had heard people online talk about using Quicktime and the Sorenson 3 "codec" to compress it into a Quicktime file. But I had no idea how to get that to happen. So I started researching, playing around with Premiere, etc. At about 2:00, I realized what had to be done - the answer had been in front of me the entire time. So I started compressing it into a Quicktime file.
Twenty minutes later, when it had finished, I was about to collapse, and I thought I was done. Wrong. The Quicktime file it produced was about 65 megabytes (too big for a 7-minute film, I'd say)and the quality was terrible. As in, so bad it was impossible to read the subtitles and know what was going on. So I started compressing it into something else - a Windows Media Viewer file. Of course, I had heard that Quicktime is much better, and I agree, but when it's 2:30 in the morning a guy's got to do what a guy's got to do.
It worked.
I now have a 14 megabyte wmv file on my hard drive. And the quality is good (though of course, not as perfect as the 2 gb file). I have done it. I have sacrificed time and sleep and blood and sweat over the past five days, and it's now over. Right now, I don't care if people hate the end result. Because I did it. And no one can take that away from me.
*end inspirational speech*
So, I went to bed around 3:30. Woke up at 5:30. Now I know what it must be like to have a hangover. It really sucks. It was like my brain kept shutting off and on. I'd take a step and then I'd wake up and I'd have taken quite a few. I was supposed to present a PowerPoint presentation and the video with Patty today in History class...but now I had a new problem. The video was 4 megabytes too big in order to send as an attachment. Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail all only accept attachments of 10 megabytes max. So my mom and I tried to burn it onto a CD, and rushed out the door.
I got to school. I went to History class. Patty and I gave our presentation. We made a 92%. Mr. Johnson said that the video wouldn't count as part of the grade because it was "*british accent* just a bit of fun". But it didn't matter, because the video wasn't burned correctly anyway.
Due to the complicated History schedule this week, I probably won't be able to show it to the class until after next week's vacation.
Wonderful. I just spent probably at least 20 hours working on something that I could have had another week to work on. But it doesn't matter. I did it I did it I did it. I have completed a short film. Though I'll hesitate from calling it a "real" short film, because it wasn't an original idea or have much of a plot. Maybe I'll shoot some of that over the vacation. Though I'm definitely going to take my time editing that one. This one is just something I did for school. It's supposed to be an example of the type of propaganda Mussolini used in Italy - though of course, I tried to add my own humorous twists. The title is Mussolini: Savior of Italy. Maybe I'll be able to find someone to host it on the Internet for me for a while, so it can be downloaded and viewed by everyone.
Until then, if you want to see it, I guess I can always send it to you through MSN Messenger.
I left after third period today. I came home and immediately collapsed. Eight hours later, I woke up and had dinner and watched some television. In about an hour and a half, I'm going to sleep some more. It's time to get my biological clock back to normal.
I can't wait for the vacations, even though I'll probably have work to do. A week without school = pure bliss.
Oh, and the TOK elections are this week. Basic info: the 12th grade has formed various "political" parties. We have to campaign and debate against each other, and then on Friday the school votes for which party they like the best. Hm. The name of my party is Kraft (German for "strength"). No, not the cheese. We're Fascist. Like Hitler and Mussolini, Bwahahahaha! Though not quite as totalitarian. Yesterday we had the first debate, and I think things went pretty well. There was a lot of really messed up stuff going on with our party over the weekend, but I don't want to discuss that right now. I'm the Minister of Health. The final debate is tomorrow. I hope we win.
Quote of Da Moment:
"Blood alone moves the wheels of history."
--Benito Mussolini
*collapses from exhaustion*
Last night, I finished adding subtitles to my history video around 11. Then, I realized that it was about 30 seconds to a minute too long, so had to work on cutting that down. At about 1 or 1:30, it was time to begin compressing this file that was over a gigabyte in size down to something much much much much more manageable.
I had no idea how to do this.
I had heard people online talk about using Quicktime and the Sorenson 3 "codec" to compress it into a Quicktime file. But I had no idea how to get that to happen. So I started researching, playing around with Premiere, etc. At about 2:00, I realized what had to be done - the answer had been in front of me the entire time. So I started compressing it into a Quicktime file.
Twenty minutes later, when it had finished, I was about to collapse, and I thought I was done. Wrong. The Quicktime file it produced was about 65 megabytes (too big for a 7-minute film, I'd say)and the quality was terrible. As in, so bad it was impossible to read the subtitles and know what was going on. So I started compressing it into something else - a Windows Media Viewer file. Of course, I had heard that Quicktime is much better, and I agree, but when it's 2:30 in the morning a guy's got to do what a guy's got to do.
It worked.
I now have a 14 megabyte wmv file on my hard drive. And the quality is good (though of course, not as perfect as the 2 gb file). I have done it. I have sacrificed time and sleep and blood and sweat over the past five days, and it's now over. Right now, I don't care if people hate the end result. Because I did it. And no one can take that away from me.
*end inspirational speech*
So, I went to bed around 3:30. Woke up at 5:30. Now I know what it must be like to have a hangover. It really sucks. It was like my brain kept shutting off and on. I'd take a step and then I'd wake up and I'd have taken quite a few. I was supposed to present a PowerPoint presentation and the video with Patty today in History class...but now I had a new problem. The video was 4 megabytes too big in order to send as an attachment. Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail all only accept attachments of 10 megabytes max. So my mom and I tried to burn it onto a CD, and rushed out the door.
I got to school. I went to History class. Patty and I gave our presentation. We made a 92%. Mr. Johnson said that the video wouldn't count as part of the grade because it was "*british accent* just a bit of fun". But it didn't matter, because the video wasn't burned correctly anyway.
Due to the complicated History schedule this week, I probably won't be able to show it to the class until after next week's vacation.
Wonderful. I just spent probably at least 20 hours working on something that I could have had another week to work on. But it doesn't matter. I did it I did it I did it. I have completed a short film. Though I'll hesitate from calling it a "real" short film, because it wasn't an original idea or have much of a plot. Maybe I'll shoot some of that over the vacation. Though I'm definitely going to take my time editing that one. This one is just something I did for school. It's supposed to be an example of the type of propaganda Mussolini used in Italy - though of course, I tried to add my own humorous twists. The title is Mussolini: Savior of Italy. Maybe I'll be able to find someone to host it on the Internet for me for a while, so it can be downloaded and viewed by everyone.
Until then, if you want to see it, I guess I can always send it to you through MSN Messenger.
I left after third period today. I came home and immediately collapsed. Eight hours later, I woke up and had dinner and watched some television. In about an hour and a half, I'm going to sleep some more. It's time to get my biological clock back to normal.
I can't wait for the vacations, even though I'll probably have work to do. A week without school = pure bliss.
Oh, and the TOK elections are this week. Basic info: the 12th grade has formed various "political" parties. We have to campaign and debate against each other, and then on Friday the school votes for which party they like the best. Hm. The name of my party is Kraft (German for "strength"). No, not the cheese. We're Fascist. Like Hitler and Mussolini, Bwahahahaha! Though not quite as totalitarian. Yesterday we had the first debate, and I think things went pretty well. There was a lot of really messed up stuff going on with our party over the weekend, but I don't want to discuss that right now. I'm the Minister of Health. The final debate is tomorrow. I hope we win.
Quote of Da Moment:
"Blood alone moves the wheels of history."
--Benito Mussolini
# posted by Andrew Johnson : 10/27/2004 10:06:00 PM 
