Monday, April 30, 2007

My Second AMV. The Dork Returns!

Or something. Anyway, I have completed my second AMV (or at least attempted to). I think this one is an improvement over the previous one. There's a few inexplicable video flubs (just flashes of video junk), I don't know what happened as it looked fine in storyboard layout. Thankfully, there's only like three that I can see. Anyway, using my experience with the first video, I was able to focus a bit more on editing, timing, and overall quality.

About this video:
This is the first in a 3-part series of videos detailing the three main characters of the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. Each video focuses on a specific character; Rei, Asuka, and Shinji. Each video is soundtracked by an Alter Bridge song that fits each personality (I hope). All three videos should tie together to hopefully tell a story.

The first video is of Rei Ayanami. This was the most difficult video of the trio, mainly because Rei does not display much emotion, and she's not flashy. In short, she stands around a lot and whispers. I did my best to pull as much character as possible out of the clips. She is a fascinating character, and I hope this video does her justice. A slight content warning: there's some brief PG-13 nudity, so if that sort of thing offends you,eh, not much I can do about that (hey, it's animated. Relax.)

The music is "Down To My Last" by Alter Bridge. Pretty good little song, maybe a little "rock-ier" than some of you might like, but the words are the key. At a few points they can be a bit hard to understand, not because of the instruments, but simply the lead singer has a slightly odd accent on some of the words. If you need clarification, just let me know. Anyhoo, give it a look-see, and let me know what you think. Oh, and if you have time, go over to the youtube page and rate it. Enjoy!

Monday, April 23, 2007

Rebuild of Evangelion Movie Poster?

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I am following the development and release of the 4(!) new Eva movies with great interest. I can't wait! Any way, I have run across what appears to be a movie poster for the first of the four movies, Evangelion: 1.0 (or something like that). I LOVE the tag-line under the title at the bottom: "You are (not) alone." That certainly sounds like Evangelion to me. One thing appears to be missing from the poster, though: Where in the fark is everybody's favorite red-headed German, ASUKA?! I am worried...



And here's a really cool bit from the director himself:

”Eva" is a story that repeats. It is a story where the main character witnesses many horrors with his own eyes, but still tries to stand up again. It is a story of will; a story of moving forward, if only just a little. It is a story of fear, where someone who must face indefinite solitude fears reaching out to others, but still wants to try. We hope that you look forward to the 4 new retellings of this story.

In closing, it is also our job to provide a service to our customers. Although it seems obvious, we aim to create a form of entertainment that anyone can look forward to; one that people who have never seen Evangelion can easily adjust to, one that can engage audiences as a movie for theatres, and one that produces a new understanding of the world.

This fall, we hope you can join us.

Creator/General Director, Anno Hideaki

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

See? Gun Bans Work! Wait...

You all probably know by now of the tragedy at Virginia Tech. In short, some whack job started shooting at students on VT's campus this morning, killing (so far) 32 people. It started around 7:30am, and the VT locked down the campus. Well, they then lifted the lock down, and the guy started shooting again. He eventually killed himself. He will not be missed.

Normally, one would hope we could at least have a couple of hours to grieve and/or honor the dead, but the media is already looking for the boogyman in this, so here we are:

The point of this post is to bring to light this particular topic: Firearms are banned on all campus grounds at Virginia Tech (and every other school in the US, for that matter). Imagine how low the death toll would have been had any of the students been armed. It's hard to stalk room to room gunning people down when the room starts firing back.

Gun control favors shootings such as this. Criminals and the insane will have access to weapons no matter how many stupid laws are passed against it. Gun control simply takes away the public's ability to defend itself, and turns citizens into targets.

End rant for now. There's many, many things to discuss about this sad event (such as why students were notified that a killer was loose 2 hours after the shooting started.) We'll get to that later.

EDIT: As usual, Fark.com has served up a picture that sums up the aftermath of this nicely:


BONUS!: Dr. Phil blames all of this on...wait for it...video games!. I hate Dr. Phil.

Although, Tetris does make me get all stabby and stuff...

Friday, April 13, 2007

UPDATED: My First Attempt

Well, I've gone and done it. I am now a true internet geek. Thank the Lord I'm married, 'cause after this, well...(thanks, Shel!) Anyway, what'd I do? I made an AMV (animated music video). All by myself. Took me about 8 hours, on and off. It sucks, but it's my first try, so hopefully I'll get better. If you've ever seen an AMV, whether on this blog or anywhere else, let me tell you: They are NOT easy!! The timing's a bit off, and I couldn't figure out how to remove the subtitles, but since some of the words fit the song, I figured I wouldn't stress too much about it. The song is Broken by Scott Stapp, who used to be the lead singer for Creed, but is doing his own thing now, mainly Christian-themed stuff. And the anime featured is (what else?) Evangelion.

I think most of my readers know how much I love me some Eva, and how moving and thought-provoking (not to mention mind-bending!) it is. To me, the song really fits what the characters have gone through in the series. All of them, by the end of the show, have been utterly broken in just about every way. The things they go through are more than most anyone could handle (and most of the characters don't handle it successfully). Remember, this series is about the end of the world, and finding who you are when EVERYTHING is gone. It's really quite incredible.

I remember the first time I finished the series and End of Evangelion (the ending movie), I was depressed for a week. I've never had any form of "entertainment" (or anything else, for that matter), affect me like that. It was interesting, because the next time I watched the whole thing, I had a completely different take on it. There is a message of hope buried in there, and after you invest some time into the motives behind the anime, it really starts to shine through.

Somehow, I was able to finish it without using any footage from End Of Evangelion, but don't worry, that'll come in another one later. Anyway, give a listen, let me know what you think. I am a big fat dork.



I figure I MIGHT have four readers that will give hoot about this (Joey for the video, Jodie for the song, Doc, 'cause well, he's Doc, and MissSpeech, 'cause she has to!), but it's MY blog, dang-it! And I worked hard on this, so PBBBBBTTTTT!!! Anyhoo, the next one will probably be Last Exile, but I'm not sure yet. Hope you enjoy it!

EDIT: Added a little bit more info above as to why I chose this song and anime.

Oh, and if you have the time (26 30-minute episodes, 2-hour movie, and countless hours of interweb reading), and you think you've got the mental and emotional fortitude, I HIGHLY recommend experiencing this series. You can borrow my copy if you need to (I know where you live!)

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

First Iron Man Suit Revealed!!!

Oh man, oh man, oh man! Looks like they're actually doing the movie right! The first image of Tony Stark's first Iron suit (also known as the "Grey Suit") has surfaced on teh interweb tubes. In case you're unaware, this first suit is the one he builds while being a prisoner. It goes through several iterations before becoming the super streamlined version he wears now. Anyway, feast your face on this:



And remember, Robert Downie Jr. is being cast as Tony Stark. How perfect is that?

For a little more info on the suits, here's the original grey suit:



And the modern version:

Saturday, April 07, 2007

OH NOES!!! It'S teh gloBal waRmingS!

As of this posting, the Waco area has about 2-3 inches of global warming accumulated. It's been freakin' SNOWING since about 1:00pm, and hard! Here's some pics from earlier:







Al Gore's a smacktard.