Friday, 4/5

Like all good Gen Xers, I blame my parents.

Don't worry; I'm really not blaming them for anything other than warping me for life, which is the duty of any parent. But at least when they warped me it was in a good, although in this case, a time-consuming way.

Let me backtrack a little. As you know, I've been producing another series of those “Pieces of the Past” video history shorts. The latest one (which the public will see in a month or so) I did pushed the boundaries of the equipment I have—namely, a camera and a laptop. Yet I tried to include digital effects, HD video, and a screen split into four different shots. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and thanks to the way my parents warped me it only took eight different attempts to get it right.

Thanks, mom & dad.

I put the video together the first time and then rendered it, which is basically digitally mastering the master file so people can watch it. It's a process that takes a little time. So when I watched the mastered file the first time, I wasn't quite happy with an edit. So I changed it, and then re-rendered it. I watched it again, and noticed another slight change I could make. After re-rendering it again, I pondered changing the rhythm of it a little, which is something no one else would have noticed but was something that was slowly driving me insane. So I changed it, re-rendered it again, and then watched it again.

You can guess what happened after that.

I blame my parents for being a perfectionist. After all, they were the one who told me “If it's worth doing something, it's worth doing something right”, which is the reason I watched a video eight different times and noticed something that absolutely no one else would've noticed. But to me, it wasn't right, which is the reason I re-did it eight times.

In the end, though, I'm happy with the way it turned out. Given endless time and endless chances I'm sure I would make many more changes to it, but seeing as how it's just a three minute piece with a bunch of old pictures, I'm going to say the eighth time is the charm and leave it at that.

See how my parents warped me for life?

8-)

*****

Now, speaking of one of those two people, it's my mom's birthday today. As you know, we don't acknowledge age or anything else along those lines, which means I'll simply say “happy birthday”, have a fantastic day, and I hope Dad & Mel do something nice for you. I'll give you a call in a little bit!

Love,

(jim@wmqt.com)