My inane life… in glorious details!
Archive for March, 2006
Linux Editing Solutions
Mar 29th
Last night, while I was resting in bed, I thought about the possibility of exploring Linux movie editing solutions. So I went off today in search of such a video editor.
First off was Cinerella. Once I figured out and installed the dependencies (NASM, YASM) – it still wouldn’t install properly. But apparently I’m not the only one with such troubles – Ubuntu & Cinerella don’t play too well as I found out through the support forums.
Next up was Kino. I threw that one out the Window – the way it operates is very much similar to “Windows Movie Maker” in that it uses a filmstrip concept. No multiple layers of video/audio crossing over each other. Useless for anyone that wishes to do… anything… with their video.
Then there’s Pitvi. That did install on Ubuntu quite well. Only once running, it couldn’t properly handle even DV files in an AVI container. Somewhat useless; plus its questionable as to whether it could handle multiple video tracks.
Finally I tried Diva. Diva can’t open any video format but RAW DV files (can’t even handle DV in AVI container). That alone makes it absolutely useless.
The last solution was using Blender to do the video manipulation. Some tout it as the only stable video editor for Linux. Coercing a 3D package into manipulating video, however, is hardly an ideal means to approach this problem.
Update: I finally got Cinelerra to work. I installed alien, and used it translate the Cinerella RPM they had out for Debian. This time Cinerella installed correctly, and I’m now trying it out. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but that’s fine.
What I’m more worried about is the overly visible interlacing in the real-time rendering of the video output. If that makes itself to the final renders, I’m dropping Cinerella. If it cannot manage multiple clips spread out throughout a single video track, I’m dropping Cinerella. But if it can pull it off – I just might have myself a Linux solution.
2 more interviews down…
Mar 25th
I completed 2 more interviews. One was with Paul Godin, LinuxStuff editor in Monitor Magazine. The other was with the Amanda Rheaume Band.
More Shoots.
Mar 23rd
I did more film shooting. One at The Sony Store, one at local CD shop. The Sony Store shoot had really bad lighting; and since I’m broke I can’t afford to bring any in. Therefore, its up to my editing abilities to boost up the lighting in the shot.
You can click to enlarge. The Sony Store interview was yesterday. Today it was all about getting some more stock footage inside a CD shop, as my earlier attempt did not provide enough stable footage (2 minutes in all.) This time round I collected 12 minutes worth of shots. I have an interview tomorrow with a sweet band, and one Saturday with a magazine editor on Linux affairs.
Looking for a Music Economist.
Mar 20th
I have either settled, or am in the process of settling, interviews with my final interviewees. However, I’m still missing a music economist. Someone to act as a centerpoint for the views of two opposing sides in the documentary.
Would anyone know of such a person that resides in either Ottawa, Toronto, or Montreal?
Quick Video for you All!
Mar 19th
For my tourism class, our team is supposed to complete a 10 minute presentation on a fictional destination of our choice. We went the extra mile, however, and decided to include a video to show the class. It’s pretty funny.
Download Here:
Mirror [18MB, WMV]
Credits:
Host: Eric Rooen
Voice of Host: Julien McArdle
People in Background: Julien, Jon, Eric
Video Editing/Sound: Julien McArdle
2 More interviews down…
Mar 19th
I’ve completed 2 more interviews. One with Dr. Ian Kerr, who has a seat in the Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law & Technology. The other was with Chris Sibbitt, a coder with experience in Bittorrent indexing website.
Went out and interviewed people on the streets!
Mar 16th
Today, I went out for three hours interviewing youths on their downloading habits, and their thoughts on the issue as a whole.
I also collected statistics on the amount of people that refused to be interviewed and so forth. (See below.)
*** STATISTICS ***
Number of people I asked: 202
Number of people that said no: 167
Number of people that said yes: 29
Number of people that just ignored me: 9
Number of interviews lost due to the fact that I forgot to press the ‘record’ button: 1
Aiming for the middle ground.
Mar 13th
Has the script for this documentary ever evolved. A year ago, I started working on a film that was meant to bring coverage to what I perceived to be a really misrepresented issue. I believed that mainstream media was doing a poor job of explaining just what was going on with piracy, and relying too heavily on corporate press releases to form their opinions. I wanted to use the documentary to voice the opinion of the consumer-activism side. Naive, I know.
But somewhere down the road, I grew up (thank god.) I started interviewing people, and I realised that the agencies within the industry were extremely misunderstood themselves. Interviewees outlined their very valid justifications, and explained the reasoning behind their logic. I found that the objections for many people on both sides of the issue stemmed from misunderstandings. I was delighted to encounter some people that were incredibly unbiased themselves, such as a lady from a certain organization to whom I spoke with today.
There’s always three sides to a story. And with this film, I aim to report them all. No bias. My aim isn’t to persuade audiences to any one side, but to say “You watched the movie. These are all the facts I could get for you. Now you form your own views.” At the same time, I want to satisfy all the interviewees in the film, hoping they will say “My argument is well represented. Now its up to the viewer to decide what’s right.”
To eliminate potential for bias, the narrator’s only function is to link interviews and explaing definitions of technical terms which may not have been defined properly during interviews. Furthermore, I will insure that the documentary represents the best of the arguments from each side; and that the editing is done in a fashion which does not misrepresent any perspective.
2 more interviews down…
Mar 12th
Completed 2 interviews. One with a founder of a release group; another who was from a Linux consultancy. I’ve come to realise though that some of the interviews will be dropped. I have to drop the Anime group footage because that interview was just horrid for a documentary-maker (people wanted to be offscreen and express viewpoints); and at the very least I’ll have to use some SFX to edit the chair + door out of the Linux Consultant footage.
Thank you.
Mar 10th
Because I’m really feeling the squeeze financially, I decided to create a live “donations” page for the Piracy Documentary. This goes against my original statement that I’d rather have the film finished first – but really, funds come in more handy when you’re actually making use of them.
Well no less than an hour after the page went live, someone donated. And it was alot more than I would expected anyone to give. So I want to extend my thanks to Luxor, for your kind generosity. The only way I can make it up to you is to make the best film I can.
Thank you.
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