The Last Candle

In the later half of the 90’s I took part in this burgeoning so-called World Wide Web by creating and managing a fan site for the vehicular combat video game series Twisted Metal. The site was stored at Geocities, the inarguable hosting giant of the time, and stayed put on a stretch of land in the TimesSquare/Arcade district for over ten years.

But last Monday, parent company Yahoo! swept an arm across the ‘Cities property and cleared a thousand crude communities from the face of the Internet, including my site, that first easily-forgotten foray of mine into web development. But for reasons of nostalgia and a touch of masochism, I grabbed a copy of my ol’ site from Yahoo!’s clutches before the couple rusty Geocities servers were isolated from the niche market of web surfers who still pined for the days of when the web was simple, static, and almost completely ugly.

For my part during dawn on the Web, visitors to my simple, static and ugly Twisted Metal-focused portal were greeted by the following splash page entrance:

Welcome to Twisted Metal. You will enjoy this.

Splash pages as an entrance to a web site are frowned upon these days, although artist portfolios and upscale furniture stores usually can get by without anyone complaining. But back in the late 90’s, the splash page was a throw-down introduction and on the cutting edge of site presentation. Match a splash page with a few blink and marquee tags — also on the cutting edge of web development at the time — and your site counter was almost guaranteed to click through at least twenty hits a day. That’s juice.

The site provided screenshots, news, clever commentary, and, of course, cheat codes, as well as insider tips announcing that foreign fascists had infiltrated our domestic game studios:

'Have a drink. Enjoy. Be refreshed.'

When the site was abandoned in early 1999, shortly before before I struck out in the world to make a mint on the stock market or develop a new type of biodegradable shopping bag or something similarly important, the site focused on the recent release of Twisted Metal 3. But ever the careful webmaster, I didn’t let the previous games in the series fall out of the public view and continued to praise their contribution to the now-popular exploding cars and vehicular manslaughter genre. Even when compared to site documents that focused on more recent titles, the Twisted Metal 2-focused pages delivered the same forceful, intense aesthetic design and high quality content expected of the site:

Too Twisted, too Metal Two.

That title graphic is rad: blood-weeping bullet holes, a lens flare blaring out from a skull’s barren eye socket (yes, that is a big stupid skull in the image’s background), and a prominent application of the blue-and-gold “chrome” paint gradient. I actually was pretty proud of the work at the time, but looking at it again, the chrome is a touch gratuitous. Maybe.

I’d like to think my Twisted Metal site accrued a hundred-thousand hits and served the audience of the fine vehicular combat series for many happy years. Of course, I’ll never know about those hits since my free counter died years ago — overflow because of exceptionally high numbers perhaps? — but the site is now part of my archives, to be enjoyed whenever I please. Maybe I’ll even pop one of the old games in my original PlayStation and relive those simpler times.

On second thought, looking back at those screenshots, I’ll keep those memories and the games at arm’s length.

Nonetheless, over ten years later, I am here.

Blim blam!

My footage of the Sonata Arctica concert from back in February has finally been edited, color-corrected, scored using other people’s music, and post-produced beyond recognition. The final product turned out well — so well, in fact, that I decided to keep it for myself and upload this ugly, poorly-produced version to YouTube instead. Too bad, suckers!

99% of the time spent on this video was spent in post-production, jammin’ away through Vegas Movie Studio. The title came together fairly quickly, but the denouement sequence — the last third of the movie, after the audience-jam ends and the fade-to-white — went through many, many revisions. The final bit is a big dramatic blob, but I’m pleased with those big blobby results. Mmmm, blobby.

The production of this movie firmly establishes a pattern: the last four dorky little films I’ve made were quick on the actual recording of the event, lasting long enough to capture just a few minutes of footage, but the post-production spans hours and hours. Out of my meager YouTube catalog, Son San Fran joins Catchphrika, Reverend Horton Heat’s Birthday Wishes, Solid Squirrel and, to a lesser measure, A2 Xp 2k7 in the quick-filmed, heavy-post-produced group of creations.

On the other hand, the time spent to make all of the other productions in the catalog combined could’ve fit into the full schedule of any one of the aforementioned post-prod time-hogs. I’m enjoying the full process of editing stubby films more and more, but if pushing out a squiddy little thing like Son San Fran takes as long as two months, I fear that my available resources have possibly hit a ceiling. I just don’t have the time to make this stuff as much as I would like. Ack, argh, arugula.

But I have no problem kicking the premise of an unavailable time investment out into the open road and stating that I’m definitely interested in making a movie that makes use of, y’know, multiple cuts, scenes, and — get this! — acting and a plot (gasp!).

But don’t worry, gentle and cultured Internet readers: all people of good taste are likely saved from the disgusting throes of such a creation — I spend so much time post-producing these darn things that I would never finish toying with any amount of film that lasted more than five minutes. Maybe I need a collaborator to crack the whip and, erm, do all of the hard work.

Much fun was had, anyway, both at the concert and creating the final movie. Enjoy!

Addenduodeneumden: The original version of this post and video was actually up on Monday, two days ago. To any readers who watched that version of Son San Fran, congratulations! You win absolutely nothing.

In fact, that version of the video was the super-secret YouTube Overlay version, the one where some of the titles at the bottom of the movie were covered up by the little YouTube button that appears in the lower-right corner for shared films — that is, the crappy version. (Again, for anyone that watched Monday’s version: being an early adopter is always a bit rough, innit?)

I discovered the overlap problem a couple minutes after I thought everything was uploaded and finalized, and, boy, talk about a buzzkill. Nothing stops the poppin’ champagne bottles during the after-party like discovering the final production was botched by a third-party.

Anyway, the version now available is “corrected,” and by that I mean the conflicting titles were moved over to the left side of the frame, resolving the overlap problem. Yeah, that’s right: I ripped my artistic license in thirds, subscribed to The Man’s weekly recipe newsletter, tossed out my croissant crumb-covered beret, and edited away the original vision, acquiescing completely to the constraints of YouTube sharing.

Damn straight I did.

Does anyone remember if I made any New Year’s resolutions at the beginning of 2007? I sure as the sun risin’ do not. If I did make any resolutions chances are they were languishing by the beginning of February, gasping for air by the middle of March, and starting a worm church by Easter.

Like most resolutions.

If I did conjure up any ideas for the year, my guess were that they were banal, limp-wristed oaths in the vein of , “play at least an hour of guitar a day,” or “bake a loaf of bread every other day that includes a different kind of nut each time.” Boring stuff, stuff that might as well be Happy New May resolutions, or Happy June Blue Moon resolutions, or Glorious Wasn’t-Watching-Where-I-Was-Walking-and-Just-Stomped-an-Overripe-Banana resolutions. Just start ‘em up any ole’ time time and go. Besides, I bake enough bread products to feed a Third World country for a day, or a new-age mega-church for the Communion rite.

Nonetheless, in spite of these likely past transgressions of fortitude and self-betterment I must forge a new path as we six-billion-plus primates enter the next spin around Sol. In the face of past waylaid and forgotten attempts, I am newly resolute and courageously prepared to make yet again another attempt at progressive greatness, a test of steely will, steel wool, and wooly steel. Patents pending.

So here it is, the great Owen Resolution of the Year 2008 (And Beyond):

Get rid of all white socks in my wardrobe. Exchange whites with non-white socks. Do not buy any more white socks, ever.

I shot for the moon, but let the magnitude of the blast kept me within the limits of the troposphere. It’s easier to breath down here.

See, I have a sock drawer of mostly ugly, hole-pocked socks in dull varieties of off-white. If the drawer’s contents didn’t also include the trusty hip flask and handsome pocket-watch that Anthony gave me for my Best Man duties at his wedding, I’d be tempted to just drag the entire drawer, socks, lint and paisley bottom-cover and all, outside to set the whole thing a-flame. That would be lovely, and satisfying, and warm in this sub-ten degree temperature. In fact, I could probably get away with burning down the whole dresser, in terms of losing a bunch of ugly undergarments. The dresser itself is nice enough though, so no underlaunder-flambe tonight.

But, socks. By the end of 2008, it’ll be out with the white crew and in with the argyle, Gold Toe, striped wool and checkered cotton. That’s the plan. That’s the goal. But go ahead and call me a sockist, if you like. Proud and sock-predjudiced in 2008, that’ll be me. My future is knee-high, elastic, calf-fitting and comfortable.

Besides the whole white-sock culling, I do have another little project for this year: the Photographie Three-Six-Five project, which is more than just a cool name — it’s a whole buncha pictures.

For each day for the next calendar year, I’m going to snap, trim, color, crop and then finally upload a photo I took during that day. That photo will likely be deleted in digust and subsequently replaced by another. After several iterations of this degenerative process — I take a lot of photos, fortunately — a composition will finally be chosen that causes the bile to rise in my throat to only pharynx-level, a photo finally worthy for display next to all of the other vomit-resistant captures.

All of the photos will be located in this gallery, the official Photographie 365 gallery. For the truly plugged-in WWW user, a feed of the gallery is also available. Shortly I’ll have a link to the p365 gallery in the Navi. bar to the right of this post, but with my schedule that link’s due to arrive just before the Summer Soltice.

As a disclaimer, I don’t expect this project to end up as something like a testament to the human soul through a camera lens. For starters, I don’t own an SLR, even though I adore the little point-and-shot that will accompany me on this year-long journal. As for the pictures themselves, the gallery will undoubtably include photos of bacon, wrinkled pants, ivy- and crack-covered brick walls, half-empty (or half-full?) beer glasses on Thursday nights, misshapen shrubs, and so on. Heck, the two pictures thus far are of a fairly typical snowy Michigan morning and of a crown of shaped meat and trimmings that could’ve been molded by the jello-headed geniuses at John Carpenter’s alien props department — far cries from the Rule of the Thirds and any pretense of a choreographed humanist narrative. (Note: the shaped meat-crown was absolutely delicious.)

These are snapshots of daily life, not supercilious, rapid-fire attempts for a Pulitzer, natch. I say this mostly to the fools who are expecting some grand temporal mosaic of human living and loving, to whom I’d also like to say welcome, you must be new ‘round these parts.

But the project’s results accumulated by year end should at least be interesting to gauge, including how my eye for photography developed over the course of the gallery’s augmentation. And, of course, as a journal of memories the final product will be worth all 365 days of torture and mind-bending strife it took to create.

Should be fun. And I promise: no pictures of socks. Or not many pictures of socks, at least. Tee hee.

The next question: when I visit San Francisco this February, should my trusty point-and-shoot and I take a swing at The Six Minute Project? I think we will.

There’s not much to say before introduce a simple 16”x22” dry-erase whiteboard, so here’s a picture.

Besides the names of the Seven Samurai, it’s not too special for a whiteboard, is it? It’s white and has a vaguely specular finish. The markers have an awful chemical stink. It’s a 21st Century chalkboard.

But I like whiteboards, or rather I like a place I can throw out temporary ideas or topics or system breakdowns or silly things that I can wipe away later for another silly thing. Some of the stuff sticks, and that stuff get relegated to the ephemeral status of “project potential,” things that I might want to waste some serious time developings (and then, later, tossing out). The other 99% of the content is smudged and wiped away with a sleeve.

But that whiteboard pictured above is very limited in, say, potential: The area of the ‘board is almost three feet, and yet it does not nearly approach a span that could comfortably accomodate a single calculus problem or software engineering pre-production chart. It probably couldn’t even contain any of my awful poetry (a rare occassion, fortunately).

Besides, do you know how much a 16”x22” whiteboard costs these days? 20 bucks, easy. 3’x4’ is more than $30, and that’s still not enough space. I need something much, much larger.

So I visited Lowe’s, and I visited a webpage, and the following is the result.

Behold my 4’x8’ of whiteboard goodness, baby. (For the smartass readers, no, it didn’t come from Lowe’s with all the drawings.)

That sucker will take a chapter of calculus problems, a book of bad poetry, a full concept and semantic rendering for a double-A arcade game. Or, as can be seen, it can take a whole smattering of silly and wonderful pictures. Whenever folks visit, they stop by and put up a bit of art. It’s lovely.

Cost for this 32 square-foot construction? Materials were $22, plus a caulking gun that looks like a little sub-machine gun. Amazon’s not going to see my business on this one.

Which comes to the end question: is it sad that I am moved to constructing something only when the result has a overwhelming sense of cost-effectiveness? Probably.

During the evening of June 28th, a spirited and very fun game of Catchphrase ensued at the apartment of a couple of friends.

I have the footage to prove it.

For the curious, I’ll now detail a few aspects of the making and production of this goofy little film.

The original video was recorded on a smart little Canon SD1000 that I adore over the course of about two hours. The camera was set to take only one frame every second instead of 30 or 60 FPS, accounting for the studdering movement. The film looks pretty darn cool in any case (hey, it’s a cinematography decision!). Besides, how else was I going to record nearly an entire evening’s worth of gaming onto a memory card?

The source footage is far from perfect: the top third of the frame is basically dormant, and the camera could have been positioned better to see all players at all times. Paul is out of the frame half of the time, and Jill or Joe are usually covering up one or the other, depending on who is in the foreground. Only Anthony and I survived the bad composition.

I edited the original 1FPS footage using Vegas Movie Studio 7, which continues to be terrific for my needs, beating the hell out of my previous and very poor choice of movie editing software, Virtual Dub. No, Virtual Dub was never meant to be editing software, and the fact that I used it previously for anything more than transcoding makes me out to be a bit of a rube. Vegas Movie Studio, on the other hand, has proven to be excellent.

The original footage runs about five minutes and thirty seconds. The song I’d picked as an overlay, Runner by Susumu Hirasawa (which is available as a free free download at Hirasawa’s personal page), was about three minutes long, so I edited the footage down to that length. I don’t think I could entertain an audience with five full minutes of the original material anyway, at least not without adding a lot of digital effects and another song, stretching the original concept way too thinly.

Most of the pre-production involved finding the best clips out of the 5:30 source for the finished product; my web gallery has a scanned copy of the document used to keep track of the best clips, although I didn’t use all of them.

Over a month was spent — not continuously, of course — creating this little three-minute movie. Strangely enough, the core clips were aligned and set after just a week or two; most of the production was spent polishing up the beginning and end titles, and smoothing out the digital effects to mesh with the music more easily. A few days were spent determining how to show off Paul’s bird-flipping skills without hanging onto the frame for too long, which would break down the pace of the film, or showing the frame too quickly, which would ruin a nice little bit. The picked compromise works decently but isn’t perfect.

YouTube did a surprisingly good job synchronizing the audio to the video, which was very important in this particular movie. Previous uploaded videos required a few tries with different encoders to get the syncing correct, but this upload worked on the first try. YouTube still compresses the audio and video noticably (not surprisingly — they’ve got a lot of content to manage), but I have a personal rendering at full quality 640×480, with good sound.

• The gag image that appears in the opening titles just before the game begins is a great and goofy photo of a very bearded Paul from our Sterling apartment days, which was a few years ago. I added the Phoenix Wright image bullet as a additional gag. The appearance of the image isn’t a great choice, but I needed some transition to sting on the cymbal crash before the bulk of the music and video takes stage, breaking up the titles and the body of the film, and putting up that image was a decent fit.
• The soap bottle and soda can in the foreground were unintentional props (both resting on the kitchen sink, which was directly behind the camera), but worked out really well in defining the space when the kitchen light is turned on during the drink break.
• The blue vase-thingy that appears briefly during the beginning of the film was a big candle holder (I think) that was promptly removed, having constantly been in the way of line of sight among us. Consider that tidbit a really sucky Easter egg.
• At 53 seconds Joe notices he’s sitting in front of the camera. That wasn’t a problem, but he thoughtfully moved a little to the side.
• Paul remembers flipping Anthony the bird, but he doesn’t remember why. He sure looks pissed about something.
• Jill and Joe switch places later in the game session to change up the teams, not to appease the filming. Looks good on the tape, though!
• Paul and I get into a small boxing match during the course of the game, but I’m not gonna say when it happens. Tee hee!
• Finally, the film’s title is a mash-up of Catchphrase and Paprika, the latter being the recent Satoshi Kon film scored by Hirasawa. Chaser, the song in Catchphrika, song wasn’t used in the film but is similar to another tune, Chaser, that was.

Catchphrase is a really fun game. If you want to get a sample of the madness that entails a typical game for us, I tumblelogged a clip picked out of an audio recording from a more recent session.