Some are born to endless day...

So following up yesterday's big SXSW shocker, I had the follow up of making a copy of the movie (In both it's 3 minute and 6 minute versions) for the package. "No problem", I thought, "I'll just fix a few of the mistakes, do a little bit here and there, send it in, I'll be done in an hour or so". Naturally this was not the case.

The edits were simple enough, correct a mispronunciation here, adjust some levels there, it was all mostly simple sound edits that I should have done a long, long time ago. I get to the credits scroll and decide that it's actually a bit long to have people sitting in the dark for with no sound, so I take one of my composer's cues and just throw it in the end. Works fine, add a fade out, it works well. I print to tape and everything should be fine. I take the same credit sequence and put it on the end of the three minute version (Which had no credits) and boom. Done. Print them both to tape, take a break, do whatever, take one last look at the tape to see if anything's wrong and, naturally, there is.

1/3rd of the way from the end of the credits three artifacts pop up out of nowhere and disappear. A little bit distracting, somewhat annoying and very amateurish. This will not stand. So, I begin trying a multitude of different things. Re-rendering, recreating, exporting then importing, using a different sequence, no matter what I do, the artifacts pop up. I try and try again until about 6:30 AM, where one of my bad habits comes to bite me, again.

You see, when I'm tired and have downtime, I say to myself "Oh, I'll just lay down and rest while I'm waiting". It's gotten me into trouble more times than I can say. Printing to tape takes 7 minutes with all the color bars and everything going, so I rest and rest... until my second alarm goes off at 10:21... and I roll over... and next see the clock at 11 minutes past when I'm supposed to be in class. I then think "by the time I get there it'll be over 20 minutes in, that's too much time, no matter if it's a review for the exam on Friday...". Blackout. I wake back up again with five minutes left in my second class. No way to get there at all. Blackout again for a little bit more until it's one something, and I get back to hunting down this problem! Once I'm on a roll, I'm on a roll!

I confront the problem again, looking for tech support on the internet, FCP upgrades (none), etc. Then I find this discussion thread on Apple's site. Turns out it's a known problem and that there's nothing really that I can do to fix it. Despite the last time I needed a DV Print of the same scroll it did not do this. Conveniently LiveType and Motion do not do this. Too bad I didn't have time to learn either in the 30 minutes I had to fix it.

So, at SXSW there will be artifacts in my credit scroll. Why? "Because, credits are always done in black and white, I felt there needed to be color in them, and having those colors that look like artifacts, gave it that extra splash it needs". That's what I'll say, anyways.

In other news, I just today learned about Brian Poyser's and Jacob Vaughan's blogs. Interesting stuff, but should become more and more interesting as it draws closer and closer to the Independent Spirit Awards (Sunday) where they're up for the "One to Watch" award. I really think they've got a strong shot at it, Dear Pillow is a very impressive movie even without knowing it's less-than-shoestring budget.

Speaking of blogs, I'm adding a section to mine, the Cast of Characters sort of a dictionary of people/terms that I use. Should keep things a bit more clear and/or annoy some people who are in it or not in it. One of those things where nobody wins.

Tomorrow is looking interesting - as if I was living in a sitcom, I have three things scheduled at once - a production meeting for Gretchen, my parents are coming into town, and I have to study. This should be interesting.

Hey this was a pretty well written update.
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