Sunday, April 30, 2017

All Trussed Up and Nowhere To Go

After many hours I finally discovered that as my Martin D-28 is a pre-1985 guitar (1980, specifically), it has no adjustable truss rod. I did everything, I even dropped my cell phone down inside with a flashlight to take video. It was like looking at video of the Titanic or some sort of verite horror movie. Anyway, no available truss rod.


That is a video demonstrating the lack of available truss rod. Could be from a horror movie, I don't know. Warren Ellison is a luthier in Vermont.

Thursday, April 27, 2017

All These Things Shall Come to Pass

I have to finish Carbon Copy. I am so close. If the computer would stop crashing (and if the antibiotics I'm on would let me focus) it would be done today. I just need some ricochets and some good action music.
The novel. I await the Queen of Mars' redline.
The opera has been stalled for months. I have the texts up on the computer. I need to make a decision about the opening aria -- is it about the bombs that fell during the war? Or is it about our man Felix?
The dragon movie -- needs a new last act. It's about 30 minutes long and animated.
Oblivion -- needs ADR and many more visual effects. O! That the visual effects could be done by the end of next month.
Alien Sky -- needs an actual screenplay.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Iona's sprouts

Brine brussels sprouts in 1/2 cup kosher salt to 6 cups water for one hour.   Drain but do not rinse sprouts and put in baking dish.  Add 1/4 cup olive oil and roast at 350 till done.  I dunno know, anywhere from 3/4 to one hour.
Meanwhile toast 1/2 black mustard seeds in a dry skillet till they pop and toast.  Remove from heat and crush perhaps with the bottom of a glass tumbler.  Mix with 1/4 tsp kosher salt and sprinkle on top of sprouts and enjoy.

Premiere Grumpifly

Section 1: Premiere 2017
Section 2: Premiere 2015
Section 3: Premiere 2015

Yeah. Adobe Premiere really muffed up the update of Premiere and After Effects. The LUT's in Lumetri are totally bonked. And when you roll back to 2015 the links to After Effects are all messed up and you also need to roll back After Effects and bleh.

Although the required update to the NVidea 970 card finally fixes the thing where I couldn't see what hadn't been clicked on in Facebook on my big monitor because it didn't understand the gamma requirements.

Aren't you glad you read this blog?

Sunday, April 16, 2017

My to-do list

The Russian word for "alert" or "warning" is Предупреждение apparently.

I'm working on the following projects:
  1. Carbon Copy -- after three sets of reshoots we hopefully have the final movie in the can. It has to be done by the 24th. 
  2. Oblivion (many vfx still need to be created)
  3. Dragon Movie (animated)
  4. Novel -- The Man Who Destroyed The Earth (being edited now)
  5. Opera (The Imaginary Opera)
  6. Alien Sky (our next movie which does not have a script)
That's pretty much the order of those projects. But I have other co-requisite projects which need to be done for my own well-being.

A handbook of how we make movies. Like a real and actual book.
A web-series about how we make movies.

A Baritone electric guitar (honestly I thought I might be done today but I won't be.)
A Telecaster-style electric guitar with a Bigsby-style tremolo.
A Telecaster-style electric guitar with P-90's (maybe?) and a hard tail. Semi-hollow-body

A ribbon microphone with a wooden body
A U47-style microphone with a wooden body

There's an exotic wood place over on the other side of Journal Square. I had no idea.

Friday, April 14, 2017

Multichannel audio output in Premiere Pro

This is relevant to my interests.
RedGiant's Denoiser seems to actually work. It can make stuff seem a tad "plastic-y" but that's what you get when you shoot in low-light at 1600 ISO. 

The Art Factory in fabulous Paterson, NJ is simply amazing.

Detonation Films has some dust storms. I'm still trying to get some good sand coming up off of dunes that are far away. Lots of detail. Keyed. Still looking.

I'd like a decent video transmitter for tap. One does need an FCC license for that.
If I'm going to do that I should get an FCC license for wireless microphones
Heck, I may as well get an FAA exemption while I'm at it.