Forcery is in the can!

It is done.

It was sorta done a few weeks ago, when we were going to try to take it to Star Wars Celebration III, and then the hard drive... got a little wonky. Luckily I'm a backup beast and we saved almost everything, but had to reconstruct some other stuff. Which lent itself to the opportunity to retool some things.

The upshot of it is, this one, the final version, is a HECKUVA lot better than what we had going three weeks ago.

All I have to do is add the end credits (which will include something I've wanted to do for over ten years now) and choose which version of the shotgun blast to use in the published cut: the "tame, family-friendly" one that's obviously particle generated in After Effects, or the EXTRA-GORY version that has cloth and blood and body chunks flying all over the screen.

I'm a nice guy, so I'll prolly go with the "clean" one. And save the sicko one to scare my wife with :-)

Awright, gotta go encode this thing, then upload it and submit it to some places. It ain't quite over with just yet but hope you can all see this soon!

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Good news from the Forcery front

Reported this morning on some difficulties. Those seem to have now been resolved. Most of it had to do with a degradation of audio quality in the Quicktime encoding. I tried encoding it with a different program and, so far it's pretty good.

Between this, trying to use Magic Bullet Suite, forgetting to shoot our very first footage in 16:9 and having to figure out what to do with it, multiple recastings of the Frannie character, the thing we went through to get needed shots (like driving around the top of Mount Mitchell and making it look like it's the Rockies of Colorado), and a bajillion things that happened to each of us on our own personal ends, and now ridiculous issues coming up here at the finish line...

I swear that I'm going to go out and get good and drunk this evening. And I ain't even a drinking man.

Premiere Pro, don't fail me now!!!!!

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I ain't a seismologist, but...

...yesterday there was a geomagnetic storm relating to solar activity that registered 9 on the K-Index, that got measured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. According to the link on NOAA's website the affects of this kind of storm...

...include widespread power system voltage control problems; some grid systems may experience complete collapse or blackouts. Transformers may experience damage. Spacecraft operations may experience extensive surface charging; problems with orientation; uplink/downlink and tracking satellites. Satellite navigation may be degraded for days, and low-frequency radio navigation can be out for hours.

I've noticed during the past couple of years that whenever Earth gets hit with a massive dose of these particles from the sun, that we start having a lot more active earthquake activity. It happened this past December before the quake and tsunami in southeast Asia, and its happened a few other times lately. Maybe the nickle/iron mantle and core of the Earth get agitated or something and they rattle the upper plates. Dunno for sure but I'm gonna keep an ear open in case anything seismic happens during this next week or so.

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Various Star Wars items...

Awright, Forcery should be finished by this afternoon, I think. Had to re-export a few of the projects 'cuz of interlacing issues, on top of the redone sound. I know this is getting perilously close to the deadline of beating Episode III but I'm pretty confident it'll be done in time. Gonna try anyway.

Good news is every time I watch this, it gets funnier and funnier.

A while back on this blog I mentioned how much Revenge of the Sith is a thingly-veiled jab at President Bush. That's starting to get picked up by the established press ever since advance screenings began the other week. I don't think it's a personal thing though: Lucas had this all plotted out thirty years ago and if it wasn't George W. Bush destroying liberty in America, it would probably be somebody else. Lucas is just resonating with a pattern of history. Not that that excuses the person doing most of the destroying at that time in history though and after taking a look at some of the political websites this morning I can't help but grin at how some people - the ones who would defend Bush if he were caught with a dead girl or a live boy - are feeling so offended that Lucas would dare take this kind of immortal shot at Maximum War Leader. Heh-heh-heh, thassright: which one of these is going to be the more beloved years down the line: the man or the movie? My money's on Episode III.

My friends are saying I should go to the midnight showing in my Jedi costume. Personally, I think the Celebration 3 shirt would be more appropos: it's like a mark of pilgrimage, like something a Catholic person would bring back to show that he went to Lourdes. Besides, anyone who endures some of the insanity that happened at Celebration 3 deserves to boast some proof of his or her tenaciousness. And speaking of which I'm planning on finally posting those pics of the thing after finishing Forcery.

I'm hearing good vibes about the Star Wars TV projects that'll be coming out in another year or two. Latest word is that they'll be produced in Australia, where Episodes II and III were filmed for the most part. Still nothing solid about the premise of the live-action one but I'm still hoping for an anthology series that does different stories across different eras and locations in the saga.

Right now on my desk I have the Darth Sidious action figure from Episode I, the Emperor Palpatine with lightsaber and the deluxe Darth Sidious (the one with switching faces) from Episode III on my desk. My friend Brian found me the one of Chancellor Palpatine with lightsaber but that's still in the package and I'm debating whether or not to let him join my lil' Sidious chorus. If anyone knows of any other Palpatine/Sidious action figures (NOT the plain vanilla Senate garbed ones, I mean Palpy/Siddy when he's in full-tilt evil mode) I don't have here, lemme know 'cuz I'm a big fan of Darth Sidious. I also have a Darth Sidious LEGO minifig that I custom-made a few years ago, will try to post a pic of that soon :-)

Okay, back to finishing this film up. Pray it goes well...

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I have an idea for a new bumper sticker slogan...

It sorta came while reading Kyle Williams' new piece at WorldNetDaily this morning. Which reinforced my belief all the more that he and Vox Day are two of the darned few serious Christian intellectuals we have operating in America lately.

Anyhoo, I don't know if anyone else has ever thought of this but I like to think it's pretty clever:

Real Men

Don't Worship

Fake Cowboys

Maybe stick a lil' caricature of Bush wearing an oversized cowboy hat or something.

I don't want any money from suggesting the idea. I just wanted to be the first to suggest it :-)

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Star Trek and Star Wars come to an end within a week of each other

There's a meaning here, I'm sure of it.

I hadn't caught it regularly since the first few episodes, but last night was the series finale of Star Trek: Enterprise, and despite a lot of negative criticism I thought it was a pretty good way to end all things Trek for the forseeable future. This franchise needs a rest though: it's gone to the same well for darn nearly 20 years and a big chunk of that time, there were two separate Star Trek series running at the same time! Don't call me a die-hard Trekkie 'cuz that's never been me, but I did enjoy keeping tabs on whatever was going on in that particular universe, and Enterprise really got me excited during its first season... then it fizzled out. Heard the episodes this past year rocked the house though. But somebody please tell me: did they ever reveal who the Future Guy was? He's not really Dr. Sam Beckett is he? :-P

Anyway, Star Trek comes to its end tonight and a few days from now, Star Wars will do the same. So I'm sorta watching the reaction from our Trek friends for any hints on how to get through the ensuing weeks and months of withdrawal. It will be hard, but I'm sure we will all get through this. And maybe finally find lives of our own ;-)

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"Almost there, almost theeeere..."

The end is finally in sight. This thing is going to beat the deadline by about four days. And this crazy notion I've carried on my back for going on four years now will soon finally be laid down. Hopefully you'll like what it is.

Should have more to report later today.

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