The process of creating videos for my Cirque audition portfolio has been like an unholy-super-creature of sisyphean magnitude. But that's alright, because it's fucking DONE. Yeah, I said it - I finished and posted all of that stuff this morning.
So here's where it begins: Finding a camera. My camera requirements were relatively specific, in that anything that recorded to tape would be fucking useless to me. I don't have the infrastructure to pull it online. So, I needed something that could record to disc, SD card, or internal hard drive that I could record off to the computer afterwards. So I put out feelers to find one that I could borrow, and came up with exactly jack shit. So, the last weekend I could film the drumset part my Dad's girlfriend pulls through with a friend who apparently always has pretty nice gear. We drive up to get it... and it records to tape - BUT - it also has a DV port to transfer to PC. I can work with that. But there's no cable.
So off to Fry's I go. Now, DV ports are supposed to go to firewire (or IEEE 1394 interface for the techno snobbish among us). But I remember transferring via DV to high speed USB before, and my netbook has high speed USB ports. So I figure I can get a DV-high speed USB and I'm solid. WRONG. Apparently, they were never really supposed to make those in the first place, and they never really worked very well, so they stopped. Alright, so I'm at Fry's, I figure I'll buy a camcorder, record, rip the videos, and return it. I find one that's got an 80 gig internal hard drive and takes SD cards (which I got an 8 gig card for like $17 [I've been wanting one anyway, not a big expenditure]), and the camera cost me like $270. Not what I wanted to do, but necessary, so it got done.
I go home, I throw it on the charger, and call it a night. Next day I wake up to get ready to film. I eat some real food and pound a mana potion (See: "Liquid Sleep") so I'm rarin' to go. Where am I recording? In the field down at the school at the bottom of my hill. Why? Because if I try and record indoors on this little camcorder I'm FOR SURE going to blow out the mic, get crappy sound on the video, and never get my money back. So, outdoors the sound gets lost in the open space, plus it's sunny and the drums look beautiful, plus... it's really nice playing outside. I've done it a few times before, like in KS I set up in the middle of a field and played for like eight hours one day, it ruled. I pick a spot and start hauling my drums out into the middle of the field.
If you've ever seen a drumset up close, you probably realize that it's not the most portable instrument ever devised by man. It's roughly the equivalent of dismantling an original VW Beetle and dragging it piece by piece to your destination. By the time I get out there, I'm exhausted and pounding water. I get set up, and start playing, and people keep coming by and saying hello, only one dude complained. Then as I'm really getting focused I see two police officers strolling towards me across the grass.
They basically tell me that one of the neighbors called repeatedly and they came to check it out, but I'm not breaking any laws and legally there's nothing they can do about it, but they wanted to see how long I'd be. I told them I'd do my best to wrap it up quickly. I finished up, checked my videos, made sure I got what I needed and packed up. All told, I was only out there for about three hours, which counting getting set up and breaking down is quite an achievement.
I go home, look at the videos, and start the upload process, only to find out that the manufacturer of my camcorder (who shall remain nameless [but rhymes with "manasonic"]) has elected to forgo exporting in a traditional video format (like .mpg, .mp4, .avi, .mov, .flv, even fucking .qtm would've worked) for more exotic fare. This is so that I'd have to install their software which in true "RealPlayer" format tries to take over every video and image file on your computer of all the file types it DOESN'T fucking export to (Did no one learn anything from RealPlayer?). The software comes on a disc, but the I have a netbook - no optical drive. So I start looking around.
My Dad's girlfriend's computer has the benefit of an optical drive, and the deficiency of i386, "kickstart" speed performance. So I throw the disc on there and fire it up, only for it to take like three hours importing all 3,600 high definition photos into the library, a process during which (of course) the entire computer is in suspended animation. Eventually I managed to export all the files, copy them to my thumb drive, copy them to the netbook, and get to work. Or so I thought.
You see, the problem with video editing is that the software is a bitch. It's slow, it takes forever to work, and the files consume massive amounts of space. One of the video clips from which I was extracting two minutes of footage was like 45 minutes long and about 1.6 gigs. The netbook only has a gig of operating memory. Therfeore, I can't be working on a file larger than the memory to process it.
This leaves Brandon's computer, which I had recently killed. To make a long story incredibly short, I couldn't restore the computer because something on the hard drive wouldn't allow me to completely format it. So every time I'd boot with restore software, it'd be fine for a minute or so, then BSOD with a message like "blah blah memory dump." I went into the bios and ran the memory test, I checked the hard drive for physical defects, everything would run clean until the time came to actually wipe the drive, which just failed repeatedly. So, I had resigned myself to hiring someone to help restore the comp to its original glory, something that hurt my pride tremendously. But in pursuit of glory these sacrifices need be made.
I had tried to call this computer repair guy a couple times before and never heard back from him. I called him again the next day and after playing phone tag most of the day, I got him on the phone and explained my circumstances to him. He suggested that I use a piece of software called "Darik's Boot and Nuke," which basically writes over the hard drive nine times. The best part of which is that it's an .iso, so I could boot right to it and not let the hard drive interfere. I found it, downloaded it, transferred the download to the comp with the disc drive, discovered it couldn't burn ISOs, downloaded and ISO burner, burned it, and fired it up. This program runs like a CHAMP, I highly recommend it. It also ran for like 14 hours. So that day was kind of a wash too. But bottom line: computer fixed, $0. Note to self: Still need to buy that dude a Starbucks gift card.
The next morning, I awoke to find a computer that was fully functional again, if missing all of the software. So I spent that day after work reinstalling the operating system and all of the programs I need on a daily basis (Chrome, Daemon Tools, Mu Torrent, Open Office, Audacity, RARfrog, VLC Media Player, etc, ad nauseum). So that day was out. Next day I started looking at free video editing software, finally found something reliable and open source. I started the process of learning to use it, cutting files together, making some basic transitions, editing audio, etc. I put together a rough cut of the first clip and my "background" segment.
The next day was Saturday, during which I intended to film my second video, some drum corps rudimental stuff and stick tricks, showmanship stuff, as I figured it displayed a different set of tools better than another video at the set would. I went out and bought a pair of Hardimons and some white electrical tape to tape them with. This is a process that I thought I'd have forgotten completely,but I've done it so many fucking time that I was halfway done with the second one (taped in the opposite direction) before I even realized what I was doing. Thank you for that, drum corps... I brought a pad, a stand, the tripod and the camera back down to the park, and I just wasn't feeling it. I got a couple of takes that were clean, smooth, but I just didn't feel good about it. I packed up and decided to take a crack at it the next day. Sunday morning rolls around and it's cloudy and miserable - my FAVORITE days. I'm amped. So I set up on the porch, warm up, run through the piece once or twice, tape it, and it's good. I import it (see painful fucking process before), and start cutting it too. At this point I have a decent understanding of what I'm doing with the software, so it moves pretty quickly.
Then I start the upload process. The rudimental one is fine, but when I export the drumset one, the music reference track is like 1/100th of a second behind the video track. This may seem minuscule, but this is a fucking HUGE amount when music is involved. I go back in to edit, and I listen to it there and it sounds fine. So I export as a bunch of different file types, and they all have various synching issues. I go back in and move the audio track off by the smallest amount it will allow me in the other direction and export it, and it's like just as bad, but in the other direction.
At this point, I'm starting to get pissed off.
I try cutting the beginning of the audio track offset from the amount we're able to move the files, but it still moves locked to the same frames. Finally, I decided to take the reference track with drums on it, split the channels, delete the drum channel, make the remaining channel mono and import it. This worked a little bit better, but it's still a TINY amount ahead of the beat. But it's as close as I could come, and nothing's perfect. Basically, I needed to make videos that demonstrated my ability to play their music, and it does that, even if it's not quite what I wanted. Deciding it was good enough, I start the upload process to youtube and go to bed. It of course fails when the computer's sleep settings kick in after twenty minutes (FURY). So this morning I change the power settings, start the upload again, and go to work. 6:30am, it shows up on youtube. So I copied the links, signed into my Cirque account, filled in all my info, sent my resume, the videos, and a picture of myself, and submitted.
I have officially done all within my power to bring this to reality. Now all that I have to do is wait and see. Something tells me the hard part begins now.
On a side note: Everyone's reactions to the videos so far have been positive, if very different from one another. Amongst the most common descriptions were "effortless," and "easy." To these I just smiled and said thank you instead of disabusing them of this illusion and laying this entire story upon them. And that's why this blog exists! Because now that it's over, this shit is hilarious. And I hope that this isn't the end of the process. I hope that I get to keep making entries. I hope that I get to chronicle my life as a member of such an awesome artistic organization that gets to bring joy an excitement to the lives of millions. I hope that they'll just ask me to audition. I'll take care of the rest.
But for now, I've done whatever I can to get there. Fingers crossed. PICK ME!
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