DVD Authoring Nightmares

I've been trying to make a DVD with all of my videos on it recently. I don't know enough words to properly convey the complete and utter rage I've felt from this project. It started maybe two months and about ten versions of my DVD ago. My first very basic DVD was created using IDVD. I almost instantly realized the program was lacking in about every department and probably couldn't handle the scope of the project I was trying to undertake here. Mind you, it's about 30 videos, plus a lot of my other art, all my music and all kinds of retarded other stuff. After a couple of days I ditched my first project and did some snooping about on the interwebs and came to realize I already had a much more powerful DVD author software installed on my computer. Having the Adobe CS4 Master collection installed, I naturally already had Adobe Encore CS4 installed too. I next proceeded to commit myself to learning every aspect of Encore, burying myself in video tutorials and help manuals. After two long laborious weeks later I had created my first ultimate DVD project. Just as I was putting the finishing touches on it, through a freak accident I lost the project file it's self. The DrakeArnoldDVD .ncore file... I almost flipped out and spent many hours trying to figure out a way to get it back. I downloaded lots of applications that could revive files on a mac after they had already been emptied out of their trash can graveyard. No luck availed itself to me. I was going to have to rebuild the entire project from scratch.
As chance would have it though, I still had all of my source files for the project. I only lost the project file it's self but I still had all the reference files. This made rebuilding the project a good deal quicker. I already had all fifteen of my menus prepared [or some unreasonably huge number of menus for a dvd] and ready in Adobe Photoshop .psd file format. After another several days I had rebuilt the project yet again in all of it's awful glory.
You know, at this point I don't even remember exactly what happened. I just know that it didn't work. I think I kept getting errors while in the midst of the burning process. I remember trying everything I could to fix the error message for hours. I remember scouring forums, help topic pages, manuals, and everything for some solution to the error i kept getting. I kind of remember everything I read saying basically that I'd have to just rebuild my project yet again. I took a few days off so that I wouldn't rip my hair out, scream and cry uncontrollably. When I went back to start the project again I was terribly pissed and disgusted with what happened last time and that lead me to try rebuilding on my PC, as opposed to my Mac. I spent another week building up the project and putting everything back together again. The more I worked the more sluggish and unresponsive Encore would be. It got to the point where I couldn't even keep working because the program would freeze and quit unexpectedly every time I tried to open the project file or work for more than five minutes. Thats when I knew I would have to re-re-re-re-rebuild my DVD project. I wanted to lay down and cry and weep and grovel and moan I was so sad about it. What a bunch of fucking bullshit.
I was determined not to fuck with Adobe Encore CS4 again as I had just recently had an overwhelming amount of problems with it. I did more research and came to the conclusion that Apple DVDStudio Pro was probably my best bet and the most professional option I had. Once again I set about the tedious task of learning every in and out of yet another professional grade DVD authoring software. A few days and many tutorials later I was ready for action. I was impressed with what I saw about DVDSP and ready to start working on what I thought was a decent program. In a rush to finally complete my ever ongoing DVD project I literally rebuilt my same exact project from Encore in DVDSP. I used jpegs of the psd menus and just built it exactly the same. Through yet another one of those freak accidents, my dvd turned out to exceed the capacity limit by like 2 gbs. I was pissed but nothing could stop me. I went out and bought dual layer DVDs. I burned a few test copies and they actually worked [well, sort of]. After reviewing the test copies I knew there were a lot of little problems that I needed to fix. I also realized that my DVD wasn't really some 6.7 gbs like DVDSP's disc capacity gauge was telling me. I also thought about it and was like "Why am I using static images for my menu backgrounds, when I could really pimp this DVD out with motion menus. I burned myself about five copies of that version of my DVD just so I felt like my time wasn't completely wasted. Then I took another few days off from the project so that I wouldn't kill myself and everyone I loved and bury us all in the giant hole that was then in my back yard.
Fresh as a spring chicken, I took off kicking ass and taking names on still yet another version of my DVD project. Motion Menus, redesigned layouts, no more labyrinthine layout of 15 menus. Sweet, beautiful and simple. [I had so many menus before because all of my music was organized in the menus. Now It is all included as bonus DVD-ROM content, which makes a lot more sense anyways, that way you can copy the mp3's from the dvd on to your computer.] And only 3.6 Gbs this time like I knew it should have been. [I don't know why that disc gauge was reading like that on my old project, it was like it wouldn't update the gauge, even if I removed assets from my project]. I was ready to go. It took my quite a few days, but I was finally putting the finishing touches on my newly revamped DVD project last night, actually. Everything was set and ready to go. I had finally done it. I popped a blank DVD in to my external DVD drive [because I had to run out and buy an external DVD drive over the duration of this project as mine had died], and started the build/format process. Everything was running smoothly and then at 59% completion I received an "internal muxer error"...
I about lost it. I spent the rest of last night searching for ways to correct an internal muxer error until finally I had to go to bed to get up for work today. I just got home from work and the top of my list was venting frustration about this hell I have gone through. Writing this helps me feel as if I have gotten it off my chest, even though I know that no one will ever read this. It would be excruciatingly boring for the 99.99% of people out there who have never tried to author their own DVD. I can't help it though, I just want to scream off a mountain top "Fuck this cruel existence, if there is a God he must be laughing, and this shit isn't funny" I can't fucking take this stupid shit anymore.
Making a DVD is about as exciting for me as creating and ordering my business cards was. Not Very. It is something that needs to be done in order to promote myself and gain exposure, but there is nothing creative or fun about this. In total I am sure I have spent hundreds of hours working on this. My hours. Precious hours. Hours in between when I wake up, go to work, go to sleep, repeat. This shit has been my life for months. I need to get back to doing creative shit immediately because this is driving me fucking mad!!!

Wow... okay... I feel a lot ... better now. This has been a really long post, but I really needed to vent my frustration. I think it's time to grab my meager pittance of bread and water for the day and then start doing more google searches for "Internal Muxer Error"... ::sigh::

Junk Mail

There is a never ending supply of junk mail that comes to my house every day. My mail box is always cluttered with it. Half of the time it is addressed to some previous resident or just to some generic "Neighbor", "Friend", or "Current Resident". Whether it be magazines, bills, news letters, advertisements, or other various local publications, more often than not it includes some sort of prepaid postage / self addressed / business reply envelope. You might not know what I'm talking about, but I'm sure you've seen them before. They look just like this:



The point I'm getting at is this; We throw these envelopes away with the rest of our junk mail constantly. Use a crayon to draw a picture of your pet cat, write an angry letter to the company that takes all your money each month, send a picture of your family, photocopy your ass, at the very least, put something in it. What a tragic waste it is not to put something in it. They are already addressed... You don't have to pay for postage... All you have to do is stick something in it and it's ready to be sent home. I know what you are thinking, "What good does this do me?". Well its true it might not do you very much good to do this, but think of it as charity work. I'm sure it is someones job to open those envelopes. Someones poor, sad, wretched, miserable existence day in and day out. Think how it might brighten their day, and perhaps it will brighten your own...

the Braille Project

The best crackpot idea I've ever come up [within the last few days]... Braille... What a powerful word... a heavy word. A perfect name for the most bad ass band ever. A band full of blind people. They're an instant internet success. Bands with a gimmick always succeed. They're fame and popularity rise quickly. A few months later, it is uncovered that they aren't actually blind, they were just pretending to be blind for the publicity. Outrage sparks across the nation. Blind people everywhere unite on the internet to blast the band, calling them the lowest form of scum. Blind people everywhere demand satisfaction, in the blogs, on the forums, in their facebook groups, etc. It is picked up by the 24 hour news cycle during their endless quest for news, even when there isn't any new news to report. When the cry for blood [or at least a public apology] is at a fever pitch, the news breaks again. Braille isn't even really a band. It's an anonymous group of 50 to 100 people. And that is where you, gentle reader, find your moment to shine. I can supply the music, fake band photographs, lyrics, whatever. All I need is a shit load of people to help me plaster the internet for a few month with Braille pages, fan art, and general conversation of how awesome they are. Then those very same people a few months later are the ones, pretending to be blind, saying the band is totally offensive shit heads.

Now you might be thinking, "Why would I want to be doing that for the next six month?". The answer is simple. It's a big fuck you to anybody and everybody. To the dumb ass news stations, reporters, and journalists, if it were ever covered in the main media. To the band wagon jack off's who got swept up in the Braille mania and loved the band / had Braille trapper keepers or whatever. To the people who really were offended by the prank, for being to goddamn serious and not appreciating a joke. Just for the hell of trying to pull off a big stupid hoax. It's so crazy it could possibly work. It could be a huge inside joke and we're all laughing like hell at all the retarded people who don't know the truth. Because it is a fine piece of performance art with profound underlying messages, and you could be a part of it. Too bad no one really reads this... I'll never have an army of fake Braille fans...

Summer Job...

I got a job teaching little kids at a summer camp. It is quite refreshing and pleasant. I am teaching classes on "Video Game Programming", Animation, and Comic Book art. It is my first experience with teaching and I am finding that I rather enjoy it. The programs we are using are open source, which is great because they are free, so the kids can download them on their home computers as well. For animation we are using a program called Pencil. It is a lot simpler than Adobe Flash and I think it will be easy for the kids to pick up. I am also really excited about the application we are using to make games. It is called Scratch. It is wonderful for children [and adults like me] because it is what is called "Visual Programming"... That is to say, as opposed to writing long lines of script to make codes for your game, you just snap together color coded lego blocks that represent the scripts. I am terrible at programming but I was still able to learn how to program games and teach a class about it with literally a day or two to prepare myself. I have tried programming games in Flash before and it is very difficult for me. Flash's programming language is called action script, and I try to use it as little as possible, because I am bad at it, haha. It is so easy to learn because you can download other peoples projects from the scratch website and see how they put together their code to make their finished projects. You can also use scratch to do other things like, animations, simulations, interactive art, and more. Although it is difficult to make very professional looking games with Scratch, I think it is still a very valuable learning tool for anyone who is interested in learning some basic principles about programming. Perhaps in the next few weeks, if I get around to posting my Scratch games on my website, I will update this blog with a link to them, so the lone one or two readers I have can play them.

Vanilla Sky, hahaha

I've taken to wearing a mask lately, and it can be surprisingly fun to have two faces...