There's Probably No God

I was at work this morning when I heard a report on bus ads being brought to Toronto. and the ads were Pro-Atheist! Holy Shit! That never happens. Atheists don't get out there and proliferate their ideas! Then Breakfast Television started doing a poll about the adds being 'offensive.' To my surprise the majority of people found the ads 'offensive!' I looked into it a bit and CityTV wasn't showing the full ads but only parts of them. Then my mind began to churn on the subject and I looked into opposing ideas' ads. In the end I don't like either set of advertisements, but I don't really find them 'offensive' either. That fart smell when walking over a grate on the sidewalk is 'offensive' and these ads are just annoying and disrespectful of people's beliefs. Anyway, I made a vid about the subject.

I'm behind!

Ok, so I ended up posting the video I was talking about...and I made another one and posted that as well.

HD

In my last post I said that I would shortly be uploading a new video... I shot it, but then quickly found compatibility issues with the AVCHD format that my camera shoots in and well everything. Many non-linear editors don't like a wide range of HD formats and the common media players don't play well with them either. It took me a couple days by I finally found a way of converting the clips so that I can use them in HD in Avid Express. I guess it's good that I had to learn Avid to edit at the Weather Network. I was using Premiere previously and it suited me fine, but I guess that's out the window now.

Reinvintion

I have replaced my broken camera with the assistance of my brother and father. I picked up a Panasonic HDC-HS9 which is HD and has 3CCD's... in other words it is much, much better than my previous camera. I'm looking forward to utilizing it's capabilities in my upcoming videos. It along with the reformatting of youtube is going to cause me to have to create a new style for my videos. I will be shooting a video blog tomorrow and testing some things out. It's looking to be a good year.

I got the job at The Weather Network! It's pretty sweet. Everyone is pretty great, I just wish I was getting more hours, but not this week. I'm work nearly 80 hours in 7 days between my jobs, so I can't really complain. I should keep fairly busy most weeks with both of my paying gigs and some Rogers still thrown in there.

I've started a new youtube channel with redhaireddesigner called 1337speakers. We're going to talk all things nerd and try to update weekly. Our first video is already up and was kind of impromptu, but effective nonetheless. It has elicited more response than my typical vlog, I think that has to do with the focused topic and the delightful combination of our personalities.

I will be purchasing a new camcorder shortly so I will be able to make more videos for my channel. I am going to be reformatting it though because of Youtube's upgrade to 16:9...which pisses me off and pleases me at the same time. I'll talk about that in my first vid.

Let's Talk Weather

I haven't talked about this here because I didn't want to jinx it...but it's a beast of it's own now and there little left I can do for against it. I have had three interviews with The Weather Network for a Switcher/Editor position. That's the title, but it's more of a floater position that does primarily those things. The interviews went better and better each time and now they are checking references. It is highly likely that I have secured the position. There are several downsides to the position like it's location (Oakville) and the fact that it is part-time. But overall it's a step in the right direction for my career (plus I would be able to pay my bills). I'm expecting contact any day now.

Yesterday I learned the lesson that I should always ask for more information before I do a job. I worked on a Fight Sports Championship (think UFC but Canada) production yesterday. I had little idea what it was about except that I was being payed well to do it. Well it turns out that the fights were illegal in Canada except on Native reserves. I don't really have a problem with that except because I'm all for people being able to battle each other if they want. What I should have gotten more info about was the location (way outside Toronto) and the length of the call (way longer than I thought and longer than necessary). My well payed day turned into a long day that was about my normal rate sans the overtime I would have gotten for that long of a shift. Not worth it with the travel involved. I'll be asking for more money next time.

Digital (copy)Rights

This post is my thoughts in response to a Gamespot Article about illegal digital downloads.

I have been downloading (illegally) files since Napster broke the gates open and Metallica showed the world how to sell out. I have always held the position that if I could afford to buy music and games I would purchase them and for the most part that is true. I bought CD's all the time back in high school and I still generally purchase video games except when times are tight. I also pay to watch movies all the time. However, the last time I payed for music was System of a Down's 2005 album Hypnotize. The scale and impact of downloading didn't really strike me until I read Gamespot's article. It put a number to amount of download. I always looked at it like the media industries were doing better than ever a little downloading hasn't hurt them and in truth it hasn't affected the overall revenues and profits of the industry as a whole. A game like Spore has been illegally downloaded 1.7 million times just this year. That's about $100 million in lost revenue. That is a lot of money, but it still managed to sell 2 million copies. A mega-giant publisher like EA can absorb that lost revenue because it is still brought in $120 million. That's still nearly half their revenue/sales. But what about the niche publishers/developers that are only aiming to sell maybe 100,000 copies. This publisher wouldn't have the resources that EA does and likely wouldn't have as large a profit margin. If their revenue was cut in half they may likely fall into the red and they wouldn't have a massive number of other IP's to keep them afloat in the wake of flop. Indeed the gaming industry has seen many smaller studios shuttered in recent days if not taken over by massive corporations. This has led to a high degree of homogenization in the industry with a lacking of creative new ideas. This is just me postulating about one of many causes of the stagnation of the media (another factor is definitely development cost). I would like to see more detailed research done on the effect of illegal downloading on independent creators as opposed to its effects on fortune 500 companies.

As a digital media creator myself I would like to someday make a living off of my work. As it stands right now I'm happy with being ripped off by Youtube in the name of finding viewers. But for those people who depend solely on digital media for the income I understand being fiercely protective of where your content goes and how people use it. I would want to post my video exclusively on a revenue generating site only to find it popping up all over the net and not seeing any gains from that work.




PC Game Downloads on BitTorrent in 2008
1) Spore / Electronic Arts / 1,700,000
2) The Sims 2 / Electronic Arts / 1,150,000
3) Assassin's Creed / Ubisoft / 1,070,000
4) Crysis / Crytek / 940,000
5) Command & Conquer 3 / Electronic Arts / 860,000
6) Call of Duty 4 / Activision / 830,000
7) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas / Take-Two / 740,000
8) Fallout 3 / Bethesda Softworks / 645,000
9) Far Cry 2 / Ubisoft / 585,000
10) Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 / Konami / 470,000

-As reported by Gamespot

Obfuscate Productions

Feeling that I have reached a point in my life where I will soon be capable of moving beyond my current financial restrictions I am seeking a new venture in media creation. I believe that it will soon be within my ability to create short fiction narratives for the festival circuit. I have been write shorts for years with the intention to produce them, but they have either been unsatisfactory in terms of writing or outside my reach fiscally. With A Moderne Fairytale I believe that I will finally be able to produce a short with a solid production value. It is for this reason that I am forming Obfuscate Productions. Whereas Shissler Videos is primarily for web-based solo productions Obfuscate is for larger production that will not target the internet. I am looking to surround myself by talented like-minded individuals to help in my endeavor and for that reason I plan on incorporating Obfuscate Productions in the new year. I have started a blog for Obfuscate Productions where I will update on the progress of the project.

Digital Drag Race

Intel is putting on a design competition to promote their new i7 processor. The competition is called the Digital Drag Race. I'm a little confused as to how it works, but contestants submit their videos that they designed using assets provided by the competition. Then the best ones are chosen to compete in a speed designing competition presumably using tricked out compies with the i7 processor. I was asked to submit an entry based on the work I have on YouTube. The video below is what I came up with.

My Beautiful Monsters 4

This is my fourth and final post exclusively about My Beautiful Monsters. That is because it is finished. I finished up the audio and exported the video an hour ago (after an annoying fix of a typo that required going into After Effects). I am in the middle of uploading a high quality version of it to YouTube. It will take some time to process so I will probably add the video to this post tomorrow morning. I am thoroughly satisfied with the outcome of the video. Thanks to those who helped me! Also, this is the last video shot with my old camcorder that will be released. I think it's fitting that it is the best video that was ever shot on the camcorder.

The guitar track in the MBM was retrieved from The Free Sound Project and was recorded by the user Plagasul. FSP has a lot of great sound effects and tracks for production. I often go there for help when in need of audio. The only downside is that the files are often poorly categorized and a bunch of unrelated items show up when you search.