Cloudscaping: A MikeVideo Internet Movie: 6 min. 21 sec. Over two months in the making! The video contains a slideshow of my cloudscape photographs, from over a four year period. including scenes shot recently with the new camera. All the images save the last under the credit sequence are still photos. The “Director’s Commentary” is posted below the video.
Remember to turn off the audio player to the left in the sidebar under the “Jukebox This Week” graphic before playing the movie. Click the “play” button to see the movie.
Please help the MikeVideo cause! Click
HERE or on the video itself, and give it a “five star rating” if you like the video, in order to increase it’s chances of getting and staying on the Xanga front pages. If you would like to support my MikeVideos, please show your support by joining the
MikeVideo Blogring!
All the music in this video is performed by fellow Xangan Randy Van Otterloo (
flatpick46 ). Thanks, Randy, for the use of your talents, which add immeasurably to the experience.
DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY: There are always some problems creating most of the videos I’ve presented here on Xanga and on my YouTube channel. Even though the videos are on average about 6-10 minutes long, it can sometimes take up to three months just to complete one video. “Cloudscaping” is not that ambitious an undertaking. It is merely a slideshow of photos of clouds, but the problems which arose during the making of this video almost stopped it in it’s tracks, so to speak, and I’m very lucky to have something to present at all.
I took some cloudscape photos in late January using my new still camera, and when I posted them to my Webshots Gallery, I knew that I would be using them for my next video. I made up the title card you see above, and announced the video on this blog in
News and Notes.on January 23rd . After two weeks of playing around with the footage, I decided to make the video even more ambitious, and I imported all the cloudscape folders from the past four years into the project. Instead of using just recent photos, I would use a selection of cloudscapes from since I got the first camera in 2004. I already knew I was going to use Randy’s (
flatpick46) guitar music as soon as I heard
“Over the Waterfall” on one of his weekly “Flatpick Fridays”. I asked him to email me some tunes.
Randy doesn’t have a website other than Xanga, and Xanga doesn’t allow one to download the audio files from their service, so Randy volunteered to send me a CD with assorted examples of his work. The CD arrived about three weeks later. I really didn’t do much work on the video because I time the edits to the music, so need to lay down the music track first. As soon as the CD arrived, I chose not only “Over the Waterfall” but a few more tunes, imported them to my computer from the CD, and continued to fashion the video.
For some reason, I never got comfortable with the placement of the photos, and I kept changing the sequencing, and editing the music. I like to mix up the music in a sort of “mashup” but didn’t want to do this with Randy’s music. I wanted to edit somewhat, to fit more tunes into the video, which I figured would be about 6 or 7 minutes long. However, I didn’t want to cut too much of each tune. I compromised on a happy convergence of music and image, and then got sidetracked by some other projects, and still didn’t have a video to present at the end of February.
As is usual with my creative process, when I went back to the footage during the next to last week of February, I began to move around the footage, and trim the music again, causing me to have to re-edit all the footage from the beginning. Sometimes I will make a video in segments, and when I finish a segment, I render it, and then join the various segments together to form the completed video. In this case, since the images are all stills, and the length of the finished film wouldn’t be too long, I kept the entire project as a file on my external hard drive, with links to the still photos stored on that drive, and didn’t figure on rendering the project until I was ready to present the complete video. I was almost “done” and was attempting to create the end credit sequence, when I lost the external hard drive.
I couldn’t save the project, because the files were all on the drive which disappeared from my system. The video editing program froze because all of a sudden it didn’t have either the files or the project file on which to work, since they were all on the defective drive. When I rebooted the computer, my “M” drive was still persona non grata, but when I opened the video editing program, it “recovered” the file for the Cloudscaping video, so I could save it on my “C” drive (the drive on the computer) and when I could get the images back, I would at least have the movie made up to the part where the drive disappeared. In other words, I wouldn’t have to redo or resequence anything. I just needed to get the files back.
Some of the photos were copied on another hard drive I disconnected last year because I was afraid (by the grinding sound of the hardware itself) that I was losing it. The rest of the photos could be downloaded from the copies online on Webshots. However, after a week or so of unsuccessfully trying to attach my “M” drive to my computer (and to another computer, which similarly didn’t yeild any positive results) I just didn’t feel like messing with the video again. I started to get upset that I wasn’t going to be presenting Cloudscaping but I knew that once I got the images back, it would be fairly easy to assemble folders for the program and to start up from where I left off.
Anyone can make a “slideshow” with their photos. Slideshow software is offered online by almost all the photo sharing sites. On Webshots, I can “create” a slideshow from any folder I have online, or make a new one especially for the slideshow. I can even add music and “effects”. Xanga photos offers a slideshow feature as well. These programs automatically create slideshows from a group of photos or images, and for the most part are not editable. I use video editing software from Sony called Vegas, and I create my slideshows and videos from “scratch”. Each pan, zoom, fade, or transition is manually inserted and modified till I have the effect I want. Nothing is left to chance. (Unless a chance transition, effect or “mistake” looks good, then I might keep it) I keep on going over and over the footage, tweaking and modifying until I’m satisfied with the overall “internet movie”. I make a distinction between “video” and “slideshow” footage, where the “slideshows” use still images for the most part, and the videos use moving video shot with a videocamera.
I conferred with our IT guy at work Friday afternoon, March 7th. I had a plan to upgrade my home computer again. This time, I would purchase an internal 1 Terabyte drive. Fry’s Electronics had one on sale for $234.00. (Only one to a customer at that price) I really can’t afford a big ticket item like a drive right now, but I figured if I got that much space in the puter, if my “M” drive ever showed up again, I could “slide” the data, including my lost movie files, and the “My Pictures” folder which held all my photos, from the damaged “M” drive to the 1 Terabyte drive. Our IT guy gave me pointers on how to back up the files once I got the new drive purchased and installed. He also said I could try to use DVDs to store each “project”. (something I should have been doing anyway.) That way each internet movie would be backed up on a DVD, and I could recover the files from the DVD if the hard drive ever went missing again. I prepared myself to get a new hard drive, and set my expectations to attempt to recover the photos from the internet. I could get the music back from Randy’s CD. Then I would call up the project file from the “C” drive and remake the video.
On Friday evening, we had a few minutes blackout in the neighborhood where I live, and when the lights came back on and my home computer rebooted, the missing “M” drive, which has some problems with the USB/firewire interface, came back online. I have never been more happy to see the “blue screen of death” as the computer defragged my 230 gigabyte external drive. It took most of the evening for the computer to defrag the large drive. Before I went to bed, the drive was 85 percent defragged. Next morning, all the files I thought I might have lost forever were “back”. If, at this point, I were to install another drive, as was my plan, I couldn’t be certain that the “M” drive would show up again on the reboot after installation, so I took this opportunity to burn some of my movie files from the external “M’ drive to DVDs.
I had about four or five blank DVDs and used all of them pretty quickly. Each DVD holds 4.7 gigabytes. That means I was able to store 1-4 of my “internet movies” on each one, depending upon how long the movie was and how much file space the movie needed. Mpegs need more space then wmv files, and it’s the large high quality mpeg files that were “essential”.
At 9:00 am I went out to breakfast, and then dropped by Best Buy to get some blank media. I purchased a 50 quantity stack of blank DVD+Rs for under 15 bucks. Upon my return home, I began my “back up” of the essential files and folders on the “M’ drive. It took most of Saturday and some of Sunday morning to burn 18 DVDs. Now all my photo files and movie files are “safe” recorded onto DVD media. One time during the process, I “lost” the drive again, and corrupted four DVDs before realizing that I was trying to record media which wasn’t there. A reboot and I got the drive back for the second time, and I finished the process. I even copied all of the essential files from the other hard drive to DVDs. Sunday afternoon I fired up the Vegas video editing software, pulled up the recovered video editing file for Cloudscaping, and since the “M” drive was still connected, all the files showed up. I finished the end credit sequence, did some final tweaking of the video, and was able to render a high quality wmv file for uploading to the internet. I also attempted to make an mpeg file, but I lost the “M” drive again during the process, freezing the program.
Uploading to Xanga and YouTube took a while, but this morning, I can finally present ” Cloudscaping” for your enjoyment.
Cloudscaping: A MikeVideo Internet Movie: 6 min. 21 sec. Over two months in the making! The video contains a slideshow of my cloudscape photographs, from over a four year period. including scenes shot recently with the new camera. All the images save the last under the credit sequence are still photos. The “Director’s Commentary” is posted below the video.Remember to turn off the audio player to the left in the sidebar under the “Jukebox This Week” graphic before playing the movie. Click the “play” button to see the movie.Please help the MikeVideo cause! Click HERE or on the video itself, and give it a “five star rating” if you like the video, in order to increase it’s chances of getting and staying on the Xanga front pages. If you would like to support my MikeVideos, please show your support by joining the MikeVideo Blogring!All the music in this video is performed by fellow Xangan Randy Van Otterloo (flatpick46 ). Thanks, Randy, for the use of your talents, which add immeasurably to the experience.DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY: There are always some problems creating most of the videos I’ve presented here on Xanga and on my YouTube channel. Even though the videos are on average about 6-10 minutes long, it can sometimes take up to three months just to complete one video. “Cloudscaping” is not that ambitious an undertaking. It is merely a slideshow of photos of clouds, but the problems which arose during the making of this video almost stopped it in it’s tracks, so to speak, and I’m very lucky to have something to present at all.I took some cloudscape photos in late January using my new still camera, and when I posted them to my Webshots Gallery, I knew that I would be using them for my next video. I made up the title card you see above, and announced the video on this blog in News and Notes.on January 23rd . After two weeks of playing around with the footage, I decided to make the video even more ambitious, and I imported all the cloudscape folders from the past four years into the project. Instead of using just recent photos, I would use a selection of cloudscapes from since I got the first camera in 2004. I already knew I was going to use Randy’s (flatpick46) guitar music as soon as I heard “Over the Waterfall” on one of his weekly “Flatpick Fridays”. I asked him to email me some tunes.Randy doesn’t have a website other than Xanga, and Xanga doesn’t allow one to download the audio files from their service, so Randy volunteered to send me a CD with assorted examples of his work. The CD arrived about three weeks later. I really didn’t do much work on the video because I time the edits to the music, so need to lay down the music track first. As soon as the CD arrived, I chose not only “Over the Waterfall” but a few more tunes, imported them to my computer from the CD, and continued to fashion the video.For some reason, I never got comfortable with the placement of the photos, and I kept changing the sequencing, and editing the music. I like to mix up the music in a sort of “mashup” but didn’t want to do this with Randy’s music. I wanted to edit somewhat, to fit more tunes into the video, which I figured would be about 6 or 7 minutes long. However, I didn’t want to cut too much of each tune. I compromised on a happy convergence of music and image, and then got sidetracked by some other projects, and still didn’t have a video to present at the end of February.As is usual with my creative process, when I went back to the footage during the next to last week of February, I began to move around the footage, and trim the music again, causing me to have to re-edit all the footage from the beginning. Sometimes I will make a video in segments, and when I finish a segment, I render it, and then join the various segments together to form the completed video. In this case, since the images are all stills, and the length of the finished film wouldn’t be too long, I kept the entire project as a file on my external hard drive, with links to the still photos stored on that drive, and didn’t figure on rendering the project until I was ready to present the complete video. I was almost “done” and was attempting to create the end credit sequence, when I lost the external hard drive.I couldn’t save the project, because the files were all on the drive which disappeared from my system. The video editing program froze because all of a sudden it didn’t have either the files or the project file on which to work, since they were all on the defective drive. When I rebooted the computer, my “M” drive was still persona non grata, but when I opened the video editing program, it “recovered” the file for the Cloudscaping video, so I could save it on my “C” drive (the drive on the computer) and when I could get the images back, I would at least have the movie made up to the part where the drive disappeared. In other words, I wouldn’t have to redo or resequence anything. I just needed to get the files back.Some of the photos were copied on another hard drive I disconnected last year because I was afraid (by the grinding sound of the hardware itself) that I was losing it. The rest of the photos could be downloaded from the copies online on Webshots. However, after a week or so of unsuccessfully trying to attach my “M” drive to my computer (and to another computer, which similarly didn’t yeild any positive results) I just didn’t feel like messing with the video again. I started to get upset that I wasn’t going to be presenting Cloudscaping but I knew that once I got the images back, it would be fairly easy to assemble folders for the program and to start up from where I left off.Anyone can make a “slideshow” with their photos. Slideshow software is offered online by almost all the photo sharing sites. On Webshots, I can “create” a slideshow from any folder I have online, or make a new one especially for the slideshow. I can even add music and “effects”. Xanga photos offers a slideshow feature as well. These programs automatically create slideshows from a group of photos or images, and for the most part are not editable. I use video editing software from Sony called Vegas, and I create my slideshows and videos from “scratch”. Each pan, zoom, fade, or transition is manually inserted and modified till I have the effect I want. Nothing is left to chance. (Unless a chance transition, effect or “mistake” looks good, then I might keep it) I keep on going over and over the footage, tweaking and modifying until I’m satisfied with the overall “internet movie”. I make a distinction between “video” and “slideshow” footage, where the “slideshows” use still images for the most part, and the videos use moving video shot with a videocamera.I conferred with our IT guy at work Friday afternoon, March 7th. I had a plan to upgrade my home computer again. This time, I would purchase an internal 1 Terabyte drive. Fry’s Electronics had one on sale for $234.00. (Only one to a customer at that price) I really can’t afford a big ticket item like a drive right now, but I figured if I got that much space in the puter, if my “M” drive ever showed up again, I could “slide” the data, including my lost movie files, and the “My Pictures” folder which held all my photos, from the damaged “M” drive to the 1 Terabyte drive. Our IT guy gave me pointers on how to back up the files once I got the new drive purchased and installed. He also said I could try to use DVDs to store each “project”. (something I should have been doing anyway.) That way each internet movie would be backed up on a DVD, and I could recover the files from the DVD if the hard drive ever went missing again. I prepared myself to get a new hard drive, and set my expectations to attempt to recover the photos from the internet. I could get the music back from Randy’s CD. Then I would call up the project file from the “C” drive and remake the video.On Friday evening, we had a few minutes blackout in the neighborhood where I live, and when the lights came back on and my home computer rebooted, the missing “M” drive, which has some problems with the USB/firewire interface, came back online. I have never been more happy to see the “blue screen of death” as the computer defragged my 230 gigabyte external drive. It took most of the evening for the computer to defrag the large drive. Before I went to bed, the drive was 85 percent defragged. Next morning, all the files I thought I might have lost forever were “back”. If, at this point, I were to install another drive, as was my plan, I couldn’t be certain that the “M” drive would show up again on the reboot after installation, so I took this opportunity to burn some of my movie files from the external “M’ drive to DVDs.I had about four or five blank DVDs and used all of them pretty quickly. Each DVD holds 4.7 gigabytes. That means I was able to store 1-4 of my “internet movies” on each one, depending upon how long the movie was and how much file space the movie needed. Mpegs need more space then wmv files, and it’s the large high quality mpeg files that were “essential”.At 9:00 am I went out to breakfast, and then dropped by Best Buy to get some blank media. I purchased a 50 quantity stack of blank DVD+Rs for under 15 bucks. Upon my return home, I began my “back up” of the essential files and folders on the “M’ drive. It took most of Saturday and some of Sunday morning to burn 18 DVDs. Now all my photo files and movie files are “safe” recorded onto DVD media. One time during the process, I “lost” the drive again, and corrupted four DVDs before realizing that I was trying to record media which wasn’t there. A reboot and I got the drive back for the second time, and I finished the process. I even copied all of the essential files from the other hard drive to DVDs. Sunday afternoon I fired up the Vegas video editing software, pulled up the recovered video editing file for Cloudscaping, and since the “M” drive was still connected, all the files showed up. I finished the end credit sequence, did some final tweaking of the video, and was able to render a high quality wmv file for uploading to the internet. I also attempted to make an mpeg file, but I lost the “M” drive again during the process, freezing the program.Uploading to Xanga and YouTube took a while, but this morning, I can finally present ” Cloudscaping” for your enjoyment.
Comments (23)
Hi Michael! :wave: Thanks so much for sharing this! I am going to try and check this out as soon as I have more time to watch it! :goodjob: Can’t wait! I know it will be great! You are very talented and creative!
Hope you have a great day! Love Ya! (((Hugs)))
Boy, I do love editing, almost as much as I love clouds
Well, that’s not really fair to say. Editing my own work for a class can be stressful, but the fact is that I do it often and well enough to have gotten as far as I have. This weekend, we did workshopping stuff via e-mail. It was funny because the professor is making us workshop this week for this paper, but a girl in my group and I have been doing it on our own together for over a semester. It has helped us both tremendously. New eyes are always good.
Dear ppfMike,
This is an incredibly belated response to your comment on my xanga February 18th. Life may be too busy when I haven’t responded to nice comments like yours. I hope you don’t mind me calling you ppfMike; I really liked the ‘poet, philosopher, fool’ part of your signature but “Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool” just seems too long … plus I enjoy the idea of making the ppf sound – its just fun. I tend to just sign my comments come_closer in order to shorten the whole ordeal without hitting any of the snafus you mentioned in your comment.
Anyways, just thought I’d drop by to say hi. I truly enjoyed the video. Its wonderful how you see the beauty nature surrounds us with daily. I hope to be back soon …
come_closer
(student, muser, and definitely fool)
Thanks for sharing.
Clouds are very interesting to look at.
very nicely done…fine bit of work and editing!
Mike,
I saw your message on the “quilt” post.
Wow! You really did a fantastic job on this! There were spots where I could “see” faces in the clouds. It is kinda surreal to hear my guitar playing while watching this. I will be visiting this post many times, and will tell friends and family to check it out too! I am honored that you considered my guitar playing worthy of soundtrack. Thanks, and once again, Good Job!
That was fabulous. I starred it AND joined your blog ring!
Hi Mike!! Just got a chance to view the video now, and I wanted to leave another comment to let you know how much I enjoyed it! It is sooooo breathtakingly beautiful!! Thank you for sharing it with us! You did a superb job!! :goodjob:
i wouldn’t know where to begin to do all that computer geek stuff you just talked about
i loooovvved the cloud video and i think the music went well with it. the closest thing i know how to do on my computer would be a slideshow and it’s nothing like what you presented. good job.
it always astonishes me just how complicated the whole creative process is. we are discussing the need for a new laptop for me and even the need to upgrade my desktop. it seems so expensive! glad you were able to back everything up!:heartbeat: doesn’t sound like you lost too much!
I found the opening section of the film certainly the best. The first music selection was wonderful! It transported me to this place of the old artists with their easels, brushes flying in a frenzy to capture the scene before the lighting would fail.
Hey Michael! :wave:
Wonderful! You have captured that there is beauty all around, whether there be fields or mountains or ocean (*swoon*) or city or playgrounds! I LOVED the swingset by the seaside
!
Great choice with the music as well. I can’t help be ponder how wonderful it would be to drive along with you on a day of video making and coffee drinking. :sunny:
Your friend,
Steve :coolman:
Mike -you are so funny-it took me as long to read as it did to watch the film.
I like the guys music ,too but then I’m part Irish-The Troy Clan to be exact
I feel somehow closer to God
Hi Mike, I commented before on your photo’s that clouds has their own magic. So I could not resist your cloudscaping video. I think you did the theme good and intgrated so well the beauty of different cloudscapes into your movie. Well done, Jurgens
Great video!
Dear Mike,
I would love to enjoy Cloudscaping… Alas I’m on dial up and videos give me problems. I plan to upgrade soon. My son says I better before he comes back from college :p. I will have to come back then & check it out. I can understand about not being satisfied with the placement of the photos – I’m that way with words – in fiction writing or poetry. I can edit & edit & edit. Sometimes I just say “that’s it – no more!” Glad you got everything backed up on your pc. I shutter at the thought of loosing stuff on mine. I recently backed up some Word files & need to do it again.
Thanks so much for the greetings :shysmile:. I usually don’t just come out & say when my birthday is but the smiles everyone gave me made it worth it. Have a great day. :sunny: I’m on lunch break so I’ll be going. Take care.
peace,
Jane
I support MikeVideos!
All that director commentary and I cannot even watch the video. My dial-up sevice hates them. :p Glad Randy’s music worked for you. It has always worked for me, since we first met.
Fantastic post. I have not been around much because for the last three months I have been working five 24 hour shifts. Was not even home so when I was all I did was sleep. I have cut that work schedule in half so will be visiting more often. Judi
Very nice, Mike. I always like the “behind the video” story, too.
Sometimes getting the hardware to cooperate is an art in itself! Oh how I would love to have a terabyte of storage! lol… The prices always drop in time, though. We’ll both be complaining about needing even more storage in a couple years! I wish I could hear the music with the video. I never get around to downloading the sound drivers for my laptop… I miss out on a lot of good stuff. I always love looking at clouds either way though
I didn’t get to watch the video ’cause my speakers are out and I want to hear this…but I read thru all the work you put into this though….that is determination! I would have given up when it comes to the computer stuff…but when you keep on going even though things crumble that is when really great things happen. I’ve seen it in my own life too…outside of computers…so I guess there is a story behind the story here eh….drive on brother….drive on!
Nice work, Mike.
Clouds are so fascinating and provide a constantly changing pallet of form and colour. Well done.