First video test

...Was a success!

I was looking at a few options such as the webcam on my laptop, the camera on my phone and my dslr. The best results were from the dslr with an external microphone, so I will use that.

If I had to buy a camera, then I would just use the camera in my phone (which is still pretty good, despite being nearly four years old!) but since I have the dslr, I may as well use that.

The only down side is that the tripod I have is a bit too tall, so I will need to get creative in order to get the framing that I want.

Next step: try and find my password for my old Tsbytomd account on YouTube. I haven't used that one in five years. It's no biggie if I can't get that one back, but it would be nice to tie it in to my old EDM account.

Idea

Since I've been gearing up a bit make more video content with my camera, I figure I may as well create another video clip for my so-called "music career".

I'm not actually creating any new music, but that'd be a simple way of practising using the camera with a specific goal to work towards. I want to make video clips for other people, but I need to make sure that I can produce reliably good video first. And that means practice.

I'll probably grab one of the songs from one of my albums that I've already published (despite pulling down my previous website) and use that.

As for ideas, the one I've got rattling around in my head at the moment is to get a dancer, dress them up like a ninja and have them dance around in the streets. In order to do this, I'll need to get someone who will agree to be the ninja, then get a suitable ninja-esque outfit. Simple black clothes with some black bmx armour ought to do it.

Legalities ... not too sure about the laws regarding going around in public dressed as a ninja. Might need to notify the local police station. Need to wear a high-vis vest. Having a camera out will help, so long as whoever is dressed as a ninja is mature enough to not act like an idiot - especially if the local constabulary show up.

Next weeks' plans

So here's the skinny;

• Need to finish and publish fourth album.
• Need to make at least one video clip and upload (two or three is better)
• Need to get going on lyrics and songs.

I think I may be going about this the wrong way. I've been so busy wrapping myself into circles that I've lost sight of the bigger picture. What I need to do is get cracking on production rates. I already know I can't do quality, so I have to go for quantity.

Still need to set myself up properly in order to get busy with music creation. Software that needs to be obtained / upgraded:

• Go Vista to Win7 for music box
• Get better editing software (Adobe Premiere Elements 8?)
• Get better music making software

So much to do, so little time to do it. No matter, so long as I am doing something, then I can only improve, Also, will probably want a book showing how to use said editing program as I want to take advantage of the features (such as transitions, effects and titles).

Songwriting for dummies - don't bother

In my feeble attempts at becoming a musician, I decided to start with the lowest easily accessible book, Songwriting for Dummies.

For those who are interested in getting this book, here's a summary of the information contained within this tome: write what you feel and make it good.

It's a pretty impressive effort on the part of the authors to pad out that short concept to over 300 pages and they manged to get my thirty dollars, so props to them. Still quite disappointed with that purchase though. This one page at SongLyricist.com provided more useful information.

Oh well, live and learn.

On other matters, I've now watched the dvd of Let the blood run free which I picked up off eBay (it's no longer available). It turns out that it's not the show that I thought it was but I still found it amusing. The humour is dated and it's very much hit-and-miss but it does have moments that made me laugh like a manic.

Not highly re-watchable but worth the $20 I dropped on it. Would I recommend it? You really have to be in the right frame of mind for it to be worth watching. It was made to look really low budget (a car chase scene is done with little toy cars on a scalectrix set) and a lot of it was improvised (it originated as a cabaret stage show) but not in the same way as Who's line is it anyway.

Oh yeah...

What I'd been posting about before...

I need to get my game face on. It's Friday already and so far I have not written or recorded any lyrics, now video recorded and composed no new music. I really need to lift my game and get busy.

On the plus side I have worked out two options:

1. Get a Mac - this would be around $1,500 for a basic, entry level model but would come with iLife and Garageband which would make things easier. 
2. Get Windows 7 ($130), Adobe Premiere Elements ($100) for editing, Fruity Loops ($160) for making music and a video camera ($300) and I can use my existing computer for around $700 and as a plus, still be able to use all my old software.

Not much of a choice really.

New video Up!

Well, slowly getting things done.

My song Svelte now has a video on YouTube! That makes my second video clip, this time from my second album, Jump.

This one is more of an experiment than the first one was. For this one I was trying out a video camera that I picked up off eBay. It's one of those low-profile "sports" type cameras that you mount on the side of your helmet or motorbike or skateboard or w/ever to catch all your "extreme" sports moments.

The camera itself isn't too bad for a $30 camera - but the annoying thing is that it comes with a time/date stamp feature. The really annoying part is that not only was this feature not advertised, you can't turn it off either! Dang!!!

Oh well, guess if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. :(

It'll still come in useful for some specific shots, but I doubt I'll be using it much.

Still no sign

Ordered Ubuntu Studios a while back. It's a Linux based digital creation suite. It has music and video software that should work quite nicely with my existing setup and get me streamlined and producing more music.

However, the first disc that arrived had an error on it and would not install properly. So arranged for another copy and it still has not shown up (this was in March!) which is starting to annoy me.

No matter, I have some time off coming up, I'll have to see what I can do then in order to get some stuff produced during the allotted time. If I can get hold of a camera, I'll see about making another video or two. That would be sweet. Still in discussion with others about collaborating, which will be awesome, but I need to get my own skills up first in order to make sure that I can keep my end up and bring a decent amount of talent to the group. Maybe.

Gotta keep practicing.