False Time Control

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Date: Mon, Dec 22, 2003

INTENSE FALSE TIME CONTROL

I have had my head buried in video editing. Last year I finally
reacquired the means to edit video halfway professionally, and this
year I learned the programs for computer video editing, and this summer
we did and shot several live shows and roughly an hour of various types
of animation, and a couple of months ago I got my hands on two hard
drives large enough to hold hours of footage.

I have to use a borrowed camera to transfer the footage onto the drives
for editing. Since these transfers can be done selectively, I'm
basically pre-editing these various projects as I transfer them over.
Since I have to return the camera, the transfers had to be done NOW.

During this last week, I rough-cut Starwood 23 and 6 X-Day, two events
at Brushwood in NY that took place a couple of weeks apart. I have been
IMMERSED in footage of SubGeniuses and other goofballs at this one
campground. Philo and Rev. Chekey also sent me their footage, so I've
been editing that also. It's like I have become this one-eyed
spy-monster that SAW all this nutty stuff, and now is SEEING it all
again and again... only, less of it each time, as I remove the
out-of-focus crap and severe jiggle-vision and also anything boring.

I have been getting up in the morning and doing this until I konk out
at night, for days, and IT DOES SOMETHING TO THE BRAIN.

I'm used to this because I was a film editor by trade for a couple of
decades. And I still edit massive amounts of sound on a weekly basis.
But it had been awhile since I've tripped on "FALSE TIME CONTROL" to
this extent.

It's insidious how it messes with one's sense of time. It would be
dangerous for me to drive right now because my brain has developed this
false sense of security that you get from REWINDING a thousand times a
day -- you get to where you half-think that the real world is just more
SCREEN TIME and that if that TRUCK appears to be about to RAM HEAD-ON
INTO YOUR CAR, why, you can just PAUSE and REWIND.

You get to the point that you reach for the "REWIND BUTTON" when you're
far away from the video editing console. A person will say something to
you, but you didn't hear it clearly, or let your attention drift, and
for a second you think you're gonna wind back and play it again. ALL
LIFE starts to seem like an ANSWER MACHINE MESSAGE that you can pause
or erase as you please.

OH THAT IT WERE!

Not that I would change much at this point. I'd trim the shaky, out of
focus parts of my life perhaps, so as to make the better looking,
steadier stuff look even better. I might blue-screen the backsgrounds
in the long tedious driving scenes.

X-Day Drills, pagan events, rock shows and I suppose ALL memories get
better the more you delete from them. If X-Day was only two minutes
long, like what I reduced the 90 minutes of 5X-Day footage down to,
it'd be MORE worth the $30 entrance fee and travel time. Well, not
really... but it might SEEM that way, and in this world, SEEMING seems
to be pretty much the same thing as BEING. For an entertainment media
and religious propaganda project it's all a moot question anyway.

Somehow I have to finish all this transfering AND get two Hours of
Slack done and mailed before I go home for Xistlessnessmas. 'Cause I
don't know when I'll get my hands on the all-important camera again for
transfering. I had BIG PLANS for 8 new products in the SubCatalog for
Xmas, and a revision of the catalog altogether, and a revision of
SubSITE altogether, but, not only did I blow SOME of it off, I BLEW
*ALL* OF IT OFF. For now. Instead I'll have a DOZEN new products in a
month or so.

When I finally have to tear my head out of this media-sinkhole of
Virtual X-Days Past, it is gonna HURT. The rewindable world -- it's so
much more IN MY CONTROL than that pesky "REAL WORLD". Being immersed in
video editing is like being in a video game for days and days. You
break away from the screen for ten minutes and you're liable to walk
right out in front of a speeding car and get killed, because for you,
"nothing is real," and nothing to get hung about.

It's FUN, like DRUGS... but IS THE CRASH WORTH IT? The age-old
question. As with drugs, the answer is probably that IT'S ALL IN HOW
MUCH YOU DELETE.

To prove it, last night I posted the whole anti-SubGenius film, "SECT,
SATIRE OR SATANISM?" on a.b.s. in MPEG (VCD-ready) form, along with
rants from the devivals by Pisces and Carter LeBlanc, some great tunes
by MAN, a shitload of ESO radio clips and... YOUR XMAS PRESENT!

--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected (Rev. Ivan Stang, prop.)
PRABOB

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "rev. norel pref" <norelpref@heavyconfetti.com>

Truly, video editing is an immersion into another world. I get lost in
music in a similar way, but video production really takes the mind out for a
spin. I actually love the pieceing together of stuff and cutting, adding
transitions and music, voiceovers and cheesy AfterEffects special effects.
What I hate is rendering. I wish I had a second high powered machine just
for that purpose.

I used to REALLY hate video editing when I had to use one of the old
dinosaur of programs, Adobe Premiere, where every time you make an edit, you
have to render to see it, which, depending on it's length could take
forever. Vegas Pro renders edits in realtime, no matter how many effects I
add; it's like Acid (the software, not the compound) for video. Of course,
once the project is finished, rendering to MPEG2 takes a while......

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Selfs Layer <SelfsLayer@reflectionsdivide.com>

"Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com> quipped and warbled:

>INTENSE FALSE TIME CONTROL

>It's insidious how it messes with one's sense of time. It would be
>dangerous for me to drive right now because my brain has developed this
>false sense of security that you get from REWINDING a thousand times a
>day -- you get to where you half-think that the real world is just more
>SCREEN TIME and that if that TRUCK appears to be about to RAM HEAD-ON
>INTO YOUR CAR, why, you can just PAUSE and REWIND.
>
>You get to the point that you reach for the "REWIND BUTTON" when you're
>far away from the video editing console.

I once got this really bad when I'd been playing a computer
role-playing game for months (real high tech shit for 1999), and one
day I was shocked, I mean absolutely SHOCKED, when I realized that I
couldn't reload my day and start again.... I quit playing immediately,
and pretty much dumped all video games, or at least stopped cheating
so bad in order to get the ultimately fast build-up trip going.

I've just started playing a bit again, and you just reminded me about
that whole reload thing, which I've started doing again. Your day
didn't turn out so hot? You got in a big fight with someone? You DIED?
Well, no biggie! Just Load your Saved morning and try again!

No wonder my mind is so fucked up these days.

Next cheerleader, please!

- Saigneur Selfs Layer, KKP, the dude at the door who acts really poor
(and who wouldn't know you if you stuck a firecracker up his bum on Bastille Day)
Le Pape of all Fried Freedom and Little Pink Panty Inspector

http://www.reflectionsdivide.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Reverend Vertigo <jhobbs@myrealbox.com>

Just play games where, when you die, you stay dead and have to start ALL
OVER. Like the roguelikes or hardcore-mode Diablo II.

--
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that
we are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic
and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, in 1918

Up one level
Back to document index

Original file name: False Time Control.txt - converted on Saturday, 25 September 2004, 02:05