siliva2

So, I woke up, and fired up the 'ol computing laptop machine, and everything was fine. Listened to some musics, watched videos, and then, all of a sudden, what? My the audio seems to be not working. My first guess was that my headphones were busted. But they worked fine in my iPod, so that obviously wasn't the case. Well, it didn't bother me all too much, so, I just went on.

Then, suddenly, the audio was back! So, I fired up Sony Vegas, and proceeded to edit the new episode. And during editing...it went out again! A little more annoyed this time, I tried playing with the volume settings on my computer. Oddly, every time I attempted to access the volume controls, the volume control seemed to freeze up and not respond. Odd.

Doing what any normal computer owner would do, I restarted the system. Logged on, and, what? Still nothing. And now, instead of non-responsive controls, there's nothing. Just an error message saying "No Audio Input Device is Installed." Now that is weird.

So, I do about 4 hours of searching online, and come up with a solution. After trials of my computer randomly rebooting and the audio coming back and going away, the audio stays for about an hour. So, I continue editing. Then it dies again.

Tired and pissed off, I call HP customer servive, and spend 2 and a half hours doing the same things I did on my own for the past 4, only with a foreign-accented lady telling me the directions. -___-

So, I'm just getting a full system restore, to get everything back to factory settings. Sucks, I know. Now if you excuse me, I'm going to go backup my Beyblade Abridged files... D:

Guess who has to edit an entire episode in 4 days? That's right, it's me. Given, I'm not too worried about that fact, but I rarely have worked on such a tough deadline, for editing.

I know I can do this. Episode 8 was edited in an entire day. As the last episode I used Ulead for, its editing was pretty decent. So, doing an entire episode in a 3-4 days is no problem, right? We'll see.

And dang, this was going to be the episode I attempt matching the lip-flaps for the characters better. Oh well. I'll try episode 13 then, I guess.

Have you ever tried matching a character's lip flaps to the voicing, right down to the syllable? You know, how all those "professional" (for lack of a better word) abridgers do it? It. Is. A. Pain. In. The. Ass.

I much prefer the lazier awesome way of roughly matching flaps while still getting the job done. Metal Fight Abridged is the perfect example of this. It isn't perfect, but acceptable.

Why am I complaining about matching voice to lip flaps though? Because I'm trying my hardest to become a better video editor. Plus, next week, I'll finally get my video camera to work, so I can start messing with special effects. I can't wait to do all the super fun editing stuffs!


...Now, in the realm of Beyblade Abridged, I've got some good news! Episode 12 is on the way! Editing should begin on Sunday or Monday, depending on when I record my voices. And I gotta say, I'm just as pumped for this episode as I am for every episode. I'd set the release date to next Friday at the least. Could take longer though!

And with episode 12, begins the American tournament story arc. And since it's a new arc, that means...new intro! The new intro is all ready and done. I have much more special effects this time around. There were actually more, but I removed a couple of them.


Episode 12 may or may not be in Widescreen, as well. We'll see. ;)

Enough rambling from me. See ya, later.

I really, REALLY need to start posting here more often. I dunno why. I've never been good with blogs.

It's 2:10 am, I'm struggling to keep my eyes open, and I'm anxiously waiting for Annilater to continue writing the next episode.

Well, I've got really nothing else to cover, so, I just got back from a trip to Virginia to see a few of my old friends. I stayed for two weeks, doing nothing but watching anime and playing Children's card games. Fun, right? It's a shame it had to end so soon though. D:

If anyone really cares, it was my birthday about 3 freakin' weeks ago. I'm now 16, which means I'm legal. Legal to drive. But I don't even have my permit out of pure laziness. But enough about that.

For presents wise, I got: Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's Stardust Accelerator for DS, a few booster boxes of Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and a few dollars from friends and family. I didn't pull all the cards I wanted from the box, but I did get a Dark Strike Fighter and Power Tool Dragon. And A LOT of Blackwing cards. Enough to make a deck and then some. But I didn't manage to pull a friggin' Armor Master. Ah well, I'll just buy one at my hobby shop when I can.

In other exciting news, later this summer, you'll all be able to see me in better video quality! I'm finally going to be getting my computer the abilty to connect with my video camera. The good one, not the crappy webcam I use all the time. And trust me, I'll be making videos quite often with my camera.

After all, I've got Sony Vegas, and a lot of time on my hands. So, expect to see me play around with a bunch of special effects once I get the chance!

Well, that's all from me now. See you all next time I feel like making an entry.
 

So, this friday night/saturday morning, I went over to Annilater's house (Remember, I live pretty close to him) for his birthday party. Wait...he's turning 16 isn't he? Don't 16 year-olds usually have some kind of epic party of epic proportions and A9 would need to start acting like a prick and asking for things that cost thousands of dollars, all the while giving total disrespect to his parents? Damn, I need to stop watching MTV with my sister. That sh*t rots the brain, I swear.

Anyway, I ended up going over A9's house after anime club (Yes, we're in an anime club. We even have a weekly lineup. Ask me, and I'll tell it to you) and we just kinda chilled for an hour or so on the computer, watching Youtube Poops and other funny videos. After an hour, one of A9's other friends, Alex, came over.

Alex, who's an 8th grader, was probably the weirdest person I've ever met. He likes to headbutt people with his hard-as-rock skull, and just in general inflict pain onto other people. I swear I wimpered like a little girl with this guy more times than I could count! How does A9 hang out with him? I guess he's just used to it.

After Alex's first introduction with me, we decided to have a friendly Yu-Gi-Oh duel. Now, for those who haven't dueled me before, know that I generally run whatever deck the main character of the currently-airing YGO series has, except that my version is always a lot worse. So, I was running Synchros at the moment. Alex put some Yubel cards into my deck for, what I assume was lulz.

This kid was really good, not to my surprise. However...I won? I won. I had The Calculator out, and destoryed his monster with it's effect. ( The Calculator's effect gives him attack power equal to the amount of level stars of all the monsters on my field x 300) I was thinking, "Holy crap! I won!"

After that, we (tried to) watch the Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's OVA. The one where JACK ATLAS and Yusei's monsters go into Buster/Assault mode. But that kinda bombed, so we just played Brawl for a couple of hours.

Before I knew it, Alex had to go, so it was just me and A9. We decided to watch anime for literally the entire night. Watching his DVDs of Haruhi Suzumiya, Death Note, Gurren Lagann, and Gundam Seed Destiny. While we normally watch the Japanese versions on everything (Although I like the dubs of everything listed save for GSD, which I've never seen, A9 likes the subs) we just needed to watch episode 8 of Death Note dubbed.

We got our bag of potato chips, and proceeded to say "I'll take a potato chip...and EAT IT!" right along with Light's montage. We ended up staying up until 5 or so am watching anime. Apparently, I forgot to take my shoes off when I went to bed. And woke up with them, like, "WTF?"


So, for Saturday morning, we just chilled out, with me watching A9 play Sonic Unleashed. I dunno why, even though I own the game myself. Still it was cool to see that he has an S rank on nearly, if  not all levels.



So yeah, all in all, it was a pretty sweet party. Even though his real birthday isn't until monday. And I've got a drawing to do for him! Heeeeere I go!

So, today was the French Club's holiday Christmas party. With about 20-or-so people in the club, we had about 9 or 10 people there. ^^ But at least I went this time. Last time, I didn't go.

I arrived with Annilater around 6 or so, after a good long while of his parents looking for the house that the party was at. When we arrived, a few of the other members were already eating some of the snacks. I brought potato chips, and Coke. A9 decided to pull the planned  "I'll take a potato chip...and eat it!" quote from Death Note. Very funny, at least for the first time.

Speaking of Annilater, he had an odd "obsession" with the host's dog. I guess he's a dog-lover. But I quickly accused him of being pro-beastilaity. And he responded with "I'm not SEGA!" Nice. It didn't help that his little Christmas Present was a bear. Which, for the rest of the night, he nicknamed "Pedo Bear." Yeah. Creepy. That whole beastiality theme ran for the night too. xD

We watched a movie, which I don't remember the name of. There was a montage with "Eye of the Tiger." Epic Win. And that's about my night in a nutshell.

Also, I got Yu-Gi-Oh GX Manga volume 2.

Alright, it's been 21 days since I last updated! I know you're all missing me, right? xD

So, I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Mine was alright. Nothing special. Didn't eat too much.

Hmm...

There's not much in the wake of Beyblade Abridged news. We (Annilater) still haven't gotten on writing episode 9 yet. We really need to get on that. Personally, I want to get Episode 9 out before Christmas. Speaking of Christmas, I don't think we're gonna make a Christmas special. I think for in order for us to do so, we would have needed to have something planned starting from weeks ago. That, and I don't feel like editing it.

A lot of you must be wondering where the Comment Special is. To be perfectly honest, I forgot about it. Don't worry, I still have everyone's questions, so we can get started whenever. We're still choosing the questions that we wanna use. 

Since there's no Beyblade Abridged episode to voice right now, I really need something to keep my voicing in check. With all the new characters being added, I really think Beyblade Abridged should be a 3-5 man team. Just think it would make more sense. Especially since everyone and their BEYTAS-watching grandmothers wants to voice in our series.

On a random note: There seem to be a lot of girls asking to be in Beyblade Abridged. The problem arises when there are too many people asking for too little parts. For real, there are like 3 girls in the entire season 1. Sure, V-Force (which we're  NOT abridging) and G-Revolution have a little bit more, but it's still not enough for all the people asking. But I'll TRY to find a place. After all, I do enjoy having guests on our series.

But seriously, if any of you guys need an extra voice or something, I'll do it. Because when it comes to voice acting these days, I'm pretty bored. (Maybe I should audition for a fandub...hmm...) And I'm not doing my own fandub. Because that went oh-so-well the last time!

LARP= Live Action Roleplay btw.

So, there was a high school anime club-sponsored LARP at, of course, my high school. Most of the club people were there (including Annilater. xD) and even some anime club guys from the club at the local college. The story was that there were 3 classes trying to do different things.

A Samurai class that was planning on having a fighting tourney, a Miko class that's all about gods and stuff, and a mecha class that's trying to build a giant 3-story mecha in order to destroy everyone for the hell of it.

My character, Abe Akria (Japanese order, folks. Last name, then first) was in the mecha class, but wanted to make sure the project went through without killing everyone. I was also involved in the Miko storyline. I was one of 5 guardians, who had to protect a real Miko, Katsura Rei. In my previous life, I had dated her, before I got killed. (I resurrected myself because it's my power, and enrolled in the school in an alternate name) I still had a crush on her.

Overall, the good side won. Lotsa people got killed, excluding me. The mecha was built, but it didn't destory anything. The end.

Afterwards, we had a party. We watched "The Six String Samurai", which is a (live action) movie about a guitar playing samurai. IMHO, the character looks like James Rofle. xD

Then, we played some variation of hide and seek, while using the whole school for hiding. One round. People forgot Annilater and I were playing, so they kinda just went on without us...

Since we were bored, we also played hangman. Annilater had the words "Regular Prostate Exam" and "What What in the butt" as his words, thus prompting one of the college guys to accuse him of being obsessed with butts. ^^;

So, yeah, it was a lot of fun. I got to mean a lot of geeks, and I felt very "at home." So, that's my story. Now I gotta get to voicing for episode 8!

 

Finally, Beyblade - The Abridged Series episode 7 is all done and complete. Watch the episode here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n42dbo9hQLM

I had a little trouble with my audio quality this time around. Especially noticeable with Max, Kevin, and Lee. You see, I got a new laptop recently. While it's fast, it records like ass. Unless I did some technique in Audacity, then they'd continue to sound like ass. But because I care, I went back and re-recorded all 40 of Tyson's lines, which is why MOST of Tyson's lines are decent.

I hate my Lee voice with a passion. Sounds too similar to my normal voice. I'll practice it up enough to make it sound better, but not too much to make it sound too far from the original.

And my voice acting in general was a poor perfomance in the episode, IMHO. I guess I need to work a little bit harder for next time.

In other Beyblade Abridged-related news, we're planning to abridge the whole China tournament into 3 or 4 episodes. How? You'll just have to wait and see. :D


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I guess I should mention that I'm adding a short, weekly mini-series to my channel. "To Make an Abridged Series" should be premiering by Wednesday, with new episodes every week Each episode will focus on a different aspect of abridging, so you can hopefully learn how to make and abridged series, and stop asking me for tips. >3

I've already got about 5 or so episode ideas. If you want to give me any other ideas, then be my guest.

(Also, I so totally ripped that title off Dateline's "To Catch a Predaor"...)

Episode ideas entail:

Pre-Production
Writing
Recording Audio
Voice Acting
General Editing in Windows Movie Maker
Creating an Intro
Giving/Taking Critique (May or may not be used)
The Pros and Cons of Abridging alone/with a parner (Not that I hate abridging with you Annilater. xD)

Well, see you guys soon.

So, I've been spending the rest of my evening enjoying my mysterious lack of homework, and letting rip some good 'ol Metal Fight Beyblades. I've had Leo and Saggitario for about a month now, but, since they were given to me as a gift, I had no launcher to use them with...

...But that's all changed! This morning before 1st block at school, Annilater gave me a "broken" MFB Shooter that came with his Wolf starter set. Apparently, if I got it to work, it was all mine. And using my 1337 spinning top know-how, I easily triumphed the problem, and got it working again! Mwahaha!

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So, in the realm of other, non-Beyblade-related things, (Siliva does NON-Beyblade-related things? WTF?) I'm doing decently well in school. The ONLY grade I know I have is a B in Biology. Since my teachers this year are apparently secretive, or forgetful, I only know of my grades from the first six-weeks period.

Journalism's a pain-in-the-butt as usual...it's always "deadlines this, deadlines that! >D" without any kind of break or anything. No fun. No nothing. And the stories...while some of them are acceptable, I just disagree with some of them. By the time some of the stories are printed, (We print every 2 weeks) it's all old news, and nobody cares....

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And, with how Beyblade Abridged is going, (Which is probably why anyone reads my livejournal... D:) I'm currently editing Episode 7. Although, I may have to start over, since most of my Tyson lines sound like crap. Apparently, recorded sound on my laptop sounds like complete s**t, unless I do some sort of process. Which is why half of Max's voices, and all of everyone else's sound decent. So, I'll probably re-voice in the near future.

For the fan who just wants a timeline for the next episode, I'd give it a week or two. Don't worry.

And also, we have a special surprise that we'll be doing after the Chinese tournament story arc. For those who already know it, DON'T tell anyone! I've already told some people. It just ruins the suspense. Don't be a douchebag! :D And hopefully, some of you fans will be a part of it, too!

I dunno. Maybe I should blog about school? Okay, I guess.

I got a 92.5 in French so far as a total grade...which rounds up to a 93, which is an A-. Hmm. Uhh...all of my classes are pretty easy. Except for Journalism 2. That's a little on the hard side.

And that's school. Bye bye.



...Okay. About Beyblade Abridged. I'm still editing episode 6. This one might be a while, since, I just started, and my computer's running slower than usual. And Ulead's slowness is really getting on my nerves. So, I'm HOPING to upgrade the RAM on this 'ol PC of mine that I'm using. And hopefully, it'll be faster. And I can no longer dread editing, like I do now.

I began a G-Revolution fandub project on the Beyblade Abridged Forums, which will go all the way to episode 1! Amazing, ne? Yeah. If you wanna audition for it, just find the topic in the Announcements forum. And to find the forum, just go to the link on any of the 5 Youtube episodes. I'm not giving it here, because I'm lazy.

Hmm...this is hard. Darn my iniative to visit Live Journal again! Dx

On the drawing scope, I'm hoping to draw a new VERY short comic--Doujinshi, if you wanna get all anal and technical about it. I have no idea what it'll be about. More than likely, it'll be a short little thing. I'm hoping for 30 pages or so. If you've got any ideas, you can send it to me, no sweat.


And now, I shall go back into another 3 months without positng.

You heard me right. I start editing episode 5 today. Although I'm not too sure why. I mean, episode 4 was released not too long ago. But then again, I suppose there's been enough time for our subscribers to see the new episode already.

Hopefully, editing won't take 9000 years like episode 4. I've gotten used to editing with Ulead, and it gives me little-no problems during the process. If I work my ass off (Not gonna happen) It'll probably be released in less than a week. But I'm lazy, so...you know the rest.

Since I'll be busy editing, that means I won't have time to do more of my rants. The first one was generally well received, so I think I'll continue with them. And any other random stuff that I feel like doing between episodes. I guess the gap between episodes 3 and 4 was so large, so I mentally considered it a break. Even if I was working late nights. Oh well.

I'll just say it now, episode 5 has a few immature jokes, which is pretty much exaggerating every "perverted" thought any ten-year-old Beyblader would think of. You either get it, or you don't.

Well, until I go edit, I'll be off re-watching "Mahou Sensei Negima!" and "Negima!?", which I like and dislike both.

Also, I'm extremely bored, so go an talk to me on MSN or AIM. I use Siliva2@hotmail.com for both.

Yeah, you heard me right. I got ULead Video Studio 11 today. It arrived in a package at my door! ^___^ You know, my parents will probably make me wait until Wednesday to install the thing. 

I've already read the User Manual once I got it, so I know all the ropes when it comes to using it. There are so much more optioins we can do to make Beyblade Abridged much more awesome. We might add background music from the Japanese Version of Beyblade to make things look for professional, and have a "TV Show" feel to it.

There are also the major possibilities of having new jokes that utilize our special effects, and such. So, from now on, you can expect a cleaner show from us with the release of episode 4, which should be released sometime in a week or two.

All of my voices for Episode 4 voices are done! Annilater will get his to me by Sunday, as well as his episode 5 voices. I've begun to do my episode 5 voices, but I'm not done yet. I still have half my characters to do. =p

I jumped on the Livejournal bandwagon. And I must say, I'm fairly pleased. I can stop making so many damn videos on my YT account that consisted of me talking. Okay, only 2 were uploaded. But trust me, I made about ten others to be uploaded. So now, I'd like to officially announce that...

All Beyblade - The Abridged Series news will be posted here!...Yeah. That was kind of a given. Some updates will be posted on the forum. But, for the most part, I'll try to keep it all here, and off my Youtube account. Okay, now on to some of those updates concerning BEYTAS.

- Episode 4 and 5's scripts are DONE. Annilater and I will record voices for both episodes at once, sometime in the next week or so. That means, the next two episodes will come out fairly soon. Give it a month, or so.

- New editing software. You heard me right! I'm getting ULead sometime around July 2, (my birthday) and will most likely edit episode 4 with it. Speaking of my birthday, it's the Wednesday after next. Everyone get me somethin', all right?

And that would be all those kinds of updates. For now.

If you haven't seen my new "Siliva's Extras"  video, I suggest you do now. It's epic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGUnQGDHL9M

Also, if you haven't gotten a chance to, join the forums and post while you're at it.
http://z9.invisionfree.com/Beyblade_TAS_Forums/index.php?act=idx