or.. i make pictures move, and I have a new housemate.
Saturday November 1, 2003
The ongoing process of figuring out how to get my NTSC video work output to PAL based video cd players (which are all knock-offs…”Sony, by Japan” is my favorite) has come to a _relative_ end. I figured out how to output stuff to Video CD that will work with pretty much all the local players. The quality, for my standards, is not good enough, but people here are still so amazed that it can happen at all that they are satisfied. The problem is that NTSC is roughly 30 frames per second, and PAL is roughly 25. That means that 5 frames per second get… eaten, leaving gaps in movement. I haven’t figured out how to fix it. I’m not sure there is a good fix. Using frame blending in after effects seems to take some of the edge off, but it isn’t a solution. Ideas anyone?
The outcome of my experimentation phase being done, is that I have a ton of video production to do. I am sticking to Final Cut Pro for most of the editing duties on the more straight forward editing projects. I think a year or two of working with it, and I should get pretty comfortable. I have the two elements I need to learn: time pressure, and the ability to make mistakes. My mistakes here, are a giant step forward as far as everyone else is concerned.
I have a housemate. Jen, a youth for development volunteer… how horrible of a name is that… who’s project was one of those that went south, showed up in town yesterday. When she came to visit (while I was in Yaoundé last time), she met with George’s placement people, and they said that she could come and work there…so after a few days of mulling it over, here she is. She is going to be working in, and around Messok with an agricultural collective that is buying some sort of mill. The details are sketchy, and she has yet to go to Messok due to the project leader’s illness, and rain.. which has finally decided to start showing up, a month late. She has already planted a garden in front, cleared the back yard, and is starting to plant a more substantial garden back there.. although at the moment is losing the battle to the pigs.
One of the outcomes of her arrival is that Alex has moved out, and into the room attached to the house. This is a very good development. The Alex experiment is starting to bring definitive results: not good. After a week of pressure, I bought Alex some clothes. Apparently during his drunken stupors, he has been giving away his clothes. He has been wearing the same outfit for almost 3 weeks now. He gave away his pants, his shoes, some shirts, and whatever else he could. Why? The cynic says: to create a need, the optimist says: because he is a really nice guy. The pragmatist says: both of these things are true. The bottom line, he needed some new clothes. He found some stuff he liked, and started to pressure me to buy him some clothes. Normally, this is exactly the kind of thing I would like to do in exchange for the work he.. sometimes… does around the house. The problem is that his change-keeping- techniques have turned out to be growing. I agreed after a week of stalling, to buy him the shoes he wanted, but that I would keep them, until he had done some work, and delivered the growing list of things that had been paid for, but not delivered. He came back with a whole outfit… which I had not agreed to. The outfit is hysterical. Will the real Alex please stand up. He is a total pimp. I have some photos which I will post soon, but in the meantime: Black jeans, shiny shoes, silk (well, polyester really..but you get the idea) shirt, unbuttoned, fat gold chain, and a Kangol style hat… all worn with a certain swagger that says: PIMP circa 1994. The first time I saw him coming up the road I thought to myself: who is this guy who looks and talks like Alex? Does he have a brother who dresses like a complete fool? No, it was the man himself. I almost wet myself laughing.