I don't mean cry,
I did do that, but I mean weep like a baby. Late
Monday night when I tried to make the Dewey Entry
Video I almost lost my fuggin' mind.
Absolute,
monumental MELTDOWN.
One of my hard
drives is apparently dying, and it's the harddrive all
of my Trinitrons footage was loaded onto. I noticed
that when I played back some of the files - they would
skip a bit. Not a big deal, as that can happen from
time to time when your computer is bogged down - the
actual file is usually fine, playback is just screwy.
Well this time, it was the file. I had already loaded
the footage, edited it, brought in all the audio
(which I record seperately), synced it all up and
brought it into the timeline. Not sure if any of that
makes sense to you, but this will: I taped over some
of the G and Dewey footage after I had loaded it.
In what now looks
like the stupidest thing I've ever done, I had certain
takes of both Dewey and G that took like 30 minutes of
tape to get 3 good minutes. I wasn't gonna waste a
whole $10 tape for one or two useable takes - so I
loaded them in and re-used the tape. In the 4 years
I've been loading footage - it's never "gone bad" on
me. Ever. Because of how I load it (recovering all
lost frames), even if the computer is getting worked
by some other program, it never skips - it just takes
a bit longer to get it all in.
Unfortunately I
had clicked the "Recover Lost Frames" check
OFF
in order to get some footage in that had a bad section
of tape nearly 2 months ago. Reason being - the
computer will see the bad section as "Lost Frames" and
go over and over it unless you click that option OFF.
I never put it back on though.
So
what did the footage look like? Take
a
gander
(the video is untouched, the audio however
I fucked with just for artistic pleasure)
Imagine how I felt when
I realized thast was the ACTUAL
FOOTAGE. That made it some of the scariest
footage I've ever seen. All the Dewey
footage looked like that. So last night
there was a mad dash to go buy some DV
Tapes, get alllllll the footage off that
drive, and some other drives - and try to
transfer what I could to a different
drive. All my footage from the bad drive
was goin' screwy. Even worse? The footage
wouldn't come off the drive to the tape.
It was totally screwed. But this was all
the Dewey footage...I was sure the G
footage was fine...so I hit play and...
...it was the
exact same thing. At this point I'm losing my mind.
Thinking about re-doing cornrows, re-dying hair,
DRAWING in eyebrows, regrowing the beard... All this
as my body tightened up into a fetal position - LOL.
Not really, but that was pretty much what it seemed
like. I lucked out however. G's video WORKED when I
transferred it to another drive. But Dewey wasn't so
lucky.
I completely lost
the "location footage" as well as some good bloopers
forever. What's even worse is - Saturday was the last
day of SUN this city may see in a week. I need
sunlight for the outdoor stuff. As it stands at 7:21
AM Tuesday morning it's raining and nasty and the
chance of the fog burning off by this afternoon is
slim. GRRRRRRR. The footage was so perfect on
Saturday. So bummed. Sooooooooooooo bummed. It's now a
waiting game with the weather - hoping I'll have time
to grow Cameron's goatee by next Saturday. (sigh)
Moral of the story
of course...always have a tape back-up. Even if I was
gonna re-use the tape of 30 minutes of crap - I
should've backed the good take onto another tape AS
WELL as loading it into the computer. I'm incredibly
lucky right now that it all comes down to just the
location footage, but incredibly stressed about the
weather situation. Also stressed about the future
footage. I mean, will I need to make a tape-back up
every time I add an effect? Re-splice stuff? What the
HELL is wrong with the drive?!?! Will the drive I
transferred it to hang in there? There's so many steps
to the show, and losing any of the footage at any
given point would be devastating. I mean, nothing like
having to re-shoot things, but still. And tape back-up
certainly isn't full-proof. I've had footage go bad on
a digital tape before. (sigh)
Here's hopin'
everything works out. Unfortunately it gives me the
pervading feeling of "GOD I WANT THIS OVER WITH".
That's not a good thing to feel during this stage of
the show. This is supposed to be the fun part - and I
must admit, it is not as fun as last time. It is
immensely more stressful, and I have zero way of
knowing if my performance is suffering because of it.
I believe I wrote 2 years how nice it would be to not
have to deal with the technical side of things, just
perform. Well it's also very nice to just have a
partner in crime. The pressure to make this as good a
show as the last one is really mounting. I'm also so
far into it, that I cannot see what's funny anymore.
Lines that I could barely write without laughing, now
don't even strike me as funny. I know it's all because
of the extenuating circumstances, but knowing that
doesn't help.
And Jesus
stressful shit is just beating my ass these past 3
months. What started with "getting the house" -
transferred to my dad's health - back to that fuggin'
house - and now to The Trinitrons. Once this puppy is
done, I have to find a way to relax.
There's always a
story to tell ain't there. Anyway, look for the Dewey
Entry whenever the fuggin' sun comes out.
