This life's for me
When I visited Paris, the tour guide had us straining to look out the window of the bus. She had convinced us that if, while the bus was moving, we looked real hard and were able to look through one of the windows of the building across the street we would see Napoleon's picked member. We struggled to look past the windows through the rooms and into the back walls where she had said we'd find it sitting on something-or-other. Finally she stopped the bus and had us look out the other window. There right before our eyes in its massive magnificence, stood the Eiffel tower. We'd been struggling so hard to look out the left window that we hadn't seen the tower sneaking up on our right side. We were so close by the time the bus stopped that we couldn't help but gasp as we took it all in. We raced out to get a better look when all of the sudden it started blinking. I don't think any of us knew it did that. I managed to catch this video while I was out there.
Movie watermark
Did you know that you can add watermarks to your movies using Windows Movie Maker? Oh yes, it's true (see for yourself). You just need a minor hack to the program. All you have to do is add an xml file and an image file to your installation. The two files need to go into "C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\Shared\AddOnTFX". You'll find them in the AddOnTFX.zip file. You'll need to restart Windows Movie Maker for any changes to take effect. To add the watermark to your movie, follow these steps.
- Start Windows Movie Maker.
- Under the "Movie Tasks" pane, select "Make titles or credits". The pane is on the left hand side. If you don't see it, select "View | Task Pane".
- Select "Add title on the selected clip in the timeline." This should be the third option in the list.
- Enter a single space in one of the text boxes and select "Change the title animation".
- Select "Watermark" from the list. This option is only in there if you've properly installed the AddOnTFX.zip files.
- Select "Done, add title to movie".
- In your storyboard you should now see a track in the "title Overlay" section. You will stretch this track for the length of your film. If the storyboard isn't visible, select "View | Storyboard".
To customize your watermark simply replace watermark.png. If something breaks when you're customizing your own watermark, replace the files with the ones from AddOnTFX.zip and try again.
If you're feeling truly bold and you want to resize the watermark, you'll need to change the value of LogoRec in the xml file. Here's a little program to calculate that value for you.
See also: Podcast primer, Editing mov files with Windows Movie Maker
Cock out rockout
Extra Action Marching Band had their Cock Out Rockout show last night. I filmed some video, see the list below. I have more videos but I can't post them on YouTube because of either content or size. I'll repost when I get them online.
UPDATE: OK, this is all the videos I recorded for this night. I uploaded Black Chicken (my favorite) by Extra Action Marching Band to blip.tv, I don't think they'll have problem with the partial nudity. Also, the newer videos have watermarks. See my related posts on watermarking and Windows Movie Maker for HOWTO information.
- The Iron Maiden tribute band I Yearn for Maiden
- The Guns N' Roses tribute band Rocket Queens (Welcome to the Jungle) (Paradise City) (Sweet Child O' Mine)
- The Van Halen tribute band Hot for Teacher with Terry Lauderdale (Hot for Teacher) (You Really Got Me) (Pretty Woman) (Best Part Of A Man) (Jump)
- Extra Action Marching Band (Intro song)