#[ why i chose to showcase that screencap ] | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

starberry-cupcake · 5 years ago

Text

The Chinapuri finale and its montage aka censorship who?

I decided to do all of this in one post and read more, so that the 95% of my followers who are uninterested on this particular drama/source material can easily skip it. Here are 7 relationships showcased in the montage ranked and 2 bonus (a family relationship and an extra).

Note: I’ll speak about the relationships as they were portrayed, whichever the form of relationship chosen to display in this version. Also, I’m glad that everyone was aged up in this version, kinda wild but very much appreciated that some of these actors are my age or somewhere around there lol

#7 Lu Xia (Echizen Ryoma) and Qi Ying (Ryuuzaki Sakuno)

This drama was a bit more romantically-inclined in terms of these two than the anime/manga was, but some of that may be also influenced by them giving their version of Sakuno more room (which yay!) and having them be older.

For this to stand alone as a drama, it was a needed step, I believe. I found Lu Xia to be more vulnerable than Ryoma, he doesn’t feel quite as ~cool~ and it doesn’t take away from the character that he has moments showing internal struggle (in tennis as well as at home). These two were sweet and adorable, which gave the drama probably more of an expected appeal for a wider audience, to make it stand on its own as a drama and not only an anime adaptation.

#6 Yan ZhiMing (Inui Sadaharu) & Liu Lian (Yanagi Renji)

Kinda mad they didn’t do this for Fuji (Zhuo Zhi) and Saeki (Zuo Xiaohu) but they did good with these two. I didn’t know at first why they started to build up their relationship so early, but it ended up being a good emotional plot point during their match, which is, as we all know, a determining factor in Seigaku’s (Yu Qing) win against Rikkai (Hai Guang).

I don’t remember being as invested in their match in the anime as I was here, maybe I was just too focused on the Fuji match at that time, but what they did to build that game as a decisive point in the season finale was so well developed, I was impressed.

#5 He XingLong (Kawamura Takeshi) & Ya JiuXin (Akutsu Jin)

This is a relationship that can get complicated and even problematic if handled incorrectly. Akutsu’s journey through the anime is pretty long and takes a while for him to be on a healthier place, but the added element of aging the characters could have gone really wrong here if they had done him exactly as in the anime or manga. I think they did pretty well with the time they were given, showing his turmoil and learning curve.

XingLong was allowed to have a more in-depth journey being older and about to graduate, it made more sense for him here to think about his career at this stage and added the gravity of this being THE moment to decide whether to keep pursuing the sport or take over his dad’s restaurant (they even adapted the type of food they cook to match the cultural impact of the family-owned business, which was great).

I think the two complemented each other really well and worked interestingly together, in a way I didn’t think the drama was gonna give them time to do, so I’m really pleased.

#4 Qiao Chen (Momoshiro Takeshi) & Zhang BaiYang (Kaidoh Kaoru)

My younger self is thriving with this one being included tbh. These two were so much fun in the anime, two rivals and opposites that represented the future of the team upon their elders leaving.

I was surprised to see them so focused here, because it’s not a relationship most adaptations put emphasis on (their loss), but it paid off immensely by the time their game against Bunta and Jackal (Jin WenTai & Ke Jie) came around.

Kaidoh is a tough one to adapt most times, and they did him so well in this one, I think this is my favorite live action Kaidoh in any adaptation, and I’ve watched a whole bunch of tenimyu in my day. They really captured the ambiguity of his character, how he balances a tough exterior with a sensitive core. Qiao Chen maintained his feelings for Xu Xingzi (Tachibana Ann) but that didn’t stop them from showing these two every time they could.

#3 Mu Siyang (Tezuka Kunimitsu) & Ji Jingwu (Atobe Keigo)

Oh, these two. Hyotei (Xing Yao) wasn’t featured as much as one would probably expect (I’m a Fudomine fan and with Yu Feng I got more than I even was expecting, but I admit Hyotei is a riot and I always live my best life when they show up). Still, they did the Tezuka/Atobe match justice and then some.

Mu Siyang was incredibly compelling as Tezuka, and had a vulnerability to him that made me worry for his health more than I probably did for his anime counterpart. Maybe also the fact that he was older than his anime version yet looked younger than him made it sink more that his injury was something to worry about. I wish we had time to include anime!Tezuka’s issues with yips with Siyang, because I know the drama would have pulled it off, but that was further down the line in the story. Maybe for a season 2.

Anyway, the Atobe/Tezuka game is one of the best games in tenipuri history and the drama knew it. The game felt like it earned its gravity with the development of both Siyang’s injury and Ji Jingwu’s determination to play against him. Then they sprinkled the camp on top, as the anime does, with Ji Jingwu paying for his every expense and calling him to get updates, which is 100% canon compliant imo.

I feel like Ji Jingwu didn’t have enough room to be as much of Atobe as he could be, but then again, that’s not easy for anyone to pull off. Not even Kato Kazuki can do Junichi Suwabe as well as Junichi Suwabe.

#2 Bai ShiYan (Yukimura Seiichi) & Tian ZiLong (Sanada Genichirou)

So, it’s tough to feel for Rikkai (Hai Guang) at this point of the story. You learn about Yukimura’s health and it’s difficult, but you just met them and the first impressions haven’t been great.

However, the relationship between Sanada and Yukimura has always been something pivotal for the way the team is constructed (they were named that way for a reason, two parts of a same hero and all that) and they sustain the team in a way other teams don’t have to. They are the mom and dad of the team, the coaches, the leaders and the pillars. They have a balance of severity and permissiveness, of strictness and instinct. They are like a couple who has been married for 25 years.

How on Earth, I asked myself, will they achieve that with censorship on the way? I don’t know, but they did it, the mad bastards.

It really does come through 100% the importance of their relationship and the way in which the captain’s health affects the team and, more than anything, their vice captain. It reaches a crescendo during the final match, before ShiYan’s operation, and they manage to pull it off with the time they have.

Also, their scenes are like shot for a contemporary romance drama and I appreciate that vibe.

#1 Tang JiaLe (Kikumaru Eiji) & Chi DaYong (Oishi Shuichiro)

Oh boy. Look. I still own Golden Pair merchandise from my Days, ok? These two hold a special place in my heart. I saw actors who portrayed them grow up, succeed and pass away, sadly. I still sing Depend On Me sometimes. There is a cheerful vibe with these two, a sense of overcoming obstacles and finding balance, I don’t know. Fuji is my favorite character but these two are special in their way.

This freakin’ drama just went full on Golden Pair. The level of content was off the charts. The moment they came on the screen, the second they talked about their doubles, it was already setting the tone of how deep their relationship was going to go. I am a bit amazed that they avoided to get closed down for this ngl. And I appreciate the risk because it paid off.

They have a body language communication that is captured in every shot. Even when they’re not the focus of the scene, they’re close, touching or holding each other, arms around each other, hands on each other’s shoulders, grabbing each other’s clothes. When they fight, that language changes drastically, and the distance they take feels intense and cold. You go through it with them and the team shows it as well. There’s an entire episode I had screencaps of and never posted when the team falls apart because they do.

My favorite part, though, ironically, isn’t what they did with them together but what they did with them apart. They took time to develop them as individual characters with their own issues, their fears, their worries and weaknesses. They were allowed to be flawed and wrong and have to mend their ways.

What really got me and impacted me deeply was the fact that they chose DaYong to talk about mental health. They gave room to speaking about the physical implications of anxiety disorders and about how self esteem issues can give more magnitude to ongoing issues with your mental health. Again, the age of the characters being changed helped add a depth to some issues that get developed with more intensity in a drama of this kind, and the way in which it takes TIME to get resolved, it isn’t a one episode thing, it’s an underlying issue that spans the season...*chef’s kiss*

Even though there’s a specific tenimyu incarnation of these two that I hold dear and will always remember fondly, I think that Xu Ke and Zhu ZhiLing are the most successful and best portrayed live action Golden Pair I’ve ever seen.

Bonus that was in the montage but it’s specifically about a family relationship: The Zhuo Bros

I have said Fuji has always been my favorite and his relationship with Yuta as an older brother (albeit he’s not the eldest sibling like me) is one I always felt close to.

In the anime, the two have a rocky relationship that gets developed throughout, but the drama is very good at establishing not only Zhuo Yu’s (Fuji Yuta) self esteem issues, the subsequent use of that Guan Yue (Mizuki Hajime) does and Zhuo Zhi’s (Fuji Syusuke) attempts to breach the gap between the siblings, they also use it to develop Zhuo Zhi’s character and his reticence to show weakness.

It’s tough to get Fuji towards a place of vulnerability without breaking character, but they used family and the care he provides to his brother as a point to further his story, and I appreciate that a lot. They managed to build Zhuo Zhi up with this sibling bond as one of his core elements, and that gave a lot of dimension to his games and his character.

Bonus that wasn’t in the montage but I’m including in some capacity: Mu Siyang (Tezuka Kunimitsu) & Zhuo Zhi (Fuji Syusuke)

I thought these two deserved a place in the list, even if they weren’t grouped much in the montage, because the drama did make them share moments together that I feel gave more depth to their characters.

There was a very interesting moment in which they showed Mu Siyang and Zhuo Zhi establishing their differences when approaching tennis, and how serious Mu Siyang is about taking the team to victory. I think that strengthened the character as a captain to me, in a way that shows it rather than tells it, and allowed for his guidance to still be present when he wasn’t physically there. His determination ultimately influenced Zhuo Zhi to take things more seriously, and that was a pretty interesting development to see.

All in all, I should, at some point, go and do a serious review for MyDramaList but I wanted to leave in my blog how much I appreciated this adaptation. I wasn’t expecting much and I was delivered everything.

58 notes · View notes

truthofherdreams · 7 years ago

Text

is this clickbait? (2)

also on ao3 + read the first instalment

BOYFRIEND DOES MY MAKEUP ft. Peter Kavinsky

Song Not-Bakery • 5.6M views • 4 days ago

“Hi everyone and welcome back to my second channel!” she greets the camera the way she usually does. “Today my boyfriend does my makeup and we’re here with Peter who’s, erh. My boyfriend.”

He’s already laughing. “Why do you have to say it so weird?” he teases her, his voice high-pitched from his giggles.

“I don’t know?” she replies in the same tone, looking away from the camera to stare at him. He’s got his bottom lip stuck between his teeth as he looks at her, and she forgets they’re filming, just for a second. And then she snaps out of it, focusing back on the camera. “So, yeah. It’s actually something I jokingly mentioned when Peter and I started filming together, and people have actually been requesting it a lot so…”

Kitty will edit screencaps of comments asking for this very same video in post-prod, she knows, the way she always does when people keep badgering her with the same thing over and over again. That’s how she ended up doing a fridge and pantry tour a few months ago, and a house tour too. People are damn too nosy for their own good.

“So here I am. Making a fool of myself on the Internet.”

She can’t help but laugh at Peter’s comment, just a little. “As opposed to?” she teases, and laughs some more at the way Peter’s nose wrinkles when he makes a face at her. “Anyway, I gave Peter my makeup bag, and he chose a tutorial from RomanticRonny to follow, ‘cause he obviously needs guidelines.”

“Obviously,” he scoffs. A pause. “Yeah, it’s helpful, don’t judge me.”

“Also, if you don’t already know, Veronica is moving to LA very soon and we’re all super excited about it,” Lara Jean adds, with a little wink to the camera. “So, which tutorial did you choose?”

“Well, you’re usually low-key with your makeup, so I picked something a little more bright and colourful for a change. It’s called ‘Faux Freckles and Sunset’,” Peter provides, doing little waves with his fingers to where Kitty will add the thumbnail to the video later.

Lara Jean hides her smirk. “You’re aware eyeshadow is very different on monolids, right?”

Peter pauses, looking back at her, horror on his features. He freezes for a few seconds, before he turns back to the video and pretends to stands up. “And that’s it for today guys, don’t forget to subscribe and…”

“Sit down,” she laughs. “I’ll help you.”

“Well, if you’ll help me…” he grumbles for show, sitting back down. He grabs a brush then, to brandish it in front of the camera. “Anyway, let’s get started!”

Lara Jean presses the play button on the video, already loaded on her laptop in front of them. It opens on Veronica’s final look as she greets her viewers and showcase the makeup tutorial, doing a few close-ups on the faux freckles and the eyeshadow work. It looks simple but beautiful, yet Lara Jean has no doubt Peter will struggle a little bit.

“She’s so pretty,” she can’t help but comment at Veronica’s baby doll face.

“She looks like the chick from Lucifer,” Peter adds.

Her mouth opens a little at the accuracy of his comment. “Oh my god, you’re so right!”

He preens a little, before he focuses back on the eyeshadow palette Veronica showcases on the video. “Hold on, hold on, wait, you don’t do foundation first?”

“No, eyes first.”

“Whoa, okay.” He watches as Veronica applies the first colour to her lids, before he pauses the video. “Okay, let’s try this. We don’t have the same palette but this colour looks close enough so that will do. Close your eyes.”

She’s laughing a little at how serious he is about it, but does as she’s told anyway, closing her eyes and facing him. She didn’t realise how intimate that would be, one of his legs between hers so they can sit close enough to each other, his fingers delicate as he holds her chin. He’s so close she can feel his breath on her mouth, and it only makes her want to kiss him. Which would ruin the shot, but oh well.

He softly applies pigment to her lid, then sits back to look at the result and hum his approval to himself, which makes her smile a little more.

“Don’t do that, it makes your eyes crinkle.”

“Well, excuse me for being happy,” she teases, and laughs harder when he taps her nose with one finger.

But then she sits straighter too, relaxing her features in a neutral expression. She wouldn’t want to make it harder on him, when he’s trying his best to do something decent. He plays and pauses the video a lot, to make sure he follows the instructions as accurately as possible. Eye shadow doesn’t seem to be too much of a disaster, but then he’s swearing a lot when it comes to eyeliner and mascara, giving Kitty a run for her money in blipping it all out.

“Okay, it’s not too bad,” he comments. “Oh she’s doing foundation now, cool.”

“Tell the audience why you chose that tutorial,” she prompts him as she opens her eyes again.

He’s rummaging through the mess of her makeup bag to find her foundation and a brush, before she guides him to the right one and to her beauty blender. “Cause there’s no contouring in this one.”

“Peter is scared of contouring,” she comments for her viewers.

“Am not!” he replies, almost offended. “It’s just a lot. And I like a more natural look on you.” Then, to the camera, “Who needs sharp cheekbones when you’ve got that pretty round face.”

She’s melting, just a little. “Awww, Pete.”

“Like a donut.”

“…And you ruined it.”

Her does The Face at her – when he grins so much his smile is all dimples and his eyes close almost entirely – before he goes back to the foundation. Which is kind of a mess, and she’s trying her best not to burst into laughter when he goes to town on her face with the beauty blender. She isn’t sure how effective it’ll be, cause he’s getting rid of half the product as he goes, but at least he’s having fun.

“I like how none of those brands are Western, by the way,” he comments as he shows her concealer to the camera, two fingers holding the tube with his hand behind it for the autofocus. A real beauty guru through and through.

“Yeah, it’s all Korean,” she grins. She can feel him drawing the triangle of concealer under her eyes, which might actually do a good job of hiding her never-disappearing bags. “When we go there, half the budget is for food, the other half for beauty products.”

He’s back to dabbing with the beauty blender again when he says, “And because people are going to be asking, yeah, we’re planning a trip to Korean next summer.”

She’s smiling now, chin dropping a little to hide her emotions from the camera, to which Peter replies with a large grin of his own, shaking his head a little in a silly way to mimic her and make her smile even more. Which is working, obviously.

(And if they have to cut there because he drops a quick kiss to her lips… Well. Nobody needs to know.)

“Do I need to fill your eyebrows in?” he asks next, and she’s once again stricken by how earnest he sounds.

It took them a few months to get to this video, if only because Peter was quite reluctant to do it – all because of Gen. He’d told Lara Jean that he’d asked Gen to do that kind of video before, once upon a time when they were dating, but she’d outright refused. Stated that he would only mess it up and make her look bad, and it’s not something she wanted for her modelling career. Lara Jean had (silently) called bullshit the moment he’d explained, but she could understand how he was feeling about it.

How he still feels, careful not to mess it up, to do something good so she will be pleased and happy about him. Not for the first time, she’s saddened by how insidious a toxic relationship can be to someone like Peter, too kind and too people-pleasing.

“Only if they look too powdery,” she explains.

He leans in closer, frowning at her eyebrows, before he blows on them softly. It tickles a bit and makes her laugh, to which Peter replies with a smile. “It’s fine. Also, no lipstick, your mouth is fine.”

“Your mouth is fine too.”

He grins. “You’re welcome.” Then he’s grabbing her chin again, his fingers soft against her skin as he turns her head this and that way to check up on his work, before he nods sagely. “Good. Freckles now.”

It goes a little bit faster from there, hand-poking faux freckles on her nose and cheekbones in different eyebrow pencil colours to make them look natural, before he dabs them with a beauty blender. Before she knows it, he’s nodding again and grabbing a round mirror.

“You ready?” he asks, eager and excited.

She loves him so much it hurts.

“Yeah, show me,” she replies, clapping her hands before raising them in front of her mouth.

He flips the mirror over so she can see her reflection, and her mouth opens in surprise.

“Oh my god, Pete,” she whispers as she leans in closer to the mirror.

The blending on her eyelids need a bit of work, and her eyeliner is definitely wonky, but the faux freckles look amazing, and the warm colour palette on her eyes looks amazing. He really did take care of all the details, and so she leans closer to the camera so the audience can look at the results too.

“You like it?” he asks, suddenly shy and nervous.

Her boyfriend. Her beautiful, amazing boyfriend.

“I love it!” she exclaims. “It’s so different, wow! Look at those colours!”

And if many people comment about how he’s blushing and looking at her adoringly, well. It’s nice to brag about how awesome Peter is, once in a while. He deserves it, if anything else.

Gabe Rivera ✓2 days ago

GUYS TONE IT DOWN THERE ARE KIDS WATCHING!!!!!

View 47 replies v

RomanticRonny ✓1 day ago

Awwwww you guys! Peter did such a good job! Can’t wait to meet you all next month!

View 51 replies v

bellyrubs 2 days ago

I know we’re all always commenting on the way LJ looks at him in the vlogs but can we talk about how SOFT Peter is around her? How he was delicately holding her face? The compliments all through the video? How pleased he was that she liked the look? We stan one perfect boyfriend.

View 35 replies v

CovinskyIsLove 3 days ago

doctor: you only have 16:47 minutes to live

me: *clicks on this video*

View 29 replies v

HairyPouter 4 days ago

last time I came this early Gen was still in the vlogs

View 8 replies v

#covinsky #covinsky ff #covinsky fanfic #to all the boys I've loved before #fanfic #ff: tatbilb #ff: do it for the views

38 notes · View notes

muthaz-rapapa · 8 years ago

Photo

Finished!

Had to cut it in half. Original file was so huge. xD;

Note: I’ve only gone back as far as Yes! 5 (season-wise) though that seemed to have worked out perfectly cuz I can’t find anything from Futari Wa to Splash that meet the rules I set up for this mini-project.

Which can be found under the cut along with further comments...

Screenshot guidelines:

Has to be taken from stock footage (therefore, excludes anyone who’s not a main Cure).

Every Cure should have their own personal item, if applicable.

Item used must be handheld. Therefore, accessories = no. Also, personal preference really but anything that does not remotely resemble a “weapon” in my book (like Doki Doki’s Magical Lovely Pad) is excluded.

Item needs to produce an actual attack or some form of defense from it (ex. the makeup pens from HaCha do not count b/c they only applied power and were not used as an active weapon).

Character’s face should be seen alongside the item they’re holding and/or should not be obscured by item too much. Close-ups preferred.

Entirety of the item, or at least the central part of it, should fit within the screenshot.

Try to find the frame that shows both Cure and item at their most dynamic. Things to take into consideration: pose, lighting, camera angle, any intricate designs to display, etc.

Comments:

Yes! 5 - Debated back and forth on this since Mint and Lemonade don’t really hold their items during actual combat but decided to include the set anyway since they all pose with their devices before using them for their attacks.

Yes! 5 GoGo - See here.

Fresh - Peach and Berry were easy enough to choose for as was Passion who got narrowed down to two frames. Naturally, I chose the frame where her index finger didn’t look like it’s been broken in three different places. o.O; Pine, however, was a bit harder. Surprisingly, she had a lot of very flattering shots. A few were even better than the one I chose but I wanted the Pine Flute to be showcased as a flute more than as a...stick. So it was just a matter of looking for the right frame.

Heartcatch - Not much to say here except that I love this season~ <3

Suite - Not much to comment here, either. Although the rods do look incomplete without the Fairy Tones. Oh, and the screenshot for Beat went through several switches before I settled on my first choice. It doesn’t show the whole guitar but Beat looks the nicest from that angle.

Smile - See here.

Doki Doki* - Issue #1 - I don’t know why (maybe it’s the video quality that��s supposed to be HD or probably b/c the Cures are moving/spinning too fast) but the shots I took all came out very blurry for some reason. Not that you can tell I hope since it’s been resized but... Issue #2 - Diamond. There are seriously no frames where she and her Love Heart Arrow look good, or even half-decent, in together. Which bums me out cuz I like her the best out of this group. :( I suppose that’s it. For Rosetta and Sword, I wasn’t expecting their best-looking shots to turn out that way but out of all the ones I took, those were the most photogenic. And can you believe how obscene the Love Kiss Rouge looks when Ace holds it out before yelling “Bakkun~!”? o.O;

Happiness Charge - Speaks for itself. Next.

Go! Princess* - Mermaid’s case is like Diamond’s except it’s not that she doesn’t have any good shots. It’s just that none of them includes both her and her rod within the same frame. The most you see of it is the Elegant Key attached at the top. As for Twinkle, I’m not satisfied with my choice because she simply has too many good frames to choose from! There are two that display her (upside down) rod’s details very nicely, though her face is a little obscured by it but nonetheless, still stunning and badass. Then there’s another where she holds it horizontally above her head but then, you lose the intricacies of the rod’s design. So I settled for something in the middle, which also happens to be her best profile shot.

Mahou Tsukai - Yea, in this respect, the sub-attacks fit the list of requirements better than the finishers do. And if I never came up with the idea to do this, I don’t think I ever would’ve noticed the difference in the shaft width between Miracle and Magical’s wands shut up, it’s a wand, not a stick. Miracle’s is very thick while Magical’s is noticeably much thinner. Wonder if that was intentional or just an animation flaw. And, well, you can’t really see the body of the Flower Echo Wand too well but it doesn’t matter cuz Felice is so beautiful~ <3

Kira Kira a la Mode - See here for comments on first five. As for Parfait, there may be some better sub-attack footage later on (really, that’s the best screencap I can get of her and her Rainbow Ribbon) but I’m not patient enough to wait for it so I’m either going to stick with this as the final version or re-edit it later. I dunno. *shrug*

That was fun. I wonder what else can I compare next. 83

#wonder if I should just edit this post or start a new one for next year's :/#kira kira precure a la mode #mahou tsukai precure #go! princess precure #happiness charge precure #doki doki precure #smile precure #suite precure #heartcatch precure #fresh precure #yes! pretty cure 5 go go #yes! 5 precure

16 notes · View notes

yoshicraft2011 · 8 years ago

Text

#2K11 Behind the Mac: Highways (Series One, Videos 1-1 thru 1-5)

Welcome to a new series of blog posts I’m calling “#2K11 Behind the Mac″, where I detail various things from the music in my videos to how they were produced in the first place. Why do my trip reports use SimCity music? What's with the strange video titles? I’ll attempt to answer these questions and more in this series.

This inaugural blog post covers Series One of my road videos, from videos 1-1 thru 1-5. All these videos were uploaded between February 14, 2015 and March 28, 2015. That's five videos within one and a half months! I would never dare upload that many videos at once these days due to the fear of running out of footage.

These were all made before I joined the Freewayjim Facebook (which I wasn't accepted in before then because my Facebook looked spammy or something). All of these videos are pretty much crap, filmed on an iPhone 5S using Hyperlapse by Instagram using the cheapest mount available: my hands. Yeah, I have no idea how I did it either. Anyways, enough of my rambling. Let’s begin.

(1-1) Summerlin and the Southwest: CC 215, the Las Vegas Beltway

youtube

This is the first road video I ever made, and it sucks. It sucks so bad. The intro isn't terrible, just a simple scroll through of the route from Charleston to Buffalo on the 215. And then the actual video starts...

I'm assuming you've already watched the video, so the following should all make sense. Terrible camera angle (gee, wonder why), gigantic annotations with a blocky box thing, and over-contrasted colors. The graphics in retrospect were actually quite decent, but they were too small. I obviously had no idea what I was doing.

What's interesting to note is that the end card used in this video is the same design I'm still using to this day, just modified over the years to include more stuff and make it more aesthetically pleasing. There were also variable speeds, which not many people do when they're starting out.

Thanks to Hyperlapse by Instagram, the video was surprisingly stable thanks to the app's video stabilization technology. However, that also means that videos are limited to 720p.

My first ever road video has quite the fitting song, Kings & Queens by Brooke Fraser. Here’s the chorus of it:

We've got a long way to go but we got the energy It took a little while to find reality We've come a long way you know, living inside a dream Waking to find that we are kings and queens

Okay, here's the backstory of the video. It showcases the drive home from Costco. That's it. Isn't that inspiring? This is where I would like to say again that I prefer to film roads I just so happen to be on rather than going my way out. Yes, this is mostly because I don't have a driver's permit yet, but I don't want to beg my dad to drive places just for the sake of filming roads.

(1-2) I-15 North during Dawn, The Las Vegas Strip

youtube

This is my first road video that features an intro. I know, how amazing. The track used was Summit by Wax Stag, which would be used for all my videos until around the end of 2015. Before this, I used a very dumb intro for my other videos basically knocking off the Mac start-up sequence.

Continuing with my theme of inspiring backstories, this used to be my commute from home to Hyde Park Middle School near Charleston and Valley View. I go to high school now, so obviously, it's no longer relevant.

Anyways, this video is at least somewhat watchable. Again, the camera is angled inconsistently, but the video quality itself is okay and the graphics are fine. It's outdated now since I've made two seequel videos, Dawn Redone and Dawn Redone Redone, but it's still an okay watch.

The track I used for this video is One Look by LVTHER, begining my trend of using tracks from the Monstercat label. Hey, all they do is demonotize videos, not block it from the US and hundreds of other countries.

(1-3) NV 592, Flamingo Road Eastbound to the Strip

youtube

With a new video comes a new innovation, a map card. Back then, I had no consistent template for these things, just slap a Google Maps screencap and some text and call it a day. Nowadays, I use a template for all my map cards.

Is there an interesting backstory this time? Not in the slightest. We were going to the Strip to look at Chinese New Year decorations and whatnot. It's at least more interesting than going to school. The video itself is, again, somewhat watchable. Most of the same issues from 1-2 carries over to 1-3.

The music? It's The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone) by U2, featured in the Songs of Innocence album Apple gave out. I have no idea why I chose that particular song to be completely honest.

(1-4) Rainbow Blvd in Vegas between Robindale and Spring Mtn (Sort Of)

youtube

This video is just plain weird. It features two different parts with two different tracks, something I wouldn't ever do nowadays. Not only that, but when the video was first uploaded, the first part, featuring the Toad's Turnpike music from Mario Kart 64 (don't ask me why), had bizzarely low quality audio. Finally, I had a "Today's Feature" graphic, which existed for this video and this video only. That's certainly not up to MUTCD standards!

It's another uninspiring road video featuring an uninspiring backstory, going to and from some place. I removed the box thing around the annotations starting with this video since it was distracting, inflexible, and due to iMovie's dumb one image rule, was prohibitive in the long run. Otherwise, most of the other Series One quirks remain.

The second track was Pinup by Televisor, the first of several tracks I'd eventually use from them. It's a funky track, but it doesn't really fit the road. Nowadays, they're no longer signed to Monstercat.

(1-5) NV 592 At Dusk - Flamingo Road Westbound

youtube

This was my first dusk video, and it was pretty bad. I don't go to the Eastside of town that often, so for once, I found this trip relatively exciting. The video itself would be okay if the iPhone 5S didn't record potato quality video at night. Otherwise, most of the Series One quirks remain.

This time, however, the end card is a green screen. If you don't know what that means, I used a green background for the end card and overlayed it over the footage for a cool effect. Nowadays, I only green screen the map card.

The track I used for this video was Breakdown VIP by Noisestorm (misspelled as Noisestrom as in the Nordstrom department store). It's a really punchy drumstep track that fits perfectly with the nighttime Las Vegas atmosphere.

Conclusion

The first part of Series One was an interesting test, before I joined the Freewayjim group and before I was even recognized by someone other than myself. It's a unique experience that I'll never forget, whether it's a good or bad thing.

In the next part, I'll detail videos 1-6A thru 1-8, the last four videos in Series One, before the kind folks from the road filming community convinced me to buy an actual camcorder. Thanks for reading, and as always, safe travels.

0 notes