My Scary Self

I spent most of yesterday editing video, then most of last night editing video in my sleep. It's not so much the actual editing as it is the tinkering with making the program do exactly what I want that's the challenge. I think iMovie was designed for fairly straightforward projects like putting together your vacation video into a single presentation. Also, it has an extensive sound effects library without a single good "thud." You know, the sound makes when a body hits the floor. It doesn't have to be a dead body. It could just be a faint. I suspect that's a far more useful sound effect than "sea lion bark." Which it has. But I think my project is mostly done unless I need to tinker with the sound.

Scrolling through all those sound effects gave me all sorts of other crazy ideas for things I could do, though perhaps as a podcast rather than as a movie. And I need to get my hands on some old 1880s-1890s film footage to make a book trailer for the new novel. Then the next step will be enlisting my friends into crazy projects. This way lies madness.

There is something scary about me on camera, though. When people take still photos of me, even if I'm laughing and having a good time while doing it, there's always one shot in which I look totally evil in a way that nobody noticed in real life that only showed on camera. While editing video and going frame-by-frame to catch the right edit point, I've found that something similar happens. I'll be smiling and looking genial, but then there will be one frame in which I have this "DIE!!!!" look in my eyes, and it's gone in the next frame. Apparently, I have an evil alter ego that occasionally peeks out for a split second.

Also, I'm disturbingly good at playing "so perky that it comes across as slightly deranged." Sort of the Stepford Effect.

The fall TV season really gets going this week, and I'm trying to figure out my watch live/tape to watch later in the evening/watch OnDemand the next day schedule. Having HD now makes that harder. If I wait a day, I can watch in HD rather than on tape. With some networks, that also affects the aspect ratio. NBC and Fox letterbox, but ABC and CBS just crop the frame for non-HD, which is annoying. I think I'll watch Person of Interest live after ballet, since they don't do OnDemand. Then I'll get NCIS tomorrow night after choir. Thursday in between Parks and Recreation and Elementary I can watch the finale of Broadchurch. Chicago Fire and CSI may get shifted to Sunday afternoon while I eat lunch and do crossword puzzles. Post-Broadchurch, I can move one of them to Thursdays. I could also move one to Fridays, at least until Grimm starts again. This all means I'll get a lot of knitting done, which is good because I've got several projects I need to finish in a fairly tight timeframe.