Posts by Crux

5

Did you see the movie "Paranormal Activity"? What'd you think of it?

by Nathan Natas in

jw
friends

i thought it made "the blair witch project" look like shakespeare's "macbeth".. what a piece of purest drivel!

.

i'm glad i waited to see it on directv rather than see it in the theater..

Crux

I disagree. They both did essentially the same thing. Low budget indy film, marketed really well. But Paranormal Activity has some things going for it. On a psychological level PA does an incredible job at suggestion horror, no shock and sfx/gore to keep the suspense up. Making you afraid of just a camera angle, "oh no, whats going to happen now!" Also the character interaction is far superior in PA, there are several minutes where not much happens, but you don't get bored, you like the couple and care about what happens to them. I dont' know about you but by the end of The Blair Witch Project I was just like get on with it and die already!

I've actually been looking forward to watching it again at home because I think seeing it in the theater only made the movie better. It's MUCH more fun watching any horror movie when there are freaked out college girls behind you, or a packed theater with people screaming. I remember smiling through several scary scenes though because I thought they were just done so well, and after the movie standing up and this girl behind me who was freaked out for most of it says why are you laughing it's not funny! Oh good times!

I did not care for the ending. Apparently Spielberg watched the movie for this guy and made the suggestion to use one of the alternates for the theater release, but it seemed a little out of place. I wish he would have gone with the original ending (which you can read about on the wikipedia page if you are interested).

But all in all I would rate it favorably. I'll have to watch it again for anything more definitive than that.

2

Disney is as Evil as people say they are...

by Tuesday in

jw
friends

hello folks,.

thought i'd share my experience trying to go through the proper channels to get permission to use a clip on youtube.

i recently found a notebook of mine with my old schedule from when i was 16 in it which prompted me to try and make a video regarding the schedule.

Crux

Reminded me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1uI24zE-3g#t=1m40s

1

Proper procedure - flow - for projects composed in Adobe CS4?

by sinis in

jw
friends

thanks to everyone who answered my cs4 ae questions.

after doing some more research and posting on other boards, i was under the impression that the whole composition was done in ae.

appearently not.

Crux

I've never used any other adobe products outside of PS and AE. In general though what you describe could all be done in Windows Movie Maker, so I imagine you could do everything in Premiere. What you describe really isn't all that involved so having to use multiple programs shouldn't be necessary.

This is the way I would do it.

1) Form the video with no effects. Insert all of the pictures and video clips and get them in order and all the timing the way you want.

2) Add the effects. Transitions between each picture might be a nice touch ^_^ Add in your old timey filters and text.

3) Audio. Insert the mp3 to the audio track, edit as needed. Now if you want to be fancy you can put the music in as the very first thing you do and time picture transitions with beat/rhythm of the music.

4) Export.

SAVE OFTEN. I would also recommend saving off copies of the project during different stages incase you decide you want to try something else, then it won't be that much of a hassle to try something different.

8

Anyone here know how to use CS4 After Effects?

by sinis in

jw
friends

trying to do a small project.

basically i have still images that i want to make into an avi.

ok, so i have my images, with added effects, which show on individual lines, this is correct, right?

Crux

ok, i got to messing around now that i am home. The 3 second limit is on a total composition. You want to make the composition the length of the entire film. The composition is the most important first step. Its the base for everything else. So if I understand correctly you are importing pictures. Once you have a picture in your project window you can simply drag it to the comp window or to your timeline. From there you can drag the timeline bar for each picture to the length of time you want it to be and move it around on the time line to the right place.

I don't think you were doing the comp right whcih caused your export problems. I had no problems making a quick video a minute long which a couple pictures. Now I'm using an older version of AE but exporting should be the same. I usually go composition > Add to render queue then adjust the setting to what I want. Or you can go to File > Export > AVI... and achieve the same results.

Hope this helps.

51

JW Tall Tales

by lancelink in

recently i was cleaning my bookcase and found an old book that i enjoyed as a child.

it had stories in it such as paul bunyan, pecos bill, and john henry.

while these stories are fictional, i enjoyed them because they were entertaining, and easy to understand.. fast forward to the late 70's when i was a teenager sitting at the ca hall in janesville wisconsin.. the speaker was explaining the great sacrifice god made in sending his son down to earth to die for all mankind.

Crux

Oh that reminds me! A reason for not using drugs was once you drop your mental guard you allow the demons in!

51

JW Tall Tales

by lancelink in

recently i was cleaning my bookcase and found an old book that i enjoyed as a child.

it had stories in it such as paul bunyan, pecos bill, and john henry.

while these stories are fictional, i enjoyed them because they were entertaining, and easy to understand.. fast forward to the late 70's when i was a teenager sitting at the ca hall in janesville wisconsin.. the speaker was explaining the great sacrifice god made in sending his son down to earth to die for all mankind.

Crux

This actually did happen.

A friend of mine who was a pioneer at the time and was having a rough time finacially had a blowout and was running on a spare not able to afford new tires. After about a week of stressing he came home to find four brand new tires with a note that said "From Jehovah".

Despite what some people think, sometimes there is actual loving kindness amongst the jw's.

On the flip side, I had two close friends (twin brothers) who had a hard time distingushing imagination from reality. That's another way to say they lied constantly, about everything. A lot of moving tables, floating cats/animals acting wierd, unexplainable and mysterious noises. All of it was of course demons. I let them borrow a video game one time and had it promptly returned to me due to the fact that apparently once the laser hit the disc it released a demon into the house (my words not theirs). Not that they were particularly religious, just impressionable... oh and liars. :P And by the way, they didn't have an answer for why I never had "demon problems" despite the fact that apparently several of my possessions were possessed.

How sad is this though, I actually used to reason with myself that the reason I never had demon problems was because the demons knew I had doubts, so if anything ever did happen it would solidify my beliefs, so they chose to not interfere.

41

Is regularly texting/phoning someone (not your partner) cheating?

by sacdfan in

jw
friends

hello - can i ask you all for your opinions?.

if your partner (husband/wife, gf/bf etc) was phoning and texting someone approx 20 times per day,would you find it unacceptable?

for example, if your wife was texting/phoning another brother (also married) 20 to 30 times a day, would you get suspicious?

Crux

Steal the cell when they are in the shower and read the texts!

And it's not cheating until you know all the facts. Supposing it all is innocent, it's inappropriate at worst.

Movie Review: Moon

by Crux in

special note: from time to time i enjoy reviewing movies for fun.

my reviews are always 100% spoiler free.

i don't do extensive reviews to often, only when i think a movie is worth sharing.

Crux

Special Note: From time to time I enjoy reviewing movies for fun. My reviews are always 100% spoiler free. I don't do extensive reviews to often, only when I think a movie is worth sharing. There's to much mediocrity out there to get stuck doing 3-4 star reviews.

Movie Review: Moon

Moon is a sci-fi/psychodrama starring Sam Rockwell (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) and is the directorial debut of Duncan Jones. The film features music by Clint Mansell, who is in my opinion one of the greatest soundtrack composers of the past decade.

Rockwell plays Sam Bell, an employee for Lunar Industries who is contracted to maintain a mining station on the surface of the Moon which extracts Helium-3 from the soil and sends it back to Earth as a source of clean energy. He shares the station with only his robot friend GERTY, who is voiced by Kevin Spacey. Due to equipment failure, the live link to Earth is broken and Sam is stuck with only being able to send and recieve recorded messages from Lunar and his wife Tess and 3 year old daughter, Eve. Sam is contracted to be on the Moon for 3 years, but 2 weeks before his contract is up he starts having hallucinations, and he discovers thing are not what they seem. (insert dramatic hamster)

Rockwell provides an amazing performance, which is good, since he's the only actor you see for 97 minutes. I loved the way GERTY was protrayed as well, emotion being shown by a 6 inch square screen that displays an emoticon. The film is an exceptional entry into a not too often explored genre, Roger Ebert called it hard science fiction. Interestingly the film was screened at NASA at the request of a professor due to the movies focus on Helium-3 mining.

As for me, I thought old school. From the retro sets to the few moments you might be reminiscent of 2001: A Space Oddessey. Though keep in mind the originality of this film keeps it well away from feeling anything like a knockoff, and carries itself well in this impressive look into what it means to be human.

5 out of 5 stars!

34

CONGRATULATE ME.....

by troubled mind in

jw
friends

i sent my son a link to the thread about facebook sex because i thought it was so funny ..... today he sent me an email and told me he has joined the forum !!

i haven't told him my name on here yet, i want him to see if he can figure it out first .. .

someone else should start a thread for me and ask : " crux have you found your mommy yet ?

Crux

So I feel like sharing. There is no point here soooo yeah!

I was raised a JW, catching fireflies after the bookstudy at our house when I was little. Our hall was always full of younglings, like, 40+ under 21. So I always had a few friends my age. Most of them did the whole get baptized young and get married by 18. I didn't get baptized until I was 18 or 19. I never agreed with making what was supposedly the most important decision in your life at age 13. Actually now that I think about it, every single one of the friends I had growing up are married. Except me. *clears throat* I'm single, 26 in 2 weeks, I have a stable well paying job, I love movies, pets, and laughing. I don't smoke and enjoy snuggling.

lol...moving on!

Same time I started college I joined a deaf congregation and taught myself sign language. I started out of neccesity (only hall with meetings on wednesday nights) due to conflicts with my classes, but stayed because I loved it. When I moved away for work I made sure there was a deaf congregation I could join.

Mom informs me that this is because I'm of a yonger generation. But I have never had any problems with JW's as a religion. When I started missing meetings, the days I would make it, I would always leave in a better mood. I enjoyed socializing before and after. I was never critical of how the WT/BS was all read paragraph answer question monatany. Maybe it was the language since signing is so descriptive, watching the WT DVD's always seemed different than reading them. Stuff made more sense, always felt like I was learning something. To this day one of the most emotionally stimulating moments in my life was being at the ASL (American Sign Language) Convention in NYC when they announced the Bible was translated and being released in DVD format. I feel privledged to have been there for that. I digress.

I stopped going to meetings because I started being a skeptical thinker, mix that with my ability to just not care about a lot of stuff, and I just simply stopped going. It was weird because at the time I had no explanation, even now it doesn't make much sense. Rather than making a decision not to go, I decided to not make any decision at all and would let meeting and study go without even thinking about it. I'm fond of saying these days that growing up as a JW I was always taught what to think not how to think. While this is true, part of me also thinks that religion isn't about thinking it's about feeling. And I always felt right as a witness.

Today I find myself in the position of being a little bit agnostic a little bit athiest. Questions about whether god exsists and what my purpose in life is, while intriguing and fun to ponder, are just not important questions to me. Unasnwerable=not important imo. If God exsists, I'll find out after I die ...or earlier, via angel with a hammer knocking at my door. :P But for now, I'm more interested in learning about life and the world and the universe by more tangible means. Which now that I think about is very ironic because I'm a huge fan of escapism, hahhaha.

Anyway. ramble ramble ramble.

34

CONGRATULATE ME.....

by troubled mind in

jw
friends

i sent my son a link to the thread about facebook sex because i thought it was so funny ..... today he sent me an email and told me he has joined the forum !!

i haven't told him my name on here yet, i want him to see if he can figure it out first .. .

someone else should start a thread for me and ask : " crux have you found your mommy yet ?

Crux

@auntbee

mom was like my first FB friend... i think i cried myself to sleep that night.

j/k! <3