Ernie's Interview with Professor Stephen Hawking

No! Of course it's not a real interview. I wanted to challenge (with the hopes of improving) my editing skills.

This project required about six hours of sitting in front of my computer just to research, locate, and download stills and flash video. Then, I had to convert the flash into mpeg and avi files in order to edit them in Premiere.

At times, I had to separate the audio from the video. Such was the case when I created the Hawking dialog. Speach synthesis was generated using the speak function in the software Movie Magic Screenwriter.



In all there are about seven layers of complexity in this project and another six hours of meshing all the elements together. After watching the final cut, I know there's lots of room for improvement. Primarily, I need to step up from Premiere to Final Cut Pro which means I need a new and more powerful computer to run FCP. Great... Certainly, I haven't truly maximized the potential of the platform I currently have. A few more projects with what I've got will convince me one way or the other. Still, it's tough being a one man show!

But for now, I'm pleased with my progress. For my next project, I'd like to try audio punch-ins, over-dubbing, and green screen video. Just to keep things interesting.

Hamabe Gasshuku and a Walk in the Woods

Every year, for the past eleven years, I've helped raise college scholarship funding for "at-risk" youth. A bunch of us karateka here in Northern California meet at a beach and donate money and buy T-shirts. The non-profit organization also raises funds from other sources. Over the years, we have supported several people up to Bachelor Degrees and technical degrees.

Pretty Girl - Cover (Pretty Boy/M2M)

Whenever I hear a song I want to learn how to play and make a part of my repetoire, inevitably the song is usually sung by a woman or women. From Bjork to Alison Kraus to Joni Mitchell, women have a musical voice that grips my heart at the intro.

Pretty Boy was a hit song in the 90's. M2M was a Norwegian pop music duo composed of two girls - Marion Elise Raven and Marit Elisabeth Larsen (Wikipedia).

To make this song my own, I had to change "boy" to "girl." I made my own guitar arrangement because other covers of this song I found on YouTube I found sadly lacking in rhythm and melody. Mine isn't perfect and as always, with my guitar playng, is a work in progress.

I play this song so much better off camera. It's not so much nerves, but impatience with the production process.



All the different ladies that have given me laughter, inspiration, an ear, and nourishment...this is dedicated to you!

Ernie's Randomania 1

Just some random goofiness:

Budo Rant #2

I don't get pissed off easily. I give most people a lot of wiggle room and forgiveness before I cast them off.

One problem with open forums on the internet is the vulnerablity to hate speech or unjustified negative comments. I've created a new rule for my YouTube account. I will delete negative comments made by people posting from "fake" channels. Fake channels on YouTube are created by people to be used to shield their identities from the public. These people are often referred to as "haters." I'm perfectly willing to accept negative/constructive criticism on my YouTube channel so long as I can respond back in the public forum to "real" accounts. I define a real account on YouTube as a channel that depicts the true identity of the member with a facial record, their real first name (at least), and original video content.

Here's an incident I recorded that I hope I'll never have to repeat:

Hakkakukei Nunchaku Episode 6 - Bonus

Here's the bonus footage promised:

It's a Cakewalk!

Actually, I'm demonstrating the fancy ringtones I have loaded on my cell phone with the aid of Cakewalk's audio production software Sonar 6.

Ernie's 5 Facts - Tag Game

Them YouTubers keep tagging me to say "5" of this or "5" of that...



This was a good exercise in organization and optimizing production and post-production time.

What's Bugging Wilson?

When I get really bored looking at my own blog and YouTube channel, I'll randomly enter in search words or I'll find a video (but not watch it) and click on related videos listed in the side bar.

I don't know how I arrived at YoolerTV. It's a Chinese YouTube channel that usually won't end up on an American/English search. Yet, here it is:



I have no idea what the girl is saying, or why Wilson the cat is so annoyed. The rest of YoolerTV seems to be a bit pervy. But, as an audio technician, I think those canned sound effects in the background are "corny cool!"

Hakkakukei Nunchaku Episode 5

This episode brings my first "How to Make Nunchaku" series to a close. But, it's not completely over. I've promised my YouTube viewers a demonstration of nunchaku techniques using the nunchaku I built from scratch.