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Don’t be alarmed – I didn’t really all of a sudden start celebrating Earth Day or anything.  But it does give me an excuse to finally get around to uploading the Spider-Man video we made back during IES.  Yes, this was about five and a half years ago, but I uhh   got distracted.

Some background: Bryan, Mikey, and I were in the same Jissen Nihongo 4 class during IES.  Hosoi-sensei’s theme for the final project was the environment.  We were broken up into 3 teams, with everyone having to write reports or something, then integrating that research and information into a video.  Somehow we were able to convince her to let us make a Spider-Man video (since Derek wore that costume every day) that was only loosely related to the environment, let alone the class project.  We filmed it on a Saturday outside the Techno Garden with Ari and Seth’s help.  Actually, I won’t go into what Seth did but it probably wouldn’t be considered help.  Oops!

We edited it at SALC, using some old computer maybe with Premiere 6.5?  I don’t really remember.  But I do remember that we were running low on time until the very last minute, editing and doing to voice over work while the other teams gave their presentations to a random assortment of Kanda kids.  But Hosoi-sensei knew that we were awesome anyway, so we got to show our video at the Sayonara Party.  Aoyagi-sensei came to the party just to watch the video, which was cool of him.  And of course we got an A.

The full title of the video is 地球環境保護戦士スパイダーマン, or something like “Earth Environment Protection Warrior Spider-Man” if you want to be weird.  I think Enviro-Warrior Spider-Man sounds more normal.  The result is a parody/homage to tokusatsu, pro-wrestling, etc. in the way that only a ghetto-yet-awesome college class project could turn out.

And here we go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7aYAhin4jY

And yes, I realize on YouTube I have the video listed as “Spider-Maso” in Japanese.  But it’s close and I don’t want to get hassled for copyright infringement or anything.  I dunno.

Me and Pat are sitting at Insight Communications, the cable people, and we’re hard at work. Originally I came to just meet with the regional manager to set up the connection between IUSTV and CATS, but we also got roped into helping them with some PSA/video stuff. What we’re really doing is helping them put together a PowerPoint, and making a 30 second PSA out of still photos. I think we’re going to walk out of 1 day of work with at least $500 each. NICE.

That’s all for now, just wanted to brag. I’m at work, remember?

Fairly eventful day means a fairly long blog post. Endure through it and read if you like.

Started off going out to Kaihim to start working on the Spiderman movie for Jissen Nihongo class. We planned on meeting and starting at noon, but of course the time kept getting moved back and we really ended up meeting around 3. First thing we had to do? Why, create Captain Kougai’s (the villain) costume. Basically, he had a claw and helmet made out of aluminum foil, shoulder pads made of plastic bottles and duct tape, and a cape made of a bedsheet. He’s supposed to be a trash/pollution monster, after all. For the 20 minutes we spent on making the costume, it looked kind of cool. Kind of a backyard wrestler or something.

So we filmed most of the Spiderman movie. Derek’s Spidey costume definitely draws a crowd. I think we’re going to have to film at school on Monday to finish things up, and also to draw big crowds of girls again, haha. Taping and everything went pretty well for how unprepared and unorganized I was. The only problem with the late start was that, since it’s winter, the sun went down around 4 or 4:30. Meaning that we were filming the fight scene as the sun was setting. By the time we were done and packing up, it was dark. Hopefully it will look decent (maybe make it look like the fight took a long time?) Not like I’m going to re-do it.

After that, went to Sega Land for a bit, then Outback with everyone for dinner. Man those ribs were good. Also, since I had no money and couldn’t cash traveler’s cheques today (no ATM card yet after the whole Monday fiasco), it was a good chance for me to pay for everyone’s food with a credit card. Then I got the cash. Bingo.

That was about it I guess. This upcoming week is gonna be a lot of editing in the SALC.

So I went to visit LHS today because I needed to get a high school transcript for my Tokyo application. I stopped by Donnelly’s (my old journalism/video) teacher’s room to see what was up. Needless to say, things around there aren’t much different from when I was there, except for a lot more money pumped into useless equipment, and a lot less POS (my old video team/buds, who kept the place sane). Sales reps tried selling these standalong video editor things to the district back when I was there, but I kept them from buying such junk. But apparently my words of advice didn’t stick, and I come back to my old high school where they have 5 of these machines (total $10,000). They could have bought a nice room of iMacs or something to edit on. I’m still a stickler for Final Cut Pro to video edit on.

Anyways, I’m going tomorrow morning to teach/lecture in Donnelly’s 2nd hour class. That’s the class that is working on their current news/announcements show, and I’m going to try and give my words of wisdom. Or at least try to give them some ideas and pointers to salvage a show. I borrowed a book of DVD-Rs (with a single 5 minute show per disc….) and they could definitley use some help. People are still editing in iMovie, they don’t use tripods, etc. Their show could be so much better with a bit of organization and fine-tuning. They hadn’t established this news show by the time I graduated, but I had always pushed for something like this. I guess I’m going tomorrow to try and give pointers to a project of “mine” that I never got to work on.

And that’s the end of my LHS Electronic Media rant.