Archives for "Video"

Posted by Cheryl on 18th January 2010

The Conductor Program

The third song that I learned since pickup up piano lessons is a piece by Brahms, Capriccio, Op. 76 No. 2. I usually look up the song on youtube for renditions of the piece by my favorite performers (name Vladimir Horowitz). Well, when I stumbled upon this rendition, I decided that I had to play the piece exactly like this:

I’m about a month into learning the song (ok, maybe longer because I don’t practice) and while I can play the song from memory, it’s still far from perfect. I decided to go back to youtube to figure out who played the song…and to my dismay, it’s played by a computer program, specifically the Conductor Program. It’s a program where you can input the notes and by pressing just one (or two) keys on the piano, it will play the freaking song for you (no joke, see the demo on the web site).

While the technology is pretty cool, I realized I was trying to perfectly replicate the music and undertones, rhythms and dynamics that was played by a machine. I could only think, “That’s cheating!!” I feel swindled.

Here’s a HUMAN version of Brahm’s Capriccio. Ivo Pgorelich is good, but plays the song a little too fast for my liking.

Posted by Cheryl on 26th June 2009

3D Lighting Effects Tutorial

Yeah, another one of these tutorials and I’m gonna look for a new job/project.

Tutorial from Transfuschian.

The hardest part about this tutorial is cutting the extra lines before you apply color to your background. It took me several hours before I figured out the perspective and which lines I had to cut. Tip: select the letter on which you are removing extra lines, and if none of the back lines extend into the space of the letter on the right, then you’re done. If there are lines that do extend into the the letter on the right, select the path of the line, and cut the parts that are in the next letter. That was probably made it more confusing but it’s easier to show than to tell.

I got lazy with the mesh grid so the highlighting effects didn’t turn out very well. A tip for this step: make more grids with smaller spaces so you can control the color and highlighting effect better.

On a side note, because of the futuristic theme of the tutorial, I had the “Space Oddity” (Cat Power’s cover of David Bowie) Lincoln MKZ commercial stuck in my head while I was working on this.

Posted by Cheryl on 11th June 2009

[Gizmodo] Making a Hotter Megan Fox for Transformers 2

Original Post

Posted by Cheryl on 3rd May 2009

Piano Lessons, Again

For a while I had been thinking about taking piano lessons again. If not for the sheer satisfaction of self-torture, my improved piano skills would be an enduring lifetime hobby. I started taking lessons last week and already am regretting the repetitive Hanon exercises and scales.

Currently on the recital, Schubert Op. 9 No. 4. I can’t nearly play it as fast as it’s supposed to be played, but Zimerman (in my opinion) has the best rendition.