So I found a refurbished iPad on the Apple site for really cheap.

My old one...the one that I won as first prize in the Douglas Adams contest back in 2012.....she has had a long a fruitful run. I blogged it all if you wanna look back at it. I believe it is Jan through June of 2012. She was a Ipad gen 3. I won it like 4 or 5 months before the gen 4 came out, but right after it was released. Yeah that year they released them really close together. It is a signal of my accomplishment. It is a reminder of what I can do. It is a memory of Stephen Fry (aaaaaaah) calling my work a love letter that was cute but not too precious. It is a memory of Bob Stein looking me up and giving me a call and saying he thought my comedic choices were good, and that he thought I had talent and potential. He told me to contact him when I was ready to go pro. It is also a reminder of how petty people can be, as it is the only part of the whole prize package I actually recieved.

She has served me well. However, years and years of use and a buse has made her....weary. I have struggled for years to keep her going. I personally replaced the battery andthe bluetooth, and I replaced the screen and digitizer at least 4 times. I have an issue with my joints, and that means from time to time my hands just release and stop holding whatever it is I am holding. Sometimes that means the ipad she ended up on the floor. 😞 When I had a good case for her it was fine. When I didn’t....well that is the reason the screen and digitizer was replaced so many times. This last time when I went to replace the screen I found some internal damage that was fatal. Well, almost. She had been dropped so many times the metal tags that hold the LCD screen in place were completely sheered off. Even though the screen works fine, this means it is floating around inside the iPad and it cannot sync with the digitizer. I can’t just get new tabs....I have to get a whole new LCD screen. Which no one has. iFixit has them off and on, but now is not one of those on times. They also charge $45-$50 for one, without the shipping.

So I had to make a decision. Do I persist in keeping her going with bubblegum and duct tape, or do I move on? Moving on felt...wrong. Like cheating on a spouse. She has been a loyal friend, and a memory I will cherish for the rest of my life. It feels wrong to just give up on her. But she is now old enough I can’t update her further than ios 9. And it will be harder and harder to keep her in action. But.....they engraved “Don’t Panic” on the back of her. But if I have to keep putting $40-$50 into her every couple of months, and she will still only be limping along, is it worth it?

Well, perusing the Apple site and finding the cheap refurbished iPad made my final decision. I bought it. And now I am testing Weebly’s newer app by posting from it.

It is sad. I feel like I betrayed a friend. I feel like we have been through so much together and I am just tossing her aside like yesterday’s jam. There is so much I have been able to accomplish just because she was there in my life. So much more I plan to accomplish, and she won’t be there by my side (or on the floor).

​ I am not going to just throw her out though. I will eventually get the new LCD screen and make her work again. Or I will gut her and put her shell in a shadowbox for my wall. For now I feel like I am mourning a friend. Is that wierd?

I really need to get creative with my titles. :P It has only been a week and half, but I thought I would post anyway. Just kidding. I am trying to be better at keeping up with this thing. It feels like it has been months, though the calendar says it hasn't been. I really had fun playing with the Dremmel. I haven't taken it out for anything else yet. I am itching to, but I am worried about using it when I don't need to and killing a project that would have otherwise been fine.



I have been writing, but haven't really finished anything. This week we have had issues at work with the servers, issues at home with an injured ankle, and emotional issues dealing with this time of year. Also, someone in France has decided to usem y debit card number to try to purchase Formula One tickets (of all the fucking things), so they had to close down my debit card. My plan for this weekend was to price out alginate and get it ordered. Nope. I cannot do anything online now. Grrr argh. At least my new bank had the courtesy to call me first. They gave me a chance to get cash before they closed for the weekend. And they also replaced the money and flagged my card number. That is much better than what my previous bank did. My previous bank let the bastards clear out my account completely, from clear across the country, minutes after I used it here, so clearly it WASN'T ME. I had to jump through a ton of hoops to get it cncelled, a ton of hoops to get my money back, I had to threaten to sue in order to get my legally mandated 45 day credit until it was cleared up. I had to send a police report 4 times before they acknowledged they recieved it. At least this time the transaction was flagged, they saw it was from another country, and called me right away.



But I digress....I am good at that. :) Now that my ankle is doing a bit better and I am a bit more mobile, i will et going on it all again. I shot some footage a few weeks ago with my iPad. I am not happy with it, but I am trying to work with it. Main issue....the damn autofocus. Even after I have put it in focus lock it still kept refocusing. This is why I need a good camera damn it. I am getting tired of this crap. Makes it hard to get anything done. I have been playing around with the pictures in Pinnacle on my iPad. Not much help, but I think if I futz with it a bit more I may make something workable out of it. I tried transferring the pictures to my computer and working with them there. Every one of them were blurry. How the hell did it lose quality? All I did was copy them over. There are 400 some odd pictures. I guess I could try to email each one to myself. Or I could just say screw it and see what I can do in the ipad. Unless one of you wants to spring for a brand new camera? Yeah, didn't think so. I am also feeling jealous. Last fall a girl did an awesome Doctor Who stop mo, in the style of the old Rankin Bass Rudolph stop mos. it was very well done. And I am green with envy, cause I want to do THAT. And if I had money for the equipment I need, I could. I don't begrudge her the props. Cause she totally deserves them. I just want to be there too, and I am not yet.



Ok...enough of the whining. Time to get back to work.

Ok...so the last couple of days I have been working on my iPad frame. I got a hold of a Dremmel tool and was able to cut the slit in the middle. I learned a bit about cutting PVC. Of course I followed all the safety procedures. I wore a mask and safety glasses. I opened all the windows and turned on a fan. I wore protective clothing. That was a big deal as I hate wearing extraneous clothing while building things. I like a close fitting tank top and a pair of comfy but not too roomy shorts when I work. That way I am comfortable abd don't risk getting pieces of clothing in the way.....ie in glue, under my cutting tool, knocking over things in my set, etc. Though Dremmels work very well, the one I used overheated quickly and I had to stop every few minutes or I couldn't handle it. The Dremmel would also stop if I hit a harder spot. I realize this is probably a safety feature, but it is damned annoying. The best way to cut PVC with a Dremmel, in case you were wondering, is to make several medium speed passes at it. It is better to go from right to left, as the other way when you hit the end of what you are cutting the Dremmel goes flying off to the right. As I am pretty sure that could end badly, moving the other direction seems wiser. Also...PVC doesn't just knock out when you get close to the end. You have to cut it the whole way through before it'll move. Not like wood at ALL.

So now that I know, I probably will never work with PVC again. But it is mostly finished now.

I am finding it difficult to get the foam insulation to stay on the inside edges. I have yet to decide if that means i need to glue it in with better glue or if I need to find a better padding medium. I also need to glue down the nut that is currently holding the screw from the tripod in place. I plan to sand down the corners and paint it with black spray paint. The kind made for covering plastic furniture. So that project is almost done. Action shot:

I also think I need to figure out how to make the iPad sit higher in the frame. I was relying on the insulation to do that. Maybe it still will.

I feel a bit more accomplished now. I love working with ny hands. The Dremmel is a blast. Now I am going to have to find other projects to use it for.

It has been a while. I have worked on several things between then and now.

I did manage to cut the pieces for my iPad frame. However I am still trying to figure out how to cut the slit in the middle so I have a place for the iPad to sit. Hacksaw worked for the 45 degree angle cuts on the ends, but not so practical for the middle part. I am still problem solving that issue. I really want to get that one solved soon so I can get back to animating.

I did take a stab at making the foundations for the Ood and Vastra masks. I failed. Failed miserably. For one, I did it just after I had a root canal done, so the left side of my face was swollen. I also realized that when doing this myself, I had to move my face up and down to see what I was doing with the plaster fabric strips, which created pockets in the plaster every time I moved. It will not work for a foundation at all. Here is a bad pic of me with the mask:

I apparently didn't put enough vaseline on my face, as plaster stuck everywhere. It is right now resting on one of the foam heads I bought waiting for a purpose. The first night after I did this I totally freaked myself out by waking up with my face right next to it. Looking around, the other foam heads I bought were at random places around the room, lit up by the street lights. Looked like there were floating heads around my room. Scared the crap out of myself. And made myself laugh.

So, anyway, as that didn't really work out, I have thought it over and have decided to price out alginate. It is a gooey substance that when set brings out details, but is rubbery so can peel off. You then fill with plaster to make a lifemodel of your head. I am thinking making two of those might be an easier route to take. I just need to make sure I have a real baldcap (the plasticwrap one I tried previously was shit) and a person to smear me with alginate. And I need to find out if the cost is in my price range.

On another note, I am making a comic book. I have written the first script and sent it off. It is a practice script to make sure the artist and I are in sync and on the same page. More like a development script. I have the storyline all written out, I just need to scriptify it. It is kind of fun. Yes, I realize I already have a bajillion projects on the table. But this one kind of struck me as fun, so I took it on too. And really, it has sparked my writing brain into production again. Now I feel motivated to finish the other writing projects I have started. So I guess it has had a purpose.

I am also working on learning songs for OryCon. I have joined a filk group. If you don't know what filk is, you can go here. I have a few songs about Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Beer in the Pants, Gandhi, etc to learn before Nov. 7th. Though this is fun, it is a lot of work. I am excited to perform again. It has been a while.

Ok, I suppose this post was mainly about accountability, which is one of the reasons I started this thing. More later.

Well, yes, I have been working on my video. The one I am making completely (well, mostly) on my iPad. I have gotten some people to collaborate and help record voiceovers. I tried to do both voices myself and it sounded like the same person for both characters. I really need to learn how to do voices. Anyway, so now I have all the audio I need. Well, mostly. I may have to rewrite the script a bit, as I am having a hard time finding a particular soundbite that is integral to the plot. But anyway, I probably would be shooting today, but I got distracted. I have been dividing my time between this and a new project. Yesterday someone at work brought in a bunch of stuff she had cleaned out of her son's room. This was included in the bunch:

It is a little bitty baby guitar. At first I was going to just restring it as a guitar, as 2 of the strings were broken and I had my doubts about the remaining ones. Then I went to the uke store for strings for my soprano uke and the guy suggested I string it as a concert uke. It is exactly the same size and shape. The biggest differences being the part at the end that holds the strings and more tuning pegs. So, while I have been working on my video stuff, I turned that ugly orange thing into this:

It is kind of hard to see. The light also makes it look lighter than it is. But I painted it green with silver trim, and painted the bridge black with silver trim. I also had to glue a piece of wood under the metal string holder. I found out the hard way that the metal eats through nylon strings quickly. Like, within minutes of stringing it and while trying to tune it. If I didn't have my glasses on at the time I would have put my eye out. I have strung it like a concert uke, and with a low G instead of a high G. It is interesting to listen to. Definitely changes how my chords sound. The strings are still acclimating. It will take a bit before they stop stretching and settle in.

But yeah, I would paint a bit, then work on video while the paint was drying, then paint some more. I probably would be farther along on the video if I could just leave this thing alone. But I can't. It's my new toy.

Tonight I am tired of doing stuff, but tomorrow I will get to shooting and editing. My plan is to have it completely done by sundown tomorrow. That is the plan. We shall see what actually happens. :)

So, I fully intended to have a completed video. You know what they say about the road to hell? I can totally see that. I did have some issues though that were beyond my control.

Well, not beyond my control, more like beyond my coping capabilities, so I decided to walk away until I was less frustrated and come back and problem solve.Only I never came back. I am going to tell you about my week, because I think it may be cathartic, and maybe someone reading this can offer me some advice. Or a one way ticket to the looney bin, either one. :)

So I'll start with the issues I was having with the video. I was hoping that I could do everything on the iPad. One of the issues I have had with this thing since I got it is my inability to transfer music or sounds to my iPad from my PC. I can transfer music I have purchased in iTunes with iTunes, but nothing else. iCloud is the same way. I can move stuff to my PC that way, but it doesn't work for moving stuff to the iPad. In order to time the animation correctly I need to record the audio so I have at least a basic idea how long to make it. I need to be able to use the audio I timed. I found one free awesome audio recording app for the iPad. The big issue is I can't import it into Pinnacle. There is an option but it doesn't work. I am guessing there may be a paid version of this app, though I haven't been able to find it. And I wouldn't spend money on something that may not suit my needs. I can record audio in Pinnacle, but only to do voice over for current video. I also can't record audio then export it into a different project. I tried that. So that is issue number 1 that I am trying to get over. And that is about where it ends.

Then I had issues at work. Those were not fun to deal with. I won't give specifics here, but I was pretty much at the end of my rope. Then something happened that took me to the end of that rope and made me feel like I was being hung with it.

Wednesday was payday. I decided that since it had been such a shitty week I was going to treat myself to lunch at Wendy's and a movie. I felt I deserved the emotional break. So I head over to Wendy's, which is just down the street from my work, and I order my food. At this point I was really hungry, as working on issues had made me miss breakfast and lunch. My card was declined. My card was declined three times. Insert your own religious joke here. This has happened before. From time to time my bank just glitches and usually getting online and clicking a box makes it all better. I was hungry and extremely annoyed, but not panicked. So I went to the library to use the wifi and do the thing with the thing on my iPad. That is when I lost it. My bank account was empty. Completely empty. My paycheck was just direct deposited. Not to mention what was left that I was saving from my last paycheck. All the charges were at physical brick-and-morter places in Louisburg, NC WAY THE HELL on the other side of the country. To my credit, I did not yell or scream at the customer service people on the phone who kept transferring me cause it "isn't my department". I was shaking, as my blood sugar was extremely low and I was pissed off, but I didn't yell. I didn't even yell and swear when the bank's fraud person told me I would not get my money back. I did cry in her ear though. Loudly. But I got the card number cancelled, and I had a new one sent to me. Then I went home and yelled and cried for a long, long time. I would like to commend the guy who answered the phone at the Eugene Police non-emergency line. He was very sweet. Though his first words were "Are you sure it's not an emergency?" By the time I got someone from Fraud on the line I was a bit calmer. I learned from that officer that it is actually illegal for my bank to not give me my money back. Once I prove fraud, they have to give me my money back. And Oregon state law says a police report is enough to prove fraud. Then I went and opened up a bank account at a different bank, where I was told that the law also states that while I am waiting for my bank to clear their paperwork for the fraud they have to provide me with a 45 day provisional credit in the amount of the fraudulent charges. Which was damn near everything I had. I had $3 in cash in my pocket, so I guess they didn't clean me out completely. Ha ha. I have made sure they got all the paperwork, and yet I still have not seen anything of the provisional credit they are supposed to give me. This is a bank that was recently taken to court for skimming off student's financial aid. They would place a charge, real or not, then not notify the student for months, letting their late charges and penalties pile up until the next financial aid check came. Then they would just take that money out of it. Court has ruled they were wrong and have to pay it back. However they don't have to pay while they go through the appeals process, so it may be years before any of us get our money back. Money that was from student loans that I am still paying on. My point in that long digressive ramble was that I expect to have to fight to get both provisional credit and my actual money back. I plan to touch base with them again Monday, but I don't expect them to be helpful. All that took me the rest of Wednesday, Thursday and part of Friday.

Now it's Saturday. Most of my energy had gone into dealing with all that. Today I spent most of the day either sleeping or curled up with my iPad watching a show on Hulu called Who's Been Sleeping In My House? It's not what you think. This guy in Australia goes around to different houses in the country at the request of the owners and researches the history of the house. Kind of like Who Do You Think You Are and History Detectives all wrapped up in one awesome show. And I watched Doctor Who, of course. The Doctor makes everything feel better. :) Tomorrow I have to go back to work and try to get the fricken phone system to accept my programming for another line as it will be needed Monday, but after that I intend to try to problem solve the video issues.

So, it would reduce my stress greatly if any of you have a suggestion on how to solve my audio problem. And don't say "Buy a Mac". I didn't have money for that BEFORE the big clean out.

And as I feel the need to amuse myself with a non sequitur now, here is a spider that got into my water pitcher today. This water pitcher has a filter in the top and a hinged lid that has a fairly stiff hinge. I have no clue how the bugger got in there.

So today was supposed to be all about polishing stories for my foray into storytelling. And, like a good little procrastinator, I watched Doctor Who and played on my iPad instead. Which in this case is good, because I discovered something awesome. Remember a while back when I compared free stop mo iPad apps? Well, there is another one.

This one I mentioned before. It used to be called Avid, but now it is called Pinnacle Studio. It is usually $5, but until the 18th of September it is FREE!!!! So guess what I did, and guess what I have been playing with? Yup....the new app. Technically Pinnacle is just a video editing app, but it also does stop mo if you set it right. Almost in the same way windows Movie Maker does stop mo if you set it right (or used to). Seems to be more full featured than most of what I have seen for free. I can even set the pictures to hold for a number of frames, rather than fractions of a second like WM does. It also allows for audio to be added and edited in 3 tracks, you can make several clips then edit them together and add 3 more sound tracks. I just played with photos and audio I have currently on my iPad, which are not really stop mo related. it seems to have more freedom than WM had, and more editing capabilities. I like this. I do have to take pictures outside the app, though, as it isn't strictly a stop mo app.

SO....

Tonight, after I have had dinner and a short nap, my plan is to write, shoot, record and edit a short stop mo with my iPad. Just my iPad. I have a recording app. Not sure if it converts to Mp3 though. Or I can record audio actually inside the app. So by tomorrow afternoon my goal is to have a 30-60 second short done all in my apps. This shall be fun.

Hehe, I am like a raven. See something shiney, and I am diverted from my original task. Well, at least there will still be time to get those stories done. I have the basic structure done, I just want to polish them up. They are all a bit rambley. But this will be fun.

And, well....STOP MO.

Obsession. I think that is the word that best describes my relationship with stop motion animation. I think I have also mentioned in the past that I have a secret crush on Aardman Studios. They are the creators of Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, the kid's show Timmy Time, and last but not least, the new movie The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists! (which was changed to Pirates! Band of Misfits for US audiences. WHY??? the original title was SO much better!!) BTW, thier stuff is no longer claymation. It is now all latex. It is a better choice. Easier to keep from getting fingerprints or lint sticking to the models, harder to destroy, imminently more reusable. Imminently more practical.

Anyway, I digress.....

My point is that Aardman has teamed up with some software developers to create an easy to use interface for stop motion called Animate It! It is aimed at kids, to get them started with playing around with stop motion. They have a kit you can purchase that has some plasticine type clay, a mold, plastic eyes, and a green piece of felt that can be used for a green screen. I think you can only get it in the UK. But the software is available online for a 14 day free trial. As it is a free trial, I thought I would play around with it to see how well it works. I haven't played with it very much yet. I must admit, if you are capturing your movie with a webcam or computer connected camera it is easy to use. It does allow for stills import, but you have to really search to find the options for it. It also takes forever to import your stills. It took me 40 minutes to get all 917 pictures imported into the software interface. I also had to import them in batches.  Here's a screen shot:

See the odd looking frame in the middle of the strip at the bottom? That was my attempt to expand the beginning of my animation by replicating frames already in the timeline. I have no idea why that happened yet. I am guessing it has something to do with the size of the picture. I still need to research why, but my theory is it autosizes it when I import but doesn't when I replicate. I am thinking it is something I can overcome if I learn a bit more about the software.

The other problem I am encountering thus far is lag time and responsiveness. Sometimes when I try to do something in this interface, it either takes an unreasonably long amount of time or doesn't happen at all. Again, I need to do more research, so I am not sure if it is because this is a new interface or maybe I don't have the processing power this software requires. I did not see any requirements listed anywhere, so I assumed they had made it usable for the lowest common denominator. My computer doesn't have the greatest processor, but it also isn't that bad.  I can play most video games no problem.

In the next couple of days, while I still have the free trial, I will play around with it and look for forums and answers. I hope to have a good video to show you by the end. The list price on the website is in pounds, so I suspect that it is not available for purchase in the US. that is something else I will have to research. The price for the full version is 19.95. Direct conversion places it at around $30.

I also have yet to play around with the audio options.

Though I doubt that Aardman studios will move from the full featured Stop Motion Pro to this software, it looks like it may be a cheap, useable alternative.

More laters! 

So I did a little playing, and found some interesting things. No, I wouldn't recommend always using iPad apps for stop motion. Seems stupid if you have the money for the real deal compiler software and real equipment. I don't. I have had problems getting After Effects to work, Windows Movie Maker goes in and out of utility, and pretty much everything else out there requires you to be able to capture directly to computer and my point n shoot doesn't allow that.

So now that I have the iPad that was first prize for the Literary Platform Douglas Adams Animation contest, I thought I would research the feasibility of using the iPad. I do not have a Mac computer, so that has been my first hurdle to jump. Apparently they do not play well together. After several tried I finally got the pictures I took with the iPad onto my Windows machine. If I can ever get the software to work for me, that might be doable. At first I was having problems with the camera. Remember, this was made to be idiot proof, which means very little control. I learned a few things about how to get it to work right.

1. Use a LOT of light. The controls are really shitty, so if you want a clear picture you need lots and lots of light. Even if you think you have enough light, add more. The camera seems to work better with excess light than with not enough. Grainy pictures that aren't as crisp as you want them will be the result if you don't.

2. Even when using Focus Lock, double check to make sure focus hasn't changed. If you tap and hold your finger in a particular spot, it will lock focus on that spot and it is supposed to keep focus on the spot until you move it. Well, in the we-know-better-than-you vein, it doesn't always stay in focus lock. From time to time it does the face scan thing, which removes focus lock if the focus isn't focused on what it thinks is a face. This annoys me. I have not found a way to turn the face recognition off yet. That may come, but for now there doesn't seem a way around it, so you have to constantly check to make sure your focus lock is where you want it to be.

3. Keep fingers away from the lens. I know this seems a simple and obvious thing, but when you are dealing with smalls sets as I am and have to keep the camera close in, sometimes I can't help but get my hands or fingers too close to the lens, which breaks the focus lock and readjusts it to the closest thing - me. That shouldn't happen with focus lock, but it is happening just about every picture.

Ok, so now I have figured out how to get the camera to sort of work. Lets talk about the apps I tried out. Most of the animation apps were not for stop motion. They were for drawn animation. I found 3 apps that actually fit the criteria and also didn't require me to buy the full version for a Mac in order to use it. I tried out iMotion HD, StopAnimator and StoMo. I have no idea who created these apps. I am not promoting any of them particularly. I am just comparing them. Remember as I go through these that I am looking to do good quality videos. All three of these would be good if you are a kid and only want to play with stop motion. Someone who is an expert in stop motion and is very skilled at the craft may be able to do a better job than I did. But for what it is worth, here is how it all shook out.

iMotion - This one isn't too bad. It does have an onion skin option, which I like. You can also do time lapse with this app. I haven't tried it yet. Seems interesting. Doesn't do stop mo though, so I will leave that for later. First thing I noticed is you have absolutely no control over the camera. You can't set focus lock, you can't zoom in, you can't do anything. This is fine if you are working in a big set, I guess, but in these small sets it is a pain in the ass. The focus is so not consistent it makes me want to scream. Also, when exporting the video you do not get to choose the frame rate of the exported video. You can choose it in the app, but it ignores your choice when exporting.

Here's the short sample video I did:

Besides being fluttery, which seems to be my issue not the app's, it is way faster than it should be. If you slow it down to the speed it was supposed to be, you can see the focus changing. Annoying!

StopAnimator- This one also doesn't allow for any type of camera control. It also doesn't have any onion skin capability. You don't have any type of frame rate control either. The one good thing about this app is if you set some things in the camera mode, it will hold on to them - though focus lock is not one of them. But if you zoom in via camera then switch apps you can be zoomed in for this app. When watching this one, notice that even though I did not move the camera in any way nor did I set a zoom or unset a zoom, the views are very very different.

Here's this one:

This one at least stayed at a good frame rate. You can see the focus changing. It is infinitely annoying.

StoMo - This has the most controls inside the app of all of them. It keeps track of the number of frames you have taken, it allows you to shoot more than one scene and label them. It also gives you control over how dark the previous image is when using onion skinning and lets you control the fram rate. You can play it back at several frame rates to see which one works best. It is also the only one that allows you to edit individual frames. The biggest problems with this app is again you have no control over the camera and the image you get isn't exactly the image you see in the preview. It isn't always as focused as the actual picture is, so you have no idea what exactly the end result will be. It also has some lag and responsiveness issues.

Notice how much further away it looks than the other videos. I did not move the camera, play with the zoom, nor did I have any type of control over that. The frames in the app look closer to what you see in the other video than to what you see in this video. It also continuously refocuses, and as you can't really tell under the onion skinning and blurriness, I couldn't fix it. That frustrates me as well.

So, I suppose in conclusion I don't really think any of these will work for what I do. There may be more that I have missed. The search feature isn't exactly precise in the app store. There may be ways to work around these flaws. And one day I may have the patience to figure them out. For now, though, it doesn't work. I have limited energy at the moment, so I need to find one thing that I like and really concentrate on learning it. Once I settle onto what "it" is.

Oh...and none of the apps allow you to add audio. You have to find a separate application to do that. That is annoying as hell as well.

I am not happy right now. I don't know if you noticed it or not. I spent the majority of the day working on the TMBG stop mo mentioned in the last post. I have been using Windows Movie Maker. I was in the middle of editing when it stopped working and insisted I get an update before I could continue. Before I could save and continue. Yup...I wasn't allowed to save what I had already done. So I complied. Because with Microsoft there is nothing else you can do. Now I can't use it for stop mo. I have been breaking it down into bits to allow me better control over certain spots. If I do that then try to edit the sections together it jumps. Majorly. Black out for a second, no sound then continues. No options to fix it. that is how I did the Douglas Adams video. So apparently they changed something and now it is useless to me. This made me frustrated, but whatever. I still have my copy of After Effects C4. One reason I don't use it is because I am having a hard time getting consistent and unpixelated results from it. But I still wanted to get the video done, so I tried it. 4 hours and 600 pictures into a 925 pictures set, and I find out I didn't give myself enough time in the timeline. And I can't get it to change. It won't let me add any more. So basically, my whole day has been flushed down the toilet. If my roommate's dog wasn't already upset by the fireworks, I would be screaming at this point. The string of expletives going through my brain at the moment would make a hard core biker dude blush. THIS is why I need an income....so I can afford the real equipment. I need to get a better computer, a camera that can be triggered from the computer, and a full paid version of  stop motion software. Well, all those things and a place to live....but shit I am tired of this kind of thing happening. I waste so much time unsuccessfully trying to get things to work. It would also help if I had the money to get someone to teach me how to use these things properly.

OK, time to go crul up in bed with a Pepsi and cry now.