Saturday 29 December 2012

Fail Better Next Time

This video:

is not good.  It probably has good aspects and the idea behind it could be fairly sound, but as it stands it's an embarrassment.  However, i'm fine with being embarrassed and i have to make mistakes to improve.  Once again i've done a custom thumbnail but there's nothing in it that's not in the video.

Now for an analysis of how this went wrong:

  • The idea behind the script:  This was rather thrown together, partly because of the fact that i'm now kind of churning out "twelve days of Christmas" vids and am fairly desperate for the series to finish.  The answer to this is probably to plan them all in advance and probably brainstorm more videos than i'm going to end up making.  As it is, i prepared this all rather hastily.  Also, well i say "script" but it might be more accurate to describe it as a bit of paper with stuff scrawled on it off the top of my head.
  • The ideas conveyed in the script:  Most people, myself included, are pretty unfamiliar with the concepts of spacetime as espoused by Max Tegmark as well as the concept of a Bose-Einstein condensate.  If I had a firmer grasp on them it would probably have holpen.
  • There's a big problem with the sound.  The PC currently has an awfully loud fan which needs addressing, so i had to record the voiceovers quickly.  I really must learn how to do J- and L-cuts, but that could be beyond the capacity of Windows Movie Maker.  I think i'm starting to see its limitations.  I also need a better microphone.  Rather annoyingly, the mic on the old camera was a lot better.
  • The time display leaps around.  I could've resolved this but didn't - i need to be more patient and take longer on editing.
  • The special effect at the end is on a still.  This works OK but i trimmed the video too much and the bit where the camera falls to the chair is missing.
  •  
    Anyway, here's the doobley-doo (how's that spelt?):
     
    All i can say really is that this is not exactly brilliant but everyone's got to start somewhere.

    The days between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, particularly 27th-30th December, are weird, out-of-time type days and people tend to lose track of the day of the week during them.  Some calendars have intercalary days which help to "sort out" the months of the year, and Java has something called "Undecember" for some reason i can't follow.

    If there was a month called Undecember which started in late December and went on for twenty-eight days but was somehow not January, maybe it would be in a different time dimension.  Max Tegmark has looked into this, among many other aspects of cosmology, and believes that the reason there's only one time dimension and three of space (ignoring the other seven for the time being) is that two time dimensions of time and three of space would make the existence of intelligent life and technology impossible, whereas one of space and two of time would make everything go faster than light.  To be honest i can't really follow his argument, probably because i have yet to grasp calculus.

    A Bose-Einstein condensate is an extra state of matter which is sort of beyond solid.  It happens when atoms all enter the lowest quantum state, so in a way they're "doing nothing".

    Links to help with all this:

    Max Tegmark's website:  http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/
    Bose-Einstein condensates:  http://www.chem4kids.com/files/matter_becondensate.html

    Just a few words on the execution of the idea:  i'm aware there are big problems with it, for instance in the acting, the effects, the audio and probably the concepts and the concept, but you've got to start somewhere and i can learn from this. 
     
    It could also be said that i shouldn't slag my own stuff off before people get a chance to see it.  I have also now made this public at about 1400 UT, which is in the morning in the US, when people are probably just coming round from partying the night before or whatever, so that's not good either.  A few things about the still images:
This is the "one-dimensional" universe with two spatial dimensions.  It consists of a vertical strip near the middle of a frame of the video just before the image.

Compare and contrast this:

The black bit in the middle of the pale strip is supposed to be a mobile 'phone.  I don't know if anyone got this.

The other thing about these images is the burgundy surround, from the hoodie colour.  I did this because a one dimensional space would not be surrounded by blackness as it would be the Universe, so there's a good argument for it to be an arbitrary colour in my opinion, so why not burgundy?  It's a nice colour i've only recently decided to wear.

The other still is this:

This is supposed to be me as a Bose-Einstein condensate, which is of course not accurate.  The idea is that because i am literally doing nothing, all the bosons making me up have entered the same quantum level and i have collapsed into a tiny dot, which in reality wouldn't glow because light is only emitted when something changes quantum level.  Makes me wonder what they would look like in fact, if anything.

In other news, dear void, i have to tell you that i am now a member of the Adult Nerdfighters on Facebook, which is probably a Good Thing.

One more Christmas video to go, then i can finally move on.  Phew!


No comments:

Post a Comment