Swing Girls (and a boy)

[pete08757]

bmwracer: Looks like I was a victim of Windows Media Player again, I now remember a few months back getting distorted sound then once I rebooted it was fine. Same thing for the LA and Tokyo videos, now they sound just fine. Sorry about that. I use Windows Movie Maker to cut DVDs and it requires .wmv files, it would not take the .avi for some reason. Is the "making of" video one or 2 DVDs?

It must be real rewarding as a techer to see a kid's face light up when he or she accomplishes something difficult (for them) for the 1st time, especially after putting in a lot of work. It is moments like that kids remember. Reaching goals helps foster a positive attitudes, that's for sure.

The SG NY performance was not up to par but that most likely was a result of a lack of practice, that many of the players were missing, jet lag, and the acoustics of the room they were playing in. Plus I think that being young and away from home they were more interested in having fun in NY, and I don't blame them for that. I feel they put some practice time in after the US trip in order to be ready for their December concert. In the long run I guess it doesn't really matter, I enjoy listening to them no matter how rough they are. They make up for their rough play with their enthusiasm, they seem to really enjoy themselves and that comes across quite clearly. BTW I don't think they ever made it to the band shell in Central Park (they were scheduled to perform there). If they did it would have been on the video.

[dabigkahuna]

"Teaching music is not my main purpose. I want to make good citizens, noble human beings. "

Dang, that part of the quote is almost identical to what I tell my student's parents - which basically goes like this:

"If I can develop good students, then they'll do fine with the music".

I never heard that quote before. Now that I have, I must be smarter than I thought!!!

[dabigkahuna]

pete08757 wrote:

It must be real rewarding as a techer to see a kid's face light up when he or she accomplishes something difficult (for them) for the 1st time, especially after putting in a lot of work. It is moments like that kids remember. Reaching goals helps foster a positive attitudes, that's for sure.

Yeah, though you can get a lot of frustrating times on the way to those successes.

The jet lag should have been a problem since the video shows they flying on Oct 4th and performing on Oct 6th. I fly periodically from Hawaii to South Carolina and it affects me for several days. Kids should do better, but they are coming from Japan so a longer flight too and more time zone differences too.

[po0t]

dabigkahuna wrote:

"Teaching music is not my main purpose. I want to make good citizens, noble human beings. " Dang, that part of the quote is almost identical to what I tell my student's parents - which basically goes like this: "If I can develop good students, then they'll do fine with the music". I never heard that quote before. Now that I have, I must be smarter than I thought!!!

great minds think alike

This was a good read..
http://www.amazon.ca/Nurtured-Love-Classic-Approach-Education/dp/0874875846
$600+ for hardcover edition lolwut??

[bmwracer]

pete08757 wrote:

bmwracer: Looks like I was a victim of Windows Media Player again, I now remember a few months back getting distorted sound then once I rebooted it was fine. Same thing for the LA and Tokyo videos, now they sound just fine. Sorry about that. I use Windows Movie Maker to cut DVDs and it requires .wmv files, it would not take the .avi for some reason.

You should use another program to make DVDs instead of WMM... It's a piece of junk.

Check out videohelp.com

Quote:

Is the "making of" video one or 2 DVDs?

Only part of one DVD... I'll put it up as son as I get a chance to rip it.

[pete08757]

bmwracer: I downloaded program called "DVD Flick" and it seems to do a nice job without the fuss of Movie Maker, thanks for the link. I liked the Tokyo video a lot, thanks.

If the SG started their lessons in the spring of '03 then we are looking at their 10th year anniversary coming up shortly.

[bmwracer]

pete08757 wrote:

bmwracer: I downloaded program called "DVD Flick" and it seems to do a nice job without the fuss of Movie Maker, thanks for the link. I liked the Tokyo video a lot, thanks.

Cool... Glad you could find something a lot better than WMM.

Quote:

If the SG started their lessons in the spring of '03 then we are looking at their 10th year anniversary coming up shortly.

Wishful thinking, but it'd sure be cool if there was a sequel movie...

[dabigkahuna]

bmwracer wrote:

Wishful thinking, but it'd sure be cool if there was a sequel movie...

If there was a 10th anniversary sequel, it would almost certainly be based on the movie release - so Sept 2014.

But I doubt they'd do one.

[po0t]

dabigkahuna wrote:

If there was a 10th anniversary sequel, it would almost certainly be based on the movie release - so Sept 2014. But I doubt they'd do one.

special 10th anniversary limited premium collector's edition director's cut with 4 hours of new content

or.. our surprised faces when we find out Swing Girls is actually a trilogy!

[bmwracer]

po0t wrote:

special 10th anniversary director's limited premium collector's edition with 4 hours of new content

Oooh... Sounds good to me.

[dabigkahuna]

bmwracer wrote:

Oooh... Sounds good to me.

Or just all the vids and stuff but now with English translations - just when I finally get it all done!

[pete08757]

The idea of the SG getting together again for a 10th year remake sounds nice but we all know that is not going to happen. For example what would the movie�fs plot be? A bunch of board and unmotivated housewives getting together to form a jazz band? It could work I guess but you can forget the sailor suite school uniforms and innocents of youth. On a more practical note I�fm sure that many of the original members of the cast have not kept up playing and would have to start all over again, something someone in their early 30s may not want to do. I�fm happy that they did it once and it is that I will remember and enjoy (over and over and over and �c..).

Another silly question: Did the SG sing �gLove Is�h live at their last concert or was that prerecorded? Not that it really matters I guess but with all of the mikes about I think they did it live.

[bmwracer]

pete08757 wrote:

The idea of the SG getting together again for a 10th year remake sounds nice but we all know that is not going to happen. For example what would the movie�fs plot be?

All it needs to do is follow Tomoko's life/career...

[dabigkahuna]

pete08757 wrote:

The idea of the SG getting together again for a 10th year remake sounds nice but we all know that is not going to happen. For example what would the movie�fs plot be? A bunch of board and unmotivated housewives getting together to form a jazz band? It could work I guess but you can forget the sailor suite school uniforms and innocents of youth. On a more practical note I�fm sure that many of the original members of the cast have not kept up playing and would have to start all over again, something someone in their early 30s may not want to do. I�fm happy that they did it once and it is that I will remember and enjoy (over and over and over and �c..). Another silly question: Did the SG sing �gLove Is�h live at their last concert or was that prerecorded? Not that it really matters I guess but with all of the mikes about I think they did it live.

I don't think a follow-up movie would be a good idea, but as for the thing about not keep up with their intruments - wouldn't that fit right in with a story about playing again? I just can't think of a good story though.

Now, if they got together for a reunion concert, that could be interesting, but then the lack of playing all these years would probably be a factor. Unless they paid a lot of money!

Anyway, while the movie was pretty popular in Japan (#3 that year, I think), it isn't like a blockbuster movie where you know someone is going to do a sequel - probably a bad one!

[bmwracer]

dabigkahuna wrote:

Anyway, while the movie was pretty popular in Japan (#3 that year, I think)

#8 in 2004.

[pete08757]

dabigkahuna, you are right, not keeping up with their playing would fit right in with a new story about them getting together again. Unfortunately reality would be, as you said, that they would have to toss a lot of yen their way and that would most likely kill that idea. Plus I wonder if anyone ever asked the original cast if they wanted to do it all over again. I suspect some may not want to. Again, you never know.

[dabigkahuna]

Some new progress (though not in translations).

I downloaded a program called "Subler" to see if I could add my own chapters. What I had before had no chapters at all. Someplace I saw a file for this movie, but I didn't care much for it's chapters.

Last night I went through the whole movie, marking the times for various key parts. Not everything, since they can just be a minute or so apart. generally I tried to make sure they were at least 4 minutes apart.

In Subler, I couldn't find anything for individually adding chapters at the times I wanted, but they did have an option to add chapters every 1, 2, 3, etc minutes (up to every 30 minutes). I chose 5 minutes which gave me just over 20 chapters. I then edited the times and the names - instead of "Chapter 1", etc, I would put in "1 - start" and other descriptions. Ended up with 19 chapters.

Then I saved it. That didn't take to long - a lot less time than it takes Handbrake to create new files when I added subtitles!

I then tested it. The chapters sort of worked for everything but for some reason were about 12 seconds too soon (more on that in a moment).

In VLC, I also had no sound! Checked the settings and for some reason I had to check "surround sound" instead of regular audio. Don't understand that. Also, to get chapters, I had to go to the VLC menu as I couldn't find anything with the regular play controls that let me do it.

Next I tried Quicktime Player 7. That worked too. Next was Quicktime Player (no idea which is supposed to be the better program). That one worked, but the chapters ALSO showed the screenshot from that point of the movie. That was real nice.

Have not imported it into itunes yet. I want to figure out why the timing is off.

Two things stuck out in my mind as hints. First, the time for the "1 - Start" I set to 12 seconds because that was when the first scene started. Hmmm, everything is off by about 12 seconds (at least those I checked) so maybe that isn't a coincidence.

Then I noticed that the time on the Subler list had been changed to zero! Maybe the first item MUST be zero and then everything else is adjusted up accordingly. In any case, I spot checked several other times and they had all gotten changed as well, by 12 seconds!

I guess what I'll try next is insert another chapter at the zero point and just title it "1 - Opening". Just because I want the option to go to where the feature begins rather than the 12 seconds in the beginning that are not part of the real movie. And have to reedit all the others by 12 seconds as well.

Shouldn't take long, but right now I'm just not in the mood! Maybe later tonight or tomorrow.

Anyway, even with how it stands, it's a big improvement.

[dabigkahuna]

Well, it seems you have to start at zero seconds so I added another chapter in there called "1 - Opening" and then continued with the "2 - Start" and so forth. Had to change the numbers for the chapters though I guess I could have left them alone and just left "Opening" without a chapter number. Also had to redo all the times, but not a big deal with just 20.

So now it all works except the screen shots for the chapters no longer line up properly. I don't know what the problem is there except maybe inserting that new chapter screwed them up. I never checked them carefully the first time so not really sure they were all correct then.

Just now I tried saving another with a new name, but I first move around the various ones I already did which Subler still had in it's "recent files" menu. Maybe choosing it again caused it to fix things, but this version is MUCH better.

Only definite problem is that first chapter which is the opening credit image. The picture for that is exactly the same as the one for the start of the movie 12 seconds later. Don't understand that at all but, frankly, I'm not going to worry about it! Besides, sometimes I had to make choices about where to start chapters where the images were not idea.

For example, I have a chapter for the first train ride, but the image is of their teacher. The reason is simple - the music for the train ride starts BEFORE you get to the train. I could have had it start with the train itself, but if I did that, the music wouldn't start from the beginning.

It may be possible to change the pictures, but if so, I don't know how. So we end up with compromises.

[dabigkahuna]

CRAP! I just loaded it into itunes and the darn pictures are messed up again even though they worked in Quicktime Player!

It looks like it leaves out the first picture and moves all the rest up a spot. Since the first picture showed up twice on Quicktime, I'm guessing the problem is somehow related to that.

Well, can't work on it now. Way past bed time.

[bmwracer]

dabigkahuna wrote:

CRAP! I just loaded it into itunes and the darn pictures are messed up again even though they worked in Quicktime Player! It looks like it leaves out the first picture and moves all the rest up a spot. Since the first picture showed up twice on Quicktime, I'm guessing the problem is somehow related to that. Well, can't work on it now. Way past bed time.

Another satisfied Apple user.