Explanation...

You all deserve an explanation for my absence. I feel terrible about it, and trust me, it isn't by choice. I have missed blogging and making videos, but crappy circumstances have been the bane of my existence.

This is going to be long winded and not very interesting. For those of you uninterested, I will try blogging more often on here in the coming months.

I was planning on taking a break after the election videos anyway. I had exams coming up and needed to knuckle down, try and pass a few of them, etc. But when I was making my last video for that series the problems started, hence why Adam stood in for me.

I had filmed my video, in fact it is still on my camera, but editing software and this good for nothing computer decided to start being incompatible with my camera footage for the first time in over three years. I don't understand different types of video or file sizes and stuff very much, but I know that in order for me to be able to edit my videos in Windows Movie Maker, which I have used my whole time on YouTube, I had to pass the whole file through the software to make the file smaller before I cane edit it without pauses at each cut. For whatever reason, when I try and pass the original file from the camera through WMM now, it cuts out half way through. Ergo, nothing to edit.

So I left that for a few weeks, focusing on Chinese and graduating for a while and not worrying about it, thinking it was a one time thing. But then when I started trying to do some things for JazzainChina, the same thing happened. WMM, the simplest but what, for me, had been so reliable to me, had decided to pack in. I even tried downloading newer and older versions of the software. No luck, same problem.

A friend of mine in China is a film major and helped me install a version of Adobe Premier Pro CS4. To be honest, I have no idea how to use it properly, even after a crash course with Paul over last weekend. I have the same problem. Even when I render everything, I get a pause at every cut, or the video freezes as the audio continues.

So yeah, this is why I haven't been around at all. And sorry for my general absence from the internet. I want to be back.

If anyone has any advice, please let me know in the comments or send me an email at rhymingwithoranges@gmail.com

杰