Karen Abad loves Dinosaurs.'s videos (67)
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Summer unfolded like a tapestry
And you were there as you have always been

There glowing where the sky meets with the trees
Air softly crowing, singing fears to sleep

Will you ever know how much I love you for that
Will you ever know how much I love you

*I don't have an HD camera...so this isn't "real" HD...just intensive color correction and resizing.
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  • HannahMai 4 months ago
    oh oh still uploading... i am excited!!
  • I hope you are doing alright I have missed chatting with you in the last 2 days..boooo! <3
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  • Mark Jensen 4 months ago
    same here!!!!!!
    you commented on my video before it was completely uploaded and converted, so here is my early comment as well :) glad i caught it...
  • haha you silly man. Beep boop weep woop.

    So..it said i was -258 some odd MB on my upload...so I didn't think I could upload it until tonight when my quota refreshes. But I remembered I didn't even use up 500MB this week....so I clicked upload and tried to anyways..and it let me upload....weird. So weird.
  • Mark Jensen 4 months ago
    almost done converting!!! glad you had some space... can't wait to see it... waiting.... waiting.... waiting....
  • half-an-effin-hour for conversion (it was an hour when it started)? haha.

    wha?
  • Mark Jensen 4 months ago
    we can use the time to comment on things not in the video :) since we can't see the video yet... waiting waiting waiting..25 mins to go... :)
  • So yeah what are you up to today?

    ahha
    also I want to apologize in advance for the length....it's 6 minutes long....but worth it...maybe....haha i put my favorite shot at the end.

    At the Park...people walking past: "uh what's that crazy girl doing by the tree?"
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  • DaVincicode 4 months ago
    Another commendable job to Karen Abad on "Love Letter Typewriter." The combination of Sigur Ross music and the editing was pretty impressive.
  • haha thanks. reading your comments always makes me giggle because you use my first and last name. Thanks Da vinci. :-)
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  • ishan 4 months ago
    pretty pretty karen.

    i really like around 3:25 where the letter stamps start feeling a bit more like alien clusters or critter minded beings than portrait object.

    and you know i like the music... ala orbit media vid.

    what's the scoop on tricking s.d. into looking more h.d.?
    export outa fcp at higher res, then vimeo does the rest in conversion? what was your export/compress flow? i only ask because it looks super sweet.

    you've always got those colors bouncing off each other... i like the blush you gave your machine... set off from the deep green grass quite loverly.





  • I think that may be my favorite part too..that and the last shot. There is a switch on my Typewriter that is broken and from tweaking it a little I got it so that when you press the keys, it stops at a certain distance from the paper..so when you press it all the way...it won't...well can't....hit the paper. I was typing one day and after fiddling with the switch noticed how creepy all the little letters looked.

    I feel like you can put almost anything to sigur ros and have it look way better. hahaha. that and I really like this EP because it doesn't have singing on it.


    as for my workflow: here it is in completion...even though you probably are only interested in the end product (i figured i'd write it for any one else who was wondering)...

    So I have a camera that only shoots 4:3, 4:3 letterbox and 4:3 stretch. I have a 16:9 adapter..but it has trouble focusing when things are up close so I opted not to use it. I shot in 4:3 stretch...then I brought the footage into FCP under 23.97(whatever number it is) Pulldown. After that I made a sequence in HD 1280X720 anamorphic. After that I go through and put the clips i want to use in an arbitrary order on the timeline and i let it render (4:3-HD 16:9)..it takes a long long long time. After that is all rendered...i then edit it to how I want it to be and cut it up within the timeline...then i render it again because it gets unrendered when clips overlap. After that I render it all...then i spend a couple hours color correcting each clip. Then i let it render again. Then I export it as a MPEG-4 under HD settings 1280X720 with a bitrate of 3000Kbps. ( I don't know why there are black bars..oh well).

    After that it's a little over 100MBs.
    the thing with vimeo is..it doesnt matter if you shoot in HD or not...as long as its over 1280 I think (it could be lower than that)..it recognizes it as "HD".

    To get it under that, I use Sorenson Squeeze and use the Md.Quicktime compressor and it looks just as good but smaller..for sites like Youtube, Myspace, and Virb.

    Color correction makes me so happy..almost as happy as shooting....you shouldve seen the original footage...blech...bleck bleck!!!
  • Loonachic 4 months ago
    omg. that sounds like a LOT of work.

    but lemme tell ya. QWERTY never looked so damned good. GREAT JOB!
  • Qwerty, the WYSIWYG kids, and the home row gang!
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  • Tommy Penner 4 months ago
    Great job Karen! Perfect music, and closer to the beginning I love the color of the grass against the relatively monotone typewriter... great contrast.

    And even if it's not "true HD" it's still very very purrdy :)
  • Too kind Tommy..too kind. Gotta love color correction <3
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  • Eric Anderson 4 months ago
    Friggin awesome.
  • hee hee thanks mister anderson :-)
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  • Cameron Christopher 4 months ago
    I'm letting it fully load before I watch. I'm already psyched.
  • Cameron Christopher 4 months ago
    Oh YAY, it was super good. Love the voilet tones in the typewriter (hoorah colour correction!), and the crazy ass stamper things that look like... weird fingers or something.

    Muy Bueno!
  • Robot Robot Robot


    Stickam Chat:

    "Hey guys I just spent the day with my typewriter."
    *laughter*

    speaking of which...
    the weather is perfect today
    come spend the day filmming with me.
  • Cameron Christopher 4 months ago
    Um, speaking of which, it was -5 here.
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  • Stephen Niebauer 4 months ago
    I'm in shock. That was gorgeous. It made my afternoon complete.

    What Sigur Ros EP was that from? I must have.
  • Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do.

    It is the song "Ba Ba"

    I think I may eventually do one for Ti Ki as well. So beautiful.

    you're so kind with your words.

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  • Bill 4 months ago
    Love the pink and light green.
  • pinky poop
    limey lit
    purply wurple.
    haha

    color magic heart attack.
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  • Eugenia Loli-Queru 4 months ago
    Use this tutorial to export a widescreen miniDV in "HD mode" for Vimeo. Resizing at full 720p will result in loss of quality, but using this it doesn't because it exports at the native pixel resolution: eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2008/01/11/from-minidv-to-vimeo-in-high-quality/
  • ishan 4 months ago
    so many colors
    so many pixels

    i think we all need
    to design karen a pink and green jump suite

    thanks eugenia for the linky-link

    re:Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do
    there was a time when i let that e.p.
    loop all through the night
    cause it gave good dream

  • haha Ishan you're so great. Yeah it's so beautiful..its one of my faves by them.

    *sigh*

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  • Remyyy 4 months ago
    De toute beauté ! I never knew typewriter could dance. Superb ! Colors, moves, yeah, superb !
  • Aww Rems..merci.

    A bientot.

    hhaha

    *throws out random arbitrary french words*

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  • John Richardson 4 months ago
    lovely photography / post processing... music had a great "feel" too!
  • Thanks so much John :-)
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  • Wow, I really like the simplicity of this. Very cool. What album is this off of? I feel like I've never heard this before yet I own all of their music...at least I think I do
  • It is from the EP BaBaTiKiDiDo.

    Its beautiful.

    Thanks a lot michael
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  • Alex Itin 4 months ago
    yep, its beauty
  • Life is always this beautiful.

    :-)

    Oh man you shouldve seen the clouds today...*sigh*
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  • nshack 4 months ago
    This is great. I'm a big fan of manual typewriters. You captured the beauty. Clik, clic, clik.
  • thanks buddy!

    click click
    type type type

    "Dear Friends,
    here is a letter typed up.
    From,
    Karen"
    click click click..
    haha
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  • Capucha 4 months ago
    I loved every second of it. It felt like a dream :)
  • much of what i see through my eyes is a dream. haha...wow that was so cheesy. (well not always..most of the time..haha) I appreciate that you watched it...seeing as how it's kinda lengthy..haha. But I saved the last shot till the end so whoever stuck it out all the way through could get a little piece of sunset eye candy. haha. Thanks capucha :-)
  • Capucha 4 months ago
    it's ok to be cheesy sometimes :p I wish I could see the world like you do... Finding beauty in the smallest things is not given to everyone. This is why I love your videos (or Remy's) because they teach me to see the world in a prettier way :) so thank YOU ! (and it was not "long" enough for me , so I watched it twice haha)
  • Yeah..I think that even my best friend would attest to the fact that i find beauty in almost everything. I agree with your statement about Remyyy. Honestly, I think since I've been on vimeo he's one of the people that I can relate to on so many different levels. I feel like he's a male, french, more creative version of myself. haha.

    Seeing the world in a more aesthetically pleasing way, helps you get through all the really bad things that exist in daily life. It's not a solution, but a means to enjoy life to the max.

    Thank you for your comments, I enjoy reading them, as I enjoy watching your videos...they make me laugh more than any one else's..those cute little french kids haha.
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  • janocjapun 4 months ago
    Karen, this is so ♥♥♥ visual delight
  • Hee hee Thanks a lot. You are a delight!
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  • Mark Jensen 4 months ago
    SO GREAT !!!!! added to the channel/project. nice job!
  • Thanks Mark. I hope that made it interesting. haha. "Make it interesting!!" oh man..gonna have to start using that one...

    (film shoot)
    "MAKE IT INTERESTING!" (damn it!)
    hahaha
  • Mark Jensen 4 months ago
    ha ha! definitely! thx!
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  • Indian_Giver 4 months ago
    i think its ridiculous how everything you churn out is pure, aesthetic wonderment. it's overwhelming sometimes how beautiful you can create things to be.
  • That's a really really generous compliment and I am very grateful for it. I think when you start shooting for yourself in your free time (the very little of it that you have) and you aren't worried about the end product so much, you can make something that is more organic that you can work with in post. Thank you again. I read that and it warmed my heart. Have a great day :-)
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  • sanddunesandsea 4 months ago
    Really really good! Great colour, great shots, well put together- nice work.
  • Thanks sanddunes. It's amazing what you can do with one typewriter in a park...and a couple dozen odd stares from strangers.
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  • Brian Van Peski 4 months ago
    Very cool. I'm inspired to learn some color correcting techniques now because the colors in there look phenomenal.
  • it's definitely one of my favorite things to do because i can listen to whatever music I want ant just focus on the images. It makes everything almost 285.82% times better. If you go into editing with amazing images...color correction can only bump up your work even more..but it is also a huge life saver.
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  • themarkpike 4 months ago
    I love typewriters. That is all.
  • one of the things i LOVE about the typewriter is the sounds it makes...the clicking of the keys and also the ring when you get to the end of a line..when i made this i debated on whether or not to keep it in and decided to not..but that is one of the things i love about typewriters.
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  • PEIKA 4 months ago
    Just superb!
  • Hee hee thanks peika!
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  • Bill 4 months ago
    I like the light green and the pink most.
  • Sometimes...when I look through photographs i've taken, I'm amazed at how it is possible that colors that are so beautiful can exist in the world. I don't know what i would do if I was color blind...
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  • Pam Newman 4 months ago
    that's beautiful.

    I touched my computer screen so I could feel the bumps of the red white and blue bumps.

    It's fun to remember that reality isn't real sometimes :-D
  • Pam Newman 4 months ago
    That video made me want to tell my mom how much I love her.

    You're talented!!!
  • I love you Pam.

    and your butt
    especially your butt.

    hahaha

    Aww Your relationship with your mom is so cute.

    Thanks so much...haha I suppose now after you've seen this it's not that ridiculous when I told you I spent the day with my typewriter in the park filming him. haha. (he doesn't have a name yet...)
  • Pam Newman 4 months ago
    <3 <3 <3
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  • Linda McClure 4 months ago
    Beautiful!
  • Thanks so much for taking the time to watch this Linda. :-)
  • Linda McClure 4 months ago
    Your movie was absolutely brilliant! Your video looks just as good as if you had shot the movie in HD. You just proved, it doesn't matter what type of camera you have. It's the person behind it. You are so talented & gifted!
  • You know what..I COMPLETELY agree. Although it would be easier to have more beautiful things with a better camera...but that should NEVER stop anyone from making what they want to make. Your compliments are so flattering, I am genuinely thankful.
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  • Paul Joy 4 months ago
    Blown away... a true video artist!

    Paul.
  • Thanks Paul that means a lot coming from you, I love your work. :-)
  •