It’s been several years since we posted videos regularly. A LOT has changed since then. We’re back in business, and we’re doing some terrific work! Please join us on this journey! There is a bold adventure ahead of us; we’d like to share our progress, to share our defeats and our wins, we’d like to share the story of where we’ve been, where we’re going, and what we’re doing now.
We’re committing to 100 videos! These videos will cover a range of topics: hardware of the Lunar Space Elevator Infrastructure and many of the components, the highs and lows of our LiftPort history, and how we think the future of humanity will unfold as the world develops infrastructure for the cislunar EconoSphere. We will delve into fiction and non-fiction books that help us learn what we need to learn – to build a better Elevator. We will explore pop culture, space commercialization, and we’ll interview and meet interesting people that are involved with US Space Force, International Space University, and some of LiftPort’s Technical Advisory Council. Together, we will create the future. Together, we’ll prove that this dream can become a reality; that new reality will change the world! Together, we’ll discover the problems and the solutions toward building “The biggest thing, ever!” Michael Laine President, LiftPort Group
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We got some brand-new equipment delivered. All for the purpose of improving our video quality. We now have less excuses to deliver something good to our audience.
We applied new corrections and made public most of our videos. It seems reception wasn’t as bad as I initially thought. But still, very few people are watching our videos even after promoting through social media and that’s probably only the all-time fans. What can be the problem? Well, first of all, I think there are not too many people interested in the space as we would like. It certainly is getting on the news a lot more frequently, but still is a small target audience compared to other fields. Also, our social media network is still small. We need more new fans! Is our content boring or too long? Is our video quality so bad that is actually a deterrent for new viewers? I don’t know. I really wish to get some feedback through the comments section. So far, someone complained about the audio being annoying because of the buzz, but we might have corrected that already. So, what if we actually drag new people not only to our channel but to this field? In my opinion, that would be an awesome accomplishment! What do we need for that? I’m not sure. I feel like this can be nearly impossible, but worth trying. At this point, it is very likely our content isn’t adequate for zero-knowledge-of-space people. I will have to deeply think about this. However, not everything is bad news. We might have created a specialty network. We have received some proposals and support from interesting people. That can be even more beneficial than our original plan. We just have to remain optimist and make our best effort to evolve as a company, whatever our path is. Fabio This week was lots of fun. We made a small trip to Oregon and enjoyed a day tubing down the River. We started the journey inflating the tubes with our own mouths because we had no automatic air pump.
Then we walked down the river and jumped into the water. Water was warm-cold and it wasn’t a problem before the 3rd hour into the water. I felt really cold by the end of our course. Luckily, I didn’t get sick after that. After a day I realized, some parts of my body were burnt from the sun exposure and had some small bruises from bumping into rocks. Even considering that, it was a great experience. I would love to repeat it but only if the time on the water is reduced to half of that. About the new media company, we have several videos on hold on the YouTube channel, just waiting for final approval and social media updates. We did make a lot of corrections, but hey that’s part of the learning process. Hopefully, we’ll get a good audience reception. I’m definitely changing my video editing software though. I’m really curious what features are better on Adobe. Is it really a super advanced professional environment? We’ll see. It’s a big deal since I migrated to Linux and I would have to go back to Windows or partition my already small SSD. It’s probably a good idea to just partition it, so I get both OS for whenever I need it. But to be honest, I’m a little disappointed of Ubuntu. I thought It was one of the most stable versions of Linux out there. And that’s not my case, at least not in my laptop. At this point I’m really curious about macOS, though. Would it be better than Ubuntu? Better than Windows? Better than both? To try that in a good way, I guess I would have to pay the “Apple price”, so It won’t be anytime soon. Anyway, that’s not relevant at this moment. By the end of this week, after making public some of our videos, we had several hundred views. It’s a decent result but our goal is still far from accomplishment. We just have to remain positive and aim to an even higher video quality. Fabio There were several events at LiftPort this week. Michael told us that we could observe the comets in the northwest sky. After work, Michael took us to Chambers Bay and saw a beautiful sunset and the comet together. After sunset, the comet was dimly visible due to the light cloud and nearby light. But Gwen found the comet and told us where it was and took great pictures in night mode. I had bet with Westies about who would take the better shot of the comet. I could win the bet with Westies because the pictures taken by Gwen were so clear. I hope they don't see this blog. I saw a comet with my eyes for the first time in my life. I was so grateful to Michael and Gwen for making this precious experience.
So far, I've created the intro and outro of every video that goes into the company's YouTube channel. Their styles and graphic designs have been stood, so they no longer require much work. Now I'm starting to look for a program that has the perfect features that can be used in Windows to do video editing with Fabio. The DaVinci Resolve has almost all the functions needed to edit the video without having to install other programs together. In particular, I was sure that this would be a great help to the video taken in the office because it could be a color correction and noise cancellation. Above all, the best advantage of DaVinci Resolve is free. But I couldn't find a manual of how to use the program on the website because it was for professionals to use. I learned how to use the program by studying the usage video uploaded by other people on YouTube. I want our channel subscribers to feel our video was clear. This Friday, Michael's brother and all of the LiftPort Group employees went to the south of Portland for tubing in the river. It is my first outdoor activity since I started my internship in March. I was so frustrated that I couldn't go anywhere because of the COVID-19, but this outdoor activity relieved my stress a lot. We ate lunch on the way and played with tubing for 6 hours. The river was not too cold to swim and the scenery was beautiful. I was so grateful to Michael for driving for more than 6 hours and doing a fun tubing. Byungik Jung I created a page in the Notion to find the verbs associated with the three words we set up last week. Selected verbs will be applied to many images and will play an important role in expressing our identity. There were more words than we thought, so we couldn't decide in a day.
I chose the music for the intro and outro video and edited the wrong parts. It was a little bit burden to me because the video I made goes to the beginning and end of all the videos. By referring to and copying the videos on YouTube, I have made videos of various styles to highlight our style. On Wednesday, we decided to change the location of the green screen, and then we moved the screen to various locations to test whether the video was working well. The biggest problem was the noise. Our office has a building elevator control room and stairs to the roof, and the noise from there was quite disturbing. The location was well lighted and good for Michael to see the slide screen, but there was still noise. We couldn't satisfy all the situations, but we decided that the location could make better video quality than before. Due to the large screen size, we moved all the chairs and desks in the office to the center and organized the electrical wires. We added a narration that Michael explains to the GCU video posted on the LiftPort channel. It wasn't in the original shooting plan, but we added it to the filming schedule because we can produce the video easily and quickly using the data we have. Michael made a PPT slide for the video and recorded his voice. I made a bridge video that will go into the middle of several videos and uploaded it to my company OneDrive account. I applied the sound recorded by Michael to the video, but it was a bit awkward. The quality of the video was not good, so we decided to film it again. I uploaded the video we created in the OneDrive account B-Roll folder. The next day, we filmed the GCU video that we decided to revise again. I searched and copied the PowerPoint animation making videos on YouTube and applied it to our video. Since most of the programs that I want to use in Windows OS require high computer specifications, so I mainly made videos using PowerPoint. Byungik Jung This is the second week of making videos. And I'm still getting familiar with this industry. I have learned to implement even more effects and experienced some problems as well. While my editing skills are getting better, I had to go through software crashes, computer crashes, high memory consumption, computer overheating, very high rendering times, etc. I’m truly starting to miss my powerful desktop computer back in Peru. Doing this work on a laptop is not the best move out there, but it works for now. I do think most of these problems are caused by Kdenlive. So I’m really wondering if going back to Windows and using a more popular software is the solution I’m looking for. I will know the answer by the end of the week.
Either way, I realize now, that any modifications required for a video, like cuts, changing the background multiple times, embed another video, etc. drastically affect the edit time. One of my new roommates is a Washington boy called Simon. He is a networks - IT tech and he’s very quiet. My other new roommate is a Chinese teacher stuck in the United States due to the lack of flights and heavy restrictions between China and USA. He likes to cook Chinese food, and he’s very good at it. He cooked for us a couple of times already and now I feel the need to cook some Peruvian food as reciprocity. I’m not a good cook at all, but I guess I’ll try... any of these coming days. Anyway, I think we’ll all get along just fine. The downside? The internet may get slower, especially at the weekends. It sucks that T-mobile is surprisingly slower here, compared to New York. I’ve been reading a book from a Peruvian author that Michael lent me. It’s a compilation of somewhat entertaining tales, let’s see how better or worse it turns at the end. Fabio Michael shared a link to the article to identify the characteristics of the viewers watching the video. We first set a goal to find the character of the company and add it to the video production by referring to related keywords and contents. We compared the total of 9 keywords by selecting 3 keywords each of us thought. Fortunately, we combined keywords that are not much different and finally compressed them into three. Lastly, we coordinated the video schedule and reviewed all the scripts and PowerPoint presentations that Michael would use to shoot.
There was a formal Monday this Monday. It was the first time Fabio gave a presentation since he joined the company, and this was my fourth presentation. I reported to Michael and Fabio the progress of the database. I prepared for PowerPoint slides about the video shooting based on the checklist I made last week. Slides included that the equipment I installed for the video and took the first simulation video. The theme of the video was to show which video we upload on the LiftPort YouTube channel. We ran the program to edit the video and there were many problems. First of all, the angle of light created shadows, which interfered with editing. The color of Michael's tie is also green, so it overlaps with the color of the screen. Finally, the wrinkled screen interfered with editing. I made a list of problems that occurred so that we can solve them as soon as possible. The video editing program that I used was a free version. This version was not able to do many functions and the watermark was included in our video so it could not be uploaded. Fabio and I removed the wrinkles on the green screen with the steam iron that Michael brought. After that, I made a short introductory video for the beginning and end of the video. Fortunately, Michael liked the phrase graphics that I made, so I decided to use them, and I wrote down the needs and additions. I went into YouTube Creator's page and chose and applied music for the video. Byungik Jung Contrary to the feeling of a good mood last Friday, Michael's expression looked mad after a phone call with investor Jack. It was because of investors who did not want to build elevators, which was the core of the presentation made through Pitch Deck. The most absurd thing I've heard is that one of the investors has a deep connection to the Chinese capital.
It means that we cannot work with the U.S. government and military aerospace agencies. If any money needed for our business is related to China, we cannot make Luna elevators. Michael has been explaining and rechecking all this, but today's call made him very upset and seemed to have lost some trust in investors. Michael finished his call with Jack and had an urgent meeting with Fabio and me. He said we have to build a media company to earn money, assuming that we would not receive investment by investors. Michael's emphasis at the meeting was to raise funds to run the company so as not to give up building elevators. Without the investment, Michael may have to behind the wheel again despite the Coronavirus infection. No one will want this result, but the remaining time is about three to six months. Although the investment has not yet been completely fall through, we felt the need to create Plan B through the currency today, and then we have finished a very earnest meeting. Michael talked on the phone all day long to find another investor. Fortunately, Michael told me that It was very useful with the call with an acquaintance who would connect other investors. After talking on the phone with the participant he met at Summit last month, he learned how to get the funds. After Michael's call, we had time to review Pros and Cons, which we first made after joining the company. We discussed some things, including my goals, possible difficulties in working. I was so grateful to Michael for trying to apply the work environment I wanted as much as possible. The confirmed cases of coronavirus patients in the U.S. have exceeded 2 million. We talked about the recent protests and the increased number of people infected with the virus as social distancing released. We decided to wear masks more thoroughly and manage personal health more. I added all the books on the bookshelf to the database, and I also moved all the people's information on Contact Plus to Notions. Migration work will end until next week and The day to use Database to find a partner to join our business is just around the corner. Byungik Jung Almost half a year has passed since I came to the United States. I feel like time is passing super fast and I haven't done anything valuable yet. Perhaps I’m too hard on myself since some of the skills I’m learning can be useful in the future, but that motivates me to work a little harder in the objectives I have.
We started filming videos! This sometimes gets a little frustrating. Like when one of your mics doesn’t work and you don’t realize about it until you watch the video. Or when you realize your 30 min rendering video doesn't even open for the 2nd second time. I guess this will get easier once we figure everything out. So far, I have made some progress in learning how to edit videos. For that, I’m using a free source software designed for Linux, called Kdenlive. Overall I would say it’s intuitive enough for me, but the effects are a totally different story. Figuring out what exactly they do, is really challenging. So I'm still learning and trying to produce the best videos for the media company project. Things in Tacoma are still good, COVID-19 cases are going up but I don't think it will get worse. At least not for us. And the weather is still warm and nice. I have a new roommate and I may get another roommate later in the week. Hopefully, they are as clean as my other roommate. There’s definitely a lot to learn and work on in the following weeks, I will remain optimistic in order to reach our objective. I also need to organize better my time, to keep working on my programming course. Fabio The past week was supposed to be normal but Michael got sick and we had to stop operations for a few days, just in case. He did get tested for COVID-19 and the result was negative as we were already expecting. At this point, I don’t feel any fear of contagion. I’m not sure if that is good since that reaction actually makes us be more careful. But we can not live our whole life with fear. So personally, I’ll try to be as careful as I can, and hope for the best.
Tacoma weather is actually pretty nice. Not too warm or too cold. Not too dry or too humid. By now, I consider the west coast of the United States, to have my most ideal weather to live in. Michael talked to Jack, and it seems the investment may not be as close as we initially thought, but at least it looks like he is willing to commit to our cause a little later. I still continue taking my online course. So far I like that we can implement many functionalities using very few lines of code. I really want to see if there’s an easier way to implement the front end styles. Today we brought a bunch of filming equipment and shot a small video as a test. Good enough for playing around and getting familiar with my new video-editing software. We will see if the “open source” can deliver a product as good as the proprietary software. In the afternoon, we got visited by the building owner. He was very serious and he probably wants to get the money we owe him from late rent. That’s a little scary to me, but Michael says it’s fine, nothing to worry about. It makes sense because right now none wants this office, or any office actually. By the end of this week, we had already planned out a lot of details of the new media company. Our goal right now is making 110 videos until October. While it may seem way too optimistic, and the little reasonable voice in my head would tell me we should probably focus on delivering a super high-quality content instead, why not both? I’ve always been told to aim very high in order to achieve high. I guess it’s time to prove it. Fabio |
AuthorMichael Laine CategoriesArchives
April 2023
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