"Anthem of the Dead" - The Video that Cost $10,000

"Anthem of the Dead" is one I made years ago as I was intrigued by chroma key masking in Final Cut and the video trickery that could be done with it.  The narcissists in Facebook can learn from this as why only have one personality to be presented for adoration when you can put out four of them.

This video is yet another nightmare in the American Dream for you.  There isn't just one Silas, there are four of me.

This was back in the Stratocaster days and she was one beautiful lady.  Her neck bowed while I was smashed-up from a bike crash and Guitar Center in Rhode Island ripped me off on that one.  She could have been fixed but I didn't know it and it was a cold-blooded move not to tell me.  That was when I cut over to Godin xtSA ... I didn't get it from Guitar Center.

Charles Beale is the corrupt and thieving, penis-loving parasite from American Bankers Insurance Company who used this video as evidence that I'm a professional musician.  It's a false charge as I've never played professionally and really had very little interest in doing it.  Based on his so-called 'detective work,' he denied a claim for recovery after nearly $10,000 in my equipment was stolen in Dallas at a Second Life jam.  Even that wasn't a pro gig as everyone who played there got a one-ounce jar of some kind of jelly or some such.

And say there, sugar bear, what political party do you think gets love from Charles Beale.  That's a tough one, isn't it.



This is the video that got me into Second Life.  Making these animations for the lights was a screaming bitch and rendering fifteen seconds of video could take days.  This was because all of the lights were ray traced and they bounce all over the place.  I was using Bryce to generate the backdrops ... but then I saw Second Life where I could make sets with not much more effort than wiggling a finger.  Good-bye Bryce.


The technique I used to put more than one of myself on the screen simultaneously is all part of what is sometimes known as green screening a shot.  This process lets one build layers for a video in a process known as compositing.  Do that for as long as you like and / or your computer can handle and you can be the Mormon Tabernacle Choir if you like.  The same technique is used on a low level for videos people send to Facebook that show evidence of ghosts.  To make the composite a ghost, increase the transparency of the added layer to get the desired level of ghostliness.  Whammo ... the Countess de Bathory rises from the grave to kill virgins to keep her skin soft.   Aiiiiyyyyeeeee.  (That's true.  She really did that.)