Category Archives: Movies

Movie to txt in dutch

In the past i’ve converted some VHS movies speech to text, using all kinds of tools.
Lets use some opensource tools!

pip install moviepy
pip install SpeechRecognition

Create a python script with the following:
(Called mine wav2txt.py)

import math, contextlib
import speech_recognition as sr
from moviepy.editor import AudioFileClip
movie_audio_file_name = "movieadiofile.wav"
with contextlib.closing(wave.open(movie_audio_file_name,'r')) as f:
    frames = f.getnframes()
    rate = f.getframerate()
    duration = frames / float(rate)
total_duration = math.ceil(duration / 60)
r = sr.Recognizer()
for i in range(0, total_duration):
    with sr.AudioFile(movie_audio_file_name) as source:
        audio = r.record(source, offset=i*60, duration=60)
    f = open("transcription.txt", "a")
    f.write(r.recognize_google(audio, language="nl-NL"))
    f.write(" ")
f.close()

Now convert a movie to wav using below.

ffmpeg -i /fileserver/path/koolhoven.mkv movieaudiofile.wav

run python3 wav2txt.py

output
(Note .. these are not timestamped for subtitles)
I only needed the things being said in the home movie recordings as text.

Ik zit hier in de film The James Dean aan de
wereld voorstelde en daarmee de tienerfilm ingeleverd introduceren zelden werden onrustige 10 asiel zo mooi blootgelegd als ik deze film van Nicolas bij en dat wordt dan meteen toevallig even de mooiste
titels ooit wel eens autocross vanavond kijken we naar de kom ik nog even veel zomer dat je voor het eerste meisje Zoem de eerste baantje

etc..

I admire people who excel at things they do

These are my lists, but i’m open for discussions/questions
Work in progress

Actors

  • Tom Hanks
  • John Lithgow
  • Dennis Lee Hopper
  • Jack Nicholson
  • Clint Eastwood
  • Dustin Hoffman
  • Rutger Hauer (RIP) .. see “De kijk van Koolhoven” why

Art

  • H.R. Giger
  • M.C. Escher
  • César Manrique
  • Comics ( Details from  André Franquin, Dark Humor Koen Hottentot,  Don Lawrence, Don Martin ) to name a few, they are spot on
One of my comic collections – Don Martin

Classical Music

  • Paganini
  • Ludovico Einaudi

Composers

  • Ennio Morricone
  • Hans Zimmer
  • John Williams ( with a remark )
    Some of the Starwars Suite was taken from already existing music
    ( See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN3vl-JnUF8 ! )
    Gustav Holst – The Planets Suite – Mars part for example

Folk/pipers (composers)

  • Gordon Duncan (RIP)
  • Fred Morrison
  • RS MacDonald
  • Paddy Keenan

A (bad) comic i drew about Gordon Duncan in 2012

Opera

Bands (non folk)

Rammstein – I know, seems like a obvious populair choice.
But hear me out.

I like classical till metal. But it has to be musically interesting.

Most (non-german) people don’t listen to the lyrics, i did not either.
I found the music okay. Then i started to listen to the lyrics.

The lyrics are surprisingly deep.
Layers in the text, word jokes like:
Du… (you)
Du hast… (you have, but sounds like hasst .. You hate)
Du hast mich… ( You have me, or sounds like you hate me)
Du hast mich…
Du hast mich gefragt… (You have asked me)

Although people think they are fascists or far-right. Coming from the punk scene, they are kind of the opposite.

Everything they do has a meaning, but sometimes you can “paste” different stories about the song.

Listen to Ohne Dich, and then see the Music Video.

Have a good listen to Germany, and Man gegen man.
There are others better in explaining .. see:

And a AI generated Music Video .. perfectly matching the Lyrics

Bonus:
Check out this YT channel, all kinds of musicians .. transcripted (is this a word?) by this dude.

https://www.youtube.com/@GeorgeCollier

Avond van de filmmuziek

After 3 times being cancelled due to Covid, it finally happened.

We got to get to the “Evening of the film music”

We held on to our tickets, as apparently 90% of the people!

We love film music, but it is a treat when there is a live orchestra.
(And special effects .. like a stuntman hanging from the roof, fire (not like Rammstein haha), and big displays)

If you get the chance .. go!
Wicked good musicians and singers.
Tania Kross was amazing!

Previous concerts we went to: Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. The star wars suite, and an evening with Hans ZImmer.

  • Richard Strauss – “Also Sprach Zarathustra”
  • The Cinematic Orchestra – “Arrival of the Birds” from Theory of Everything
  • John Williams – “Hedwig’s Theme” from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
  • Ennio Morricone – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
    • Main title
    • The Ecstasy of Gold
  • Ennio Morricone – Once Upon a Time in the West 
    • Man with a Harmonica
    • Once Upon a Time in the West
  • Hans Zimmer – “Maestro” from The Holiday
  • Thomas Newman – “The Night Window” from 1917
  • Ludovico Einaudi – “Oltremare” from Nomadland
  • Ludovico Einaudi – “Fly” from Intouchables
  • John Williams – “Duel of the Fates” from Star Wars:The Phantom Menace
  • John Williams –  “Main Title” from Star Wars: A New Hope

Intermission

  • Lalo Schifrin and Lorne Balfe – “Fallout” from Mission: Impossible – Fallout
  • Alexandre Desplat – “The Shape of Water” from The Shape of Water
  • Alan Silvestri – “Portals” from Avengers: Endgame
  • Hans Zimmer, Elton John and Lebo M – The Lion King
    • Circle of Life
    • King of the Pride Rock
  • Don Davis and Juno Reactor – “Navras” from The Matrix Revolutions
  • Jerry Goldsmith – Theme from Basic Instinct
  • 60 Years of James Bond
    • James Bond Theme
    • “No Time To Die” from No Time To Die
    • “Skyfall” from Skyfall
    • “A View to a Kill” from A View to a Kill
    • “Goldfinger” from Goldfinger
    • “Live and Let Die” from Live and Let Die
  • John Williams – “The Raiders March” from Raiders of the Lost Ark (encore)

Streaming, recording, videocall and more

I use a bunch of different tools to create video’s or stream stuff.
Below is some info about those tools.

Software:

  • Kdenlive – Linear video editor (Adding text, transitions, etc)
  • VLC media player – For example to embed video in OBS
  • OBS – Opensource Broadcast software, i use this also to record my screen – You can use this as a virtual webcam, so you can fool around with the image.
  • Audacity – For editing audio
  • QPrompt – Teleprompter

For OBS i made a shortcut/macro keyboard thingy. Based on an arduino pro mini. (Which can connect to a computer acting like a HID, for example a keyboard or mouse)
I use this one to emulate keystrokes which i’ve configured in OBS to do:

  • Switch to scene 1
  • Switch to scene 2
  • Transition from scene to scene
  • Start streaming
  • Start recording
  • Mute
  • [empty] – sometimes used as “start virtual webcam”
  • Slow transition
  • Blank screen
  • Display overlay text

(Originally i planned to do this with a Nextion Display)

Mobile Phone holder, like a third hand

Sometimes a Nikon on a tripod is better.

I don’t have a dedicated webcam for my battlestation. So i mainly use a Actioncam (4k) which can be connected via USB. Or i use a Nikon together with the Camlink.

So i record using my mobile, webcam, screen record
Edit using Audacity and Kdenlive.

When recording with OBS i use MP4 as a container, this is a no-brainer to embed in websites. Use mkv when recording long shots, or when connections can break. (A mp4 will be corrupted)

ffmpeg -i streamrecord.mkv -codec copy putinmp4container.mp4

I’ve played around with StreamFX which gives you some nice extra tools.
(There are loads of plugins to download)
Using websockets is on my todolist.

A little OBS trick without green screen

StreamFX example

Working on a blender animation.
Realtime screen grab, which gets 3D placed in a scene.

Kdenlive and credit scroller

For a video project iḿ working on, i needed a vertical credit scroller.
I’ve put together a little howto.

Tools used:

  • OBS – Recording the howto
  • Kdenlive – generating the Credit scroller, and recording voiceover howto clip
  • Vlc

And this is the result

Movies and more.

We love movies, and watch anything.

I’ve posted about genres:
https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/2021/03/23/movie-genres/

And we are watching the whole top 250 of imdb.

Now i wanted to have a list of movies by Actor or Director.
So i could see if there are more movies i have to watch
So today i started to figure out how.

So i made a Google Sheet and scraped websites with the needed information.

  • Create a new sheet
  • Make a tab for top-dutch, actor or director
  • Do a search of things you want to display
  • A search of actor and filmography will probably work (imdb of wikipedia)
  • copy the url and make a note of which table it is, first second or more.
  • Paste in the sheet the following at A1
=IMPORTHTML("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutger_Hauer_filmography","table",1)

Where the last number (this case 1) is the number of table in the page.

Now you can color code those entries.

VR 360 180 3D

First tests with a Vuze Xr. (unedited unoptimized)

It can record 360 movies or take 360 degrees pictures.
Besides that it can do stereoscopic recording for using in VR glasses. (2D 180 tested in a oculus vr set)
In the past i made those 360 degrees pictures manually using Hugin for example. Also stereoscopic images, using two pictures.
But it was a lot of work, and most of the times the quality wasn’t worth it.

Another test i did recently was
https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/2022/01/02/ipcam-sphere-panorama/

Soon more

Wanted to make a videowall for a video project

I’ve seen some commercial solutions, and some free blender solutions which where too complex or too much hassle.

I’m not paying anything when you can do it yourself for free.
And i wanted a easy to setup wall, using movieclips or pictures.

So below is a blender howto

Above also shows howto enable displaying keypresses for making howto movies and a plugin for distributing objects.

Little example using method above