MERI & VegettoEX: THE PANEL:
Super fun! Here's our "set-list" (so to speak :P)
- 01) Sex, Lies, & Roses
- 02) Better Off Dead (Subtitled Parody)
- 03) Come With Me
- 04) Screaming Infidelities
- 05) Deluge
- 06) DBAF Commercial (Fake, Subtitled)
- 07) DBAF Commercial ("Real" Version)
- 08) Obligatory Tinfins Comparison
- 09) Memory (Electric Version)
- 10) Traces of Insanity (Remaster)
- 11) Alone in the World
- 11) Doomrider (Beta Preview)
#01 & #10 are pretty obvious (just the videos, themselves). After we played our most recent video first, we went back to the beginning and played some of our first videos. My subtitled parody of #02 is the video, itself (converted from ASF! Hah!) with really self-insulting subtitles making fun of the lyric-synch and timing :P; it's on our DVD. #03 is actually Meri's third video, but she couldn't find the VHS that her first two were on (she started this crap back in 1998)!
After our first videos, we wanted to show what could be done when you do your homework before making videos, so we each picked a first-video from editors in the last year that just blew us away, especially for a first video.
I just had to play the DBAF stuff; they're just too funny. I "subtitled" the original fake commercial, since the audience wouldn't have the "translation" on a website in front of them, and then played the "real" version of the commercial. WOW, that got an awesome reaction... much more than I expected.
Next up was a side-by-side comparison of Obligatory EVA Trailer with the original Tinfins trailer from the appropriate Sealab 2021 episode; that also got a nice reaction.
Back to "alternate" versions, Meri next played a version of her Otakon video, Memory, with the electric version of the Sugarcult song. Both the original acoustic and new electric version use the exact same vocal track, so it was incredibly easy to just plop the electric version into the timeline and synch it up (with just a few minor audio edits, mostly for length).
Next up was her remaster of Traces of Insanity, which she made for our DVD (she also remastered Heart of Sword, but we didn't play that). We finished up our regular videos with Alone in the World, and it was on to...
DOOMRIDER!!! What fun! It got a really, really nice reaction, and we got tons of positive feedback about it after the panel. We showed the most recent version which is 16 of the 17 "tracks" completed (missing Cell Game). Our good friend Jeff "gambitt" Heller is taking the final track, and is actually coming to get all the source footage and audio tonight :P. Man, you all are gonna wet your freakin' pants over this thing. It's soooo awesome.
As the panel ended, we announced we had DVDs to pass out, so I took a MASSIVE crowd over to the side of the room and got rid of nearly all of them! We left the con with 0 DVDs, so I think that says something :P
RETRO VIDEO GAME PROJECT:
T'was cool to see it on the big screen. This was the sequel to last year's NES Project, a series of AMVs done to remixes of NES game songs. This year's "Retro" theme was 16-bit and below. As you may have seen, I did a Street Fighter video for the project, which was the fifth actual video played. The coordinators were kind enough to find a Japanese SF commercial to play before my track, which rocks (they try to find as many old-school commercials as possible to lead into the music videos, which is a nice touch). I'll probably include it on our next DVD. The project lasted just under an hour, which was a nice length. My favorite tracks were probably Zarxrax's Tetris video, Castor's FFVI video, and Carlos' Killer Instinct video (which is quite debatable as being 16-bit :P). If you want to download the whole project, they've got a torrent for the XviD available. Check it.
AWA AMV AWARDS CEREMONY:
For those who don't know, there three AMV contests at AWA: Expo, Pro, and Masters.
Expo is the "send anything and everything" contest. There was about 300 submissions. Matt Wagner (the coordinator) and a group of friends/experts spend several weekends watching ALLLLL of the entries and select winners to recognize. There's the regular awards (Drama, Action, Comedy, etc), but there's always some fun awards, too (such as "Pop Will Eat Itself").
Pro is the blind, peer-judged contest. Creators send in their videos with no identifying information. All videos are compiled onto VHS/DVD and sent BACK to the editors. Editors have a couple weeks to watch all of the entries and nominate videos into categories (and also suggest NEW categories). The top four/five videos nominated in each category move onto the final voting, in which there is one winner in each category. A video may win more than one category, but no more than one video can a single category.
Masters is... masters. Only those who have won a major award in the past can enter. It is blind-judged by Matt Wagner, a select group of experts in various categories (audio, visual, etc) and the previous Masters winner. All entries are blind, and may not appear anywhere before the convention. There is one winner, and one winner, only. The award is a custom-fit jacket, mirroring the popular golf contest's award.
We sent stuff to the Expo content, but didn't expect anything there (and didn't get anythinng, either :P). Seeing the Expo winners was great, though; some really awesome stuff there. Next up was the Pro winners! We were up for "Best Angst," "Best Character Profile," and "Best Drama" for Sex, Lies, & Roses. After a little trouble getting the master tape started, the Pro awards began. Holy crap, we won "Best Angst"! It was one of the new creator-suggested categories, which was really cool. This is three-for-three that we've won something in AWA's Pro contest :P. Gotta keep up the streak! Be sure to check out the other Pro winners, too.
IRON CHEF:
Yes, Iron Chef. Similar to the popular show, this is for AMVing! Two top-tier AMV editors are set against each other with identical computers, identical source footage, and they are allowed to bring their own possible audio (which are then put on both computers). There is a theme and a few source they are told ahead of time, and one "secret ingredient" they are told RIGHT THEN as they have to edit. This year, it was "Aluminum Studios" (Will) vs "Kusoyaro Productions" (Hsien); Hsien has won the last three years in a row :P. And... this was his fourth win!!!
But there's more...
This past Otakon, "Quu" (Pat, who runs everything tech for AWA and tons of other cons, including all Iron Chef) approached Meri and I and asked a question... was there any interest in participating in Iron Chef? Iron Chef is really more of a show for the audience than anything else, and to make it more amusing and get some hilarity going... Interestingly, all of our friends knew about Quu's plan for this long before we did :P
Were Will to win, Meri would be the challenger for next year. Cool. Were Hsien to win... well, that would be four times in a row. Time to overthrow him. If he won? Hsien vs... Meri... and Mike.
So next year it's us vs. Hsien :P. It'll be tons of fun.
DDR PROJECT 4: 5th MIX
WOW.
No... WOW.
What an amazing project. For those who don't know, the last few years at AWA, the DDR Project has been a staple event. An entire DDR nonstop megamix is split into individual tracks and given to editors who make videos to that song; the entire thing is then strung back into the one giant audio/video megamix... an hour-long nonstop AMV! This was our third year doing it, and we had a crapload of fun working on Enter the Dragon. But man, everyone else's tracks were sooooooo amazing. We even had two Japanese MAD editors come on-board and do two tracks... and they flew in from Japan to come to the con! WHOA! They did some awesome stuff, and even had a panel on Sunday to show some more crazy shit which completely blew me away. The project is currently being cleaned up and remastered by Ian Roberts (AbsoluteDestiny), so it isn't quite ready to be distro-ed just yet... but it'll come! Man, it was so great... everyone did such an absolutely outstanding job this year... I'm really proud of how it came out, and I'm just a single editor :P.
Sadly, this may be the last DDR project. I won't discuss the situations behind-the-scenes, but it's mostly just become such a huge hassle and ungodly amount of work and time necessary to put it together. It's a shame, but that's the way the cookie crumbles... if it is indeed the last one, it sure went out with an amazing bang.
CLOSING:
I think that's it. My hands are cold. No more typing. Maybe I'll add stuff, later :P
