Discussion: Matrix Machinima Contest

Not necessarily while making videos, but when I write, that happens all the time. I'd be struggling and struggling because I THOUGHT the dialogue I had was great. But when I write, I almost always cast a voice actor to the role, and if I can't hear them doing the dialogue, I know something's wrong. When I trust my judgement on what I think they'd say, it comes out a hundred times better.

*sniffle* Mind you, if I lived in the D/FW area, I'd have been begging and pleading with half the FUNimation voice cast to do voiceover work for some of my videos.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Shakespeare would tailor many parts to suit different actors. In fact, all the greats have done it or are doing it.

You were smart to follow your gut on this. It will definitely pay off.

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if I lived in the D/FW area, I'd have been begging and pleading with half the FUNimation voice cast to do voiceover work for some of my videos.


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Sitting in the big D right now....J.R.'s old building actually. I've worked with Chris S. on a project before for the DBGT CCG (enough letters there?...Dragon Ball GT Collectible Card Game).

Really? He's an absolute riot - met him a few times at Anime Vegas (I still owe him a drink), and he's quite cool. Now if I could just get him to do the narration for one of my videos...

*imagines Sabat's trademark Piccolo voice doing the lead-in to one of my trailers*

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

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WeGame's records the sounds just fine - except they tend to be one second off in timing, at least for me. Or you could hunt them down in the....

%#()$!)!##@
NO CARRIER

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Ugh, more problems! I tried WeGame to capture a test clip, but apparently whatever file format it produces causes my windows explorer to crash when I select it.

"COM Surrogate has stopped working" error? Click through all the errors then switch to detailed mode. It seems to happen when it tries to make icons for the AVI files. I searched all night some months ago but was never able to find a fix for it.

From the WeGames help page:

# My videos folder crashes upon selecting a file.

The issue is most likely caused by not having the proper codec. Our videos are recorded using the Motion JPEG codec, a part of the free K-Lite Codec Pack.
Try downloading and installing this codec and playing your videos again.

The codec can be found here.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the help, but I ended up finding an odd way to get FRAPS to work. Got my first production run of my Video now :-D Now it's time to mess with all the little stuff.

Dangit dangit DANG IT!!!

I was afraid of this. I've hacked and slashed dialogue practically to the bone and I'm still at 4:25!

I may have to lose the entire intro, which means my announcer goes bye-bye. Even that won't get me under four minutes though.

Arrrrrrggggghhhhhh!

We can switch problems. I'm hoping I get to 2 minutes...

Ooooh. I wonder how they'd react to a bunch of entries that make up a series?

I had to cut a major part of my show to fit it under 4 minutes as well.

It's still 3:52 on my last run

So far my video is just under 1;05 but all I have right now is a single sequence. Still a long ways from done so I gotta kick things up a bit.

Well, maybe I do things differently from you guys. I write the script, and then work out the blocking (locations, positions, MOVs, etc.) and any technical issues (animation stuff I've never tried before). Then I record the dialogue, which serves as a timeline to fit my animation into. In this case, I had some time to kill while waiting on my actors, so I pre-scripted some demo files with most of the things I need and I'll tweak the timing later.

Oh, and I'm at 4:19 now. So close...

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Well, maybe I do things differently from you guys. I write the script, and then work out the blocking (locations, positions, MOVs, etc.) and any technical issues (animation stuff I've never tried before). Then I record the dialogue, which serves as a timeline to fit my animation into. In this case, I had some time to kill while waiting on my actors, so I pre-scripted some demo files with most of the things I need and I'll tweak the timing later.

Oh, and I'm at 4:19 now. So close...

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This is my first time, so it's all new to me!

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Well, maybe I do things differently from you guys. I write the script, and then work out the blocking (locations, positions, MOVs, etc.) and any technical issues (animation stuff I've never tried before). Then I record the dialogue, which serves as a timeline to fit my animation into. In this case, I had some time to kill while waiting on my actors, so I pre-scripted some demo files with most of the things I need and I'll tweak the timing later.

Oh, and I'm at 4:19 now. So close...

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You can do it!

I normally write out a basic script, then work on getting it into audio form. After I have voices, I decide if music will add or detract from the action and finalize and audiofile.

^ All this is annoying and grr-inducing for the most part
v This is the fun part.

Then I take the audio file and try to match the best video to every part of it. I usually used Fraps, but After trying some new stuff with Demo editing in the last episode of BBF, I gave it a shot here. Still noob stuff; but I learned a bunch!

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This is my first time, so it's all new to me!

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Can't wait to see what you come up with! I can't decide whether I'm more excited for my entry, or everyone else's. :-D

Right now I am recording and putting everything together with dialog in my head. Later I will go and record that and if I need to fix timing issues because of the audio, I will remap the timing for everything.

Must film, must film... so much to do, and a little over a week to do it IN! ARGGGHHHH!!!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

You can do it!

I took the movie trailer approach, but to insure a cohesive story I basically outlined the entire movie (I know, most likely a bit of an overkill but it gave me a really clear picture of what I had to convey, besides it's another 8 Baller story and I like him ).

So my process has been:
1. outline the movie
2. write the script for the trailer
3. edit the music until I had a good progressive pace and a solid feeling of the moods shifting through the trailer
4. start demo recording and scripting
5. write custom tools so I can get the shots I need (more on that at a later date)
6. Begin creating additional assets to support the story
7. "shoot" video
8. create special FX
9. Composite it all together/make color adjustments for mood and style
10. Begin to edit it all together in tempo with the music
11. Record voice actors
12. Record/add sound FX
13. which brings us to now...tweeking, filling holes, reshooting, still working on additional assets, sound FX and special FX

This is also my first CoX video so I'm pretty sure I could have saved time somewhere above but at this point I'm making it up as I go along....and pray I don't run out of time.

It's been fun, and it's a way to get another chapter of 8 Baller history in a more solid form than my brain.

Todd

Sounds a lot like how I do things.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

I just know I'm gonna be outclassed here, but I still can't wait. Woo!

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Oh, and I'm at 4:19 now. So close...

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You need that talk show software that yanks out pauses and whatnot in the dialog to make it go faster.

Apf! My piece is strictly comedy fluff. No daring-do or cutting edge stuff in the demorecording (If I had thought of a rain of donuts, things might have been different!). But I hope people get a laugh out of it. If I win, it will be completely due to my talented voice actors. Both of my "mains" are strictly amateurs, but they had so much fun and really got into the roles.

I guess the reason I do the dialogue first is that it is easier for me to adapt the shots to the dialogue than the other way around. YMMV.

I am pushing to wrap this up in the next couple of days because my dad is coming to visit for a week and I don't want to be heads-down with my 'puter during his entire visit.

LOL - I agree about looking forward to everyone's entries, once they are posted. So... Who's gonna go first? Poor GrandConjurer is probably wetting himself, convinced that he's gonna win by default!

Go Team Machinima!

EDIT: Zloth, I am actually overlapping some of my dialogue, having characters interrupting and talking over/under each other. I've been surprised how natural it sounds.

In the rules it says any movie generated by macroes ,script ,will be disqualified its in the entry rules in one of the last paragraphs i had to redo whole script as demoediting will be disqualified and will make the quality of my movie not as good as i had planned