Currently, we are waiting on the second beta deadline stragglers, which was May 1st. Start thinking about finals at this point, please, and don't hesitate to send them in early if you finish early. Please include the original resolution that you ripped/captured your footage at if you haven't already.
There are three tracks open right now (09, 13, 17), and they are open to everyone on a first come, first serve basis. Just audition like usual and I'll get back to you within a day or two.
I've chosen a beta tester and do not require any more participants. Thanks to those who offered and let's all welcome CrackTheSky to the team. :3
Project FMV 2: Polygonal Rapture
Games Used in FMV 1
Crimson Sea 2
Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus
Final Fantasy VIII
Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistance
Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Resident Evil 4
Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time
Xenosaga 1, 2, 3
Concept
A celebration of videogames in music video form.
Differences
FMV 1 was a good project, but it had a lot of bumps along the way that I believe I can smooth out or prevent altogether now that I have some experience coordinating. So what's going to be different about this one?
- technical requirements are all uniform, and help is readily offered, meaning we should all have technically correct videos
- song mix is more catered to the editors, meaning most people should find a segment that they're very comfortable editing
- only two beta testers instead of four, eliminating the wait time between feedback and editing.
- deadlines are made very clear from the start and will be followed without extensions of any kind
- I'm not editing a segment - this is actually a good thing, as it gives me time to focus on the intro/outro and giving feedback right away on other segments. In other words, it gives me time to be a proper coordinator.
Generally speaking, this project is just going to be more direct and streamlined, and hopefully that will make it smoother and more enjoyable for everyone.
Another project so soon? Yes. Due to uncontrollable circumstances, I either have to begin this project now and have it done by August 2008 or I won't be able to even start it until January 2009. I'd rather go with sooner than later, as I don't want such a huge gap between the projects.
This time around, rather than confining everyone to a single style of music, we're adopting this line of thinking:
The Democracy Mix - everyone pitches in a song, whether or not they want to edit to it personally, and whether or not you're actually editing for the project (it just has to be something you like and would want to see in a project). I don't even care what language it's in or whether it has words at all! I'll pick what works the best and suits the project's needs and mix them together ROS3 style.
FMV 2 Full Mix in .mp3 format
Track 01 (Intro) - Good Charlotte - "A New Beginning" / Lostprophets - "Last Train Home" (0:00-0:53) (0:53) - dj_ultima_the_great (?)
Track 02 - Lostprophets - "Make a Move" (0:51-1:58) (1:07) - inthesto – Dynasty Warriors 5
Track 03 - "" (1:56-2:49) (0:52) - omegaevolution - .hack//G.U.
Track 04 - "" (2:47-3:48) (1:00) - OnyX DragoN - Final Fantasy X-2
Track 05 - "" (3:45-4:38) (0:52) - ArashinomeAMV - Devil May Cry 4
Track 06 - Ladytron - "Destroy Everything You Touch" (4:34-5:38) (1:03) - dokidoki - War of the Monsters
Track 07 - "" (5:36-6:33) (0:56) - Spatula_Castle - Clock Tower 3
Track 08 - "" (6:28-7:22) (0:53) - Aeri – Drakengard 1
Track 09 - "" (7:20-8:14) (0:54) -
Track 10 - Sunchase feat. Yana Kay - "Remember Me (Remix)" (8:11-9:15) (1:04) - Niwa-kun – Shenmue 1
Track 11 - "" (9:13-10:11) (0:57) - Undeadborn – Warriors Orochi
Track 12 - "" (10:08-10:55) (0:46) - purplepolecat - Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Track 13 - "" (10:52-11:51) (0:58)
Track 14 - "" (leads into Filter - "Take a Picture") (11:48-12:33) (0:44) - Aeri - Galerians: Ash
Track 15 - Filter - "Take a Picture" (12:28-13:22) (0:53) - Kitsuner - Psychonauts
Track 16 - "" (13:18-14:10) (0:52) - Kazemon15 - Tales of Destiny (remake)
Track 17 - "" (14:05-15:08) (1:02)
Track 18 - "" (15:06-16:06) (1:00) - AltruisticCrono - Beyond Good and Evil
Track 19 - "" (16:04-16:39) (0:35) - CodeChrono - Final Fantasy X
Track 20 - Explosions in the Sky - "The Only Moment We Were Alone" (16:36-17:27) (0:51) - Spatula_Castle – Fatal Frame 3
Track 21 - "" (17:24-18:24) (1:00) - Arkada - Legend of Dragoon
Track 22 - "" (18:21-19:15) (0:53) - AMV_4000 ( BullseyeSSJ4000@hotmail.com ) - The Bouncer
Track 23 (Outro) - tentatively goes to Fall_Child42
Some track notes:
- the shortest track is 19 (thirty five seconds).
- the longest track is 2 (one minute, seven seconds).
- the rest of the tracks are between fifty seconds and a minute long on average.
- "" means that it's just a continuation of the same song
- the first number in parentheses is where the track appears in the full mix. The second number is the duration of the track.
- the intro is up for grabs, but I'm really looking for someone who's a bit more effects-savvy than I am. Nothing too over-the-top, but I want more than what I did for the intro in FMV 1.
Technical Stuff
- Games must be .org-able! (although I'll allow a couple of non-Japanese games if there's someone really pining for one)
- please avoid comedic tracks... I'm looking for a fairly serious project here
- 1 game per person (NO duplicates, and nothing that was used in the first project)
- 1 track per person
- Frame Size: 640x352, 16:9
- Frame Rate: 29.97 fps
- Video Quality: high quality capture or rip; NO DOWNLOADED FOOTAGE!
- Please de-interlace your footage
- NO subtitles, logos, watermarks, or whatever else doesn’t belong in your video
- Transitional footage: please edit 3 seconds over your track length on both ends. The extra seconds will be included in the individual .wavs.
- Submission Codecs: Lagarith (preferred) or Huffyuv
***NOTE***: at this point, I'm planning on the final being 640x352 h.264 .mp4, and possibly rendering an XviD at 512x282.
About Frame Size: while I liked the animated bars that AtomX helped with in FMV 1, it will just be easier to have the entire thing be a uniform resolution/aspect ratio. So no black bars or stretching/skewing footage, okay? If you don't know how to work with your footage, let me know and I'll try to help.
Need a game? Have a game but not right there, right now? Remember there there is always the rental store and online rental sites. You only need a few days to get footage, and that's exactly how much time renting gives you.
Betas and Finals
There are only two official beta testers for this project - myself, and CrackTheSky. All betas must be cleared by both of us before you're considered finished.
For further feedback, I would encourage you to make a "WIP" post in the Opinion Exchange forum, or ask for a beta tester in the #AMV IRC channel. #amv-review is another IRC channel that runs "Beta Thursdays," where you can try to get feedback (I think they still do, anyway). Also, feel free to share your segments with each other.
Compress your betas anyway you want (as long as I can watch it), but NEVER send me a lossless segment unless I ask for it (which won't be until the last deadline.)
Your final should be compressed with Lagarith or Huffyuv, at 640x352 16:9, and make sure you keep your track audio on it (so I'm not left guessing where your segment is supposed to sync up to the master mix). If there are black borders of any kind on your video, you did it wrong and I will ask you to fix it (this includes small black junk on the borders - crop and resize appropriately to get rid of that stuff). This shouldn't be an issue if you're sending me regular betas at the specified deadlines.
For uploading your betas or finals, no, I don't have hosting of my own. Please use a temporary file host - preferably sendspace, as it's the easiest for me to download from. It has a capacity of 300 MB. If your final is bigger than 300 MB, please use The File Splitter and send it to me via sendspace in a few parts, .zip/.rar-ing the .exe with one of the sections.
If sendspace is a problem for you, I'm comfortable with most other temporary hosts. I just like that one the best. Alternatively, if you have your own hosting, feel free to give me a link to your betas/final from there.
Deadlines
Deadlines are very, very strict. If you can't handle a tight schedule, please don't join the project. It has to be strict, because I have to finish this project before September. If it's August 31st, 2008 and I still don't have tracks from some of the participants, I'll have no choice but to postpone finishing it until January 2009. I'll be in Spain for those four months in between, and I'll have no way of coordinating a project then.
If you miss the first beta deadline and you haven't contacted me with a damn convincing reason ("it's con season" is NOT a valid reason - it's always con season somewhere), you will be booted off of the project so someone else will get a chance.
If you make the first deadline, but miss the second one, expect me to get on your case about it. If you make me wait too long (and I'm free to change how long I think "too long" is), I'll boot you off of the project so someone else will get a chance.
If you miss the final deadline, I postpone finishing the project 'til January. Simple as that.
Here are the dates:
Song Submissions Start: December 20th (2 weeks)
Song Mix Assembly and Feedback: January 3rd (1 week)
Auditions Start: January 10th (2 weeks)
Participant Announcement, Back Up Editor Sign Ups, Project Starts: January 24th
Secondary Auditions, Back Up Sign Ups: January 25th (2 weeks)
First Beta: March 1st (please mention the original resolution of your footage in this beta [reference])
Second Beta: May 1st
Final: August 1st
Release: August 10th
NOTE: if you have a beta or final for me earlier than these dates, SEND IT IN!. Just because you have this much time doesn't mean you have to procrastinate and wait for those dates. If you're done in a month, so be it. I have no problems holding onto your final for a few months.
Auditions
Why auditions? To be honest, it's not to "weed out the bad editors," as some people think. It's actually just to prevent the rush that I had last time. In FMV 1, people were doing a mad scramble for the tracks in the project, and I'm concerned that some people were pushed too quickly while others never even noticed the thread in time. To get rid of that, I decided to have people audition. That way, everyone has a fair, timely chance.
To audition, please post a few references of your work. I'll automatically discount anyone who provides only a YouTube link. The best candidates are people who have videos uploaded to this site, although I'll consider other sources. I especially want to see any work that you've done with videogames or heavily CGI'd sources.
Also, post your top three choices for tracks, and if you could, try to post what game you'd like to use. Remember, you can only pick one game, and it can't be something that was used in the previous project or something that anyone else is using for this one. The list of previously used games is at the top of this page.
It'll look something like this:
If you can give me that much, I'll be content. However, feel free to add in anything else relevant. I'll take into consideration every scrap of evidence that says you should be in this MEP.dj_ultima_the_great
References:
(shows me working with a VG source)
(more recent; shows off more of my style)
1st - Track 4 (Resident Evil 2)
2nd - Track 7 (Parasite Eve)
3rd - Track 11 (Metal Gear Solid 2)
Back-up Editor Sign-ups
If you're not picked for the project, but you still would like to be a back-up editor, please post the exact same way that you did for your audition. Offer up a few videos (you can offer different ones if you want, or the same ones again), say which tracks you want, and mention what game you'd like to use, making sure to follow the guidelines. I'll then start the whole process of choosing a set of editors again.
If I pick you as a back-up editor, I really would like you to be ready to pick up a track. However, if you've moved on to something else by then, I won't be upset. I'm not expecting the back-ups to be waiting on me hand and foot.
For this reason, I'll even do back-ups of back-ups. Hopefully, if the MEP garners enough interest, I'm just going to have a short list of names beneath each track in the order that I'll contact people should the main editor drop his/her track. With any luck, this will prevent any major breaks in the flow of work for this project.
Other Things
VG footage does not edit itself. Okay, so that seems pretty obvious, but I want people to realize that just because there are pretty graphics doesn't mean that you can slack off on beat sync (and effects, if those are your thing.) For some reason, that's the way I see people treat VG footage all too often. Know that I won't accept that. If you don't put in some effort, I'm going to call you out on it. Videogames are my passion, and I just want what's best for this project.
Lastly, I have some recommended viewing. These are the MEPs that I look up to - the ones that inspire me and make me consider and reconsider everything about this project. If this MEP comes out like any of these, I think I would be overjoyed, so let's make it a success, okay?
Demons Within
Ayumix: D a y b r e a k
Reflections of Style 3
Memory Flash
If there is anything I have missed - and given that I've been adding to these rules since halfway through FMV 1, I sincerely hope I'm not missing anything - let me know, as always.
- Jen
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