Collaborative videos - what's your process?

[Zarxrax]

I've done a couple before, and I would say the process, ideally, would be somewhere between 1 and 2. Working over the internet, you can't physically be in the room looking over each others shoulders, but you CAN have extensive discussion and communication with the other members about what you are doing. I guess sort of like #1, just not in real time :p

[Corran]

Rozard and I nearly collaborated on a project once and the method we decided on was to set up our projects the exact same way, using the same software, dvd rips, and folder structure/drive letters. Custom images and source files would be sent back and forth between AIM. This way, we could make edits and generally just trade the project file back and forth. We actually had everything set up and working, (and I was actually motivated to edit back then) but he had some video ideas he wanted to work on before starting the project and we never revisited the idea.

Not the easiest way to collaborate, and it mainly limits editing to one person at a time, but it would have worked without the need to split up the song had we of gone through with it.

If anyone wonders how we managed to keep the same folder structure and drive letters, we each created a network share of the project folder and then mapped the share on our computers to an agreed upon drive letter. In that particular case it was "Z:\".

[Coffee 54]

My expirence with collaborative videos has only been limited to full MEPs, the methods used in which best fall into the #2 catagory. I think I'd like to try something smaller, one or two other editors, and a less convental process. I would think it'd be fun, for example, to have real time group input ala #1.

[JudgeHolden]

Club them over the head as one would do to a baby seal, and then eat their brain.

[jasper-isis]

Is the info that comes out of this poll going to be used for the VCA, in order to dived non-meps from meps in a way that isn't just # of members?

Eh, I don't see this thread having any bearing on that. Most likely we'll have to just watch everything and call it case-by-case.

Rozard and I nearly collaborated on a project once and the method we decided on was to set up our projects the exact same way, using the same software, dvd rips, and folder structure/drive letters. Custom images and source files would be sent back and forth between AIM. This way, we could make edits and generally just trade the project file back and forth.

Sounds like the exact method that Kristie and I used.

I wish there were more work-flow software for video editing. Has anybody ever tried SyncVUE? Apparently it's a plugin for Skype that lets callers review and annotate videos at the same time. Sounds promising, but does it work?

[Kitsuner]

Trick everyone into making an MEP and then get somebody else to put it together for me.

It's true. Your oganization skills are unparalleled.

[trythil]

I wish there were more work-flow software for video editing.

There is, and I think it's part of the reason that companies like Avid are still around. (See, for example, Avid Interplay). I don't know of anything that your average AMV editor would have (legal) access to, though. Premiere Pro CS3 added the ability to annotate clips with notes and to export/share/import those notes, which is a start.

As far as processes go, the processes I've followed are pretty much the unstructured work-like-hell pattern:

- For DDR3: Get recruited in the last couple months of the project, work like hell.

- For DDR4: Only start working on it in the last four months of the project's allocated work time. Finished my part with some ridiculous margin, like a week.

- For RoS2: Render like hell. Distribute the workflow across something like a half-dozen computers. Swore never to do photon mapping for animations again. (Hey, I was stupid back then and didn't quite comprehend the cost of such a rendering technique. I'm still stupid, but I've got something of a better grasp of cost now.)

- For RoS3: Some key figures in the project (read: AtomX, Nessephanie, Pwolf) came over to my place the night before AWA. We
stayed up until the next morning getting the opening finished up.

- For ROS5: See the video description. On that project, I edited for about 24 hours straight -- mostly because I edit ridiculously slowly.

- For COKIS/COKIS2: Well, actually, this wasn't so bad. I just sent Tsunami Jones a few random pictures.


I don't know if those projects represent sustainable workflows. (They sure as hell aren't sustainable in, well, any other aspect of life.)

But they did work, for certain values of "work". (Any value of "work" that includes professionalism, tolerance, or watchability obviously doesn't fit. Come to think of it, the only thing that seems to fit is "I stopped working on it on time".)

[Kionon]

Hanging out with the person on one computer and then actually like... doing shit at the same time?

That's the only way I have done a collab. MEPs I have participated are entirely track based, not very collaborative at all.

[Prodigi]

My two collaborations consist of:

- Taking an existing 40 second beta, discussing it with the editor and getting his ideas for the rest of the video, and editing the rest of it with them beta'ing.

- Edit the whole video and pass it off to the second person to go through and make changes, etc.

[SenTrix]

#1. Pretty much is working for me and my friends atm =]