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 Forum index » Meta » General META Discussion
Documentary-style video on ARGs?
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konamouse
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Joined: 02 Dec 2002
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 		I like your idea of using the music and soundless video as an intro (and the ending) - it's the bookends of the ARGumentary.

But the middle part is the "meat" of the story.
Who, What, Where, When, How.

Some of it might be archived video from events. But don't be afraid to use still pictures (and we have plenty of those floating around). Still pictures, websites, and objects from ARGs all have stories to tell.

For example, while interviewing Dave S, you might have his voice over while showing the home page of Chasing the Wish, Urban Hunt, etc. You can have someone take you through the puzzles of the Seventh Sons (step by step with intersperced chat logs) as a way to show how the community works together to solve one and then finds the next.

You show the advertising for AoTH (I'm sure someone has some still shots in NY City), some video from a live event, and some webpages and puzzle solving, and some chat log (heck, many of us can "create" a chat log happening "live" if we are prompted to be in a certain room at a certain time and asked to "play a part").

You have a voice over interview with Brooke (imbri) about grassroots teams and show Lockjaw and Metacortex pages, throw in the Orbital Colony as well. Very internet driving and nothing that created group live action (outside the chat rooms).

You have a voice over interview with Jane and show pages from ILB and LCP. And show live interactions / activities that resulted from these games (much more outside the internet than previous ARGs).

There are similarities and there are differences between these examples as far as more or less internet vs more or less live action; more or less puzzles vs more or less character stories/movies. That is what makes ARG such a living/vibrant genre - we don't have a lock on what it is all of the time (and that is what makes some folks imagine that the weird spam in the email or the advertising circular in their mail box are coded messages and not just junk mail).

/me just thinking out loud while glancing over at Victor's hat and my CTW/Las Vegas beer stein, and wearing my Tomorrow's Talk sweatshirt.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:03 pm
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SirQuady
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 		Oooh, i love those ideas, Konamouse...and, if we happen to interview Rowan, we could show a picture of Vigril, the Coconut head man! Laughing (Hey, maybe we could do that whilst interviewing Rowan about "WIBS?"!)

Anywhoo, i'll be-a-sending the lo quality opener soon. As soon as my...dialup...gets there Rolling Eyes
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:42 pm
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Ciaran_H
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SirQuady wrote:
Did you mean that the final line of text would be up on screen while the Harvey quote was being said? What i have done is have the Harvey quote start about 2/3 of the way through the appearance of the final line of text.


Fine by me. I originally envisioned it that the line would be up while it was being said, but since you're the one playing with the movie at the moment, you know better than I do how it looks in practice. Smile

SirQuady wrote:
I'm going to upgrade the quality of the video and play around with it a bit more, then i'll upload it! Is it all right if i .zip the upload?


That's fine. It's probably better for my bandwidth if I keep it zipped for the download, too; that way browsers won't automatically try to stream the content from my server multiple times. Very Happy

SirQuady wrote:
Oh, and if we don't get permission to use the dreaming in green song, i have some ideas for other songs (as well, if we need more music because the ARGumentary goes longer than 5 minutes).


Sounds good to me. And I love the word "ARGumentary". I'm going to adopt that word for my own use as well, if you don't mind. Wink

PostPosted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:43 pm
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SirQuady
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 		Ok, it has been uploaded. But, by it, i mean ONLY a low quality version of the opener i created, no project files, nothing else. I hope to get a high quality version up and the project files later on/soon.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:47 pm
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Ciaran_H
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konamouse wrote:
I like your idea of using the music and soundless video as an intro (and the ending) - it's the bookends of the ARGumentary.

But the middle part is the "meat" of the story.
Who, What, Where, When, How.

Some of it might be archived video from events. But don't be afraid to use still pictures (and we have plenty of those floating around). Still pictures, websites, and objects from ARGs all have stories to tell.


Absolutely agreed. There's a wealth of resources floating about, not least resources used in the actual ARGs themselves - how about that heart-renching scream in ILB when Melissa caught the Sleeping Princess? Being able to get people's views on how that felt to them, listening to that, would really get the idea across about the blurring of reality and game.

konamouse wrote:
For example, while interviewing Dave S, you might have his voice over while showing the home page of Chasing the Wish, Urban Hunt, etc. You can have someone take you through the puzzles of the Seventh Sons (step by step with intersperced chat logs) as a way to show how the community works together to solve one and then finds the next.

You show the advertising for AoTH (I'm sure someone has some still shots in NY City), some video from a live event, and some webpages and puzzle solving, and some chat log (heck, many of us can "create" a chat log happening "live" if we are prompted to be in a certain room at a certain time and asked to "play a part").


Hehe. Nice ideas. I was thinking something like that myself. Alternatively, I have a Perl script I wrote myself that can take IRC logs and 'replay' them, as long as the log includes timestamps with seconds as well as hours and minutes. I've found it a really great way to recapture the atmosphere of a particular moment sometimes. Even though I wasn't there at the time, I replayed the log of the slide puzzle finale solve from Orbital Colony recently, and let me tell you, there's no better way to get a sense of "Ack! Hurry up!". And the feeling when it was finally solved was intense. Very Happy You just can't get that from looking at logs all at once, even if you see the timestamps.

konamouse wrote:
You have a voice over interview with Brooke (imbri) about grassroots teams and show Lockjaw and Metacortex pages, throw in the Orbital Colony as well. Very internet driving and nothing that created group live action (outside the chat rooms).

You have a voice over interview with Jane and show pages from ILB and LCP. And show live interactions / activities that resulted from these games (much more outside the internet than previous ARGs).

There are similarities and there are differences between these examples as far as more or less internet vs more or less live action; more or less puzzles vs more or less character stories/movies. That is what makes ARG such a living/vibrant genre - we don't have a lock on what it is all of the time (and that is what makes some folks imagine that the weird spam in the email or the advertising circular in their mail box are coded messages and not just junk mail).


Absolutely agree. I want to make sure both grassroots and commercial games are well-represented.

These are brilliant ideas. I haven't been able to try putting anything together myself yet, but I will do when I can.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:56 pm
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Ciaran_H
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 		SirQuady's opener has been moved to the web page.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 6:01 pm
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SirQuady
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 		I'm trying to find any ARG videos that are WMV, MPG, MPEG, AVI, or ASF format, because so far, i can only find MOV files. So, either some videos in formats that'd work, or a program to convert MOV format videos to one of those above.

If i can find some arg videos, i can get to work on a prototype of the next part of the video. I have some music lined up, and such (i'm not sure if its the right kind of music, when i get it up, let me know. Either i could use it, or continue with Ciaran's music, dreaming in green).

I have to point out one thing here for a second. All this stuff i'm making? tis only a prototype. Much of these video stuffs i'm making right now will change! (just in case anyone was worried).

If anyone else wants to edit their own intro, please do! (Just in case you thought i'd get mad Smile)

konamouse wrote:
Some of it might be archived video from events. But don't be afraid to use still pictures (and we have plenty of those floating around). Still pictures, websites, and objects from ARGs all have stories to tell.


Good idea! for now, though, i'm just looking at video for the opening, because it helps interest people a bit more to see some action at the beginning (at least, thats my opinion), and get into the pictures/screenshots/etc. more in the core of the video.

And finally, i would be much obliged if someone could make a video of themselves talking into a camera about ARGs. You could say anything, it's mostly so we can get a prototype look of the interview section down pat (i'd do it myself, but i dont have access to a camera right now). If you need something to read, you could try Imbri's quickstart guide. That'd be very helpful, if possible. Thanks alot!

(oh, and like Ciaran, i don't want to monopolize this project. If anyone thinks i'm pushing this to hard, or rushing things, or whatever, please, just let me know! (here, or PM, whatever))
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:53 pm
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RobMagus
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 		I'd love to help! I'm a fledging voice actor and I'm trying to get involved in as many unpaid fun jobs as I can - so if you need a narrator...

Also, I've had the unique, hair-pullingly frustrating experience of writing a Guide for an ARG, and perhaps that would make for an interesting interview or segment: the creation of documents to help the community, and specifically the creation of The Guide by Adrian Hon.
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 1:55 am
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CreativeEmbassy
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 		Hey, I like this project! I've actually made my own documentary about the family trip we took out west several summers ago, and talked about the american experience and... well, I don't want to bore anyone. All I'm saying is, I have experience doing stuff like this before. I'm pretty busy as it is, maybe too busy to contribute, but feel free to ask questions. Smile
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 2:07 am
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Ciaran_H
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 		I've just uploaded my own low-quality opener to the site.

RobMagus, CreativeEmbassy: Thanks for the offers of help. Very Happy It would be awesome to have a narrator on board. I think the best thing to do is when the times comes to have a narrator for the first time, we can see how everybody does reading the lines. It's best to have the same narrator throughout the whole video, of course.

Also, I was recording most of CreativeEmbassy's ARG radio last night, and I have some cool snippets that we might be able to use. I'll upload them when I can.

PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 9:54 pm
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Ciaran_H
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 		I have an email address that we ought to be able to use to contact Necros (otherwise known as Andrew Sega of The Alpha Conspiracy). I've drafted an email to send to him - how do people feel about this:

(explanation about some of the bits - I also do a lot of stuff in the demoscene community, as does Necros/The Alpha Conspiracy, so he may know me from that.)

Quote:
To: infoSPLATalphaconspiracy.com
Subject: Using "dreaming in green" music in a grassroots (non-profit) video?

Hello,

My name is Ciaran Hamilton - known as "Ciaran" in the demoscene community (and a member of Smash Designs).

As well as being a demoscener, I'm also a member of Unfiction, a community about Alternate Reality Gaming (think ilovebees.com and others like that).

I was writing to ask about your tune "dreaming in green". I was listening to it recently and it struck me as potentially being very good background music for a documentary-like video about ARGs, especially given the "Harvey" quote. I would like to ask if we could use this music in the video? It wouldn't be for profit; it's a totally grassroots effort that we hope will become a great resource for people who want to know more about ARGs.

There's a thread currently discussing this at http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14087 - please feel free to take a look through it and see if you like the idea.

If you want to reply, you can do so either by replying to this email or posting in the thread - either is okay.

Thank you,

- Ciaran.


I haven't sent it yet. Is this wording okay by everybody, or should I change it a bit?

PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 10:21 pm
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SirQuady
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 		Maybe emphasize a little bit more about how we will be making NO MONEY on this project (ok, not that much emphasis Smile )

I was thinking, it'd be really nice to be able to get some music from Will Starr (He did the music for The Art of the Heist).

That letter seems great!
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 7:31 pm
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SirQuady
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 		Ok, i liked your opener Ciaran, the only thing i'm not sure about was the big lettering of certain words: it seemed too advertizing like to me. But that's just personal opinion. What does everybody else think?
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There once was a [person] from [place]
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:01 pm
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Ciaran_H
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 		I just sent the email off as I gave in the thread.

I personally like the larger words, but then I would. Smile *shrugs* i'm happy to change it if people don't like it.

PostPosted: Thu Mar 02, 2006 8:40 am
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sequoya
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 		This sounds like an interesting project Smile If it helps, there is some video available from the Perplex City Academy Games live event that was this past Saturday that you could use snippets of - I took some of the Choir Practice event that I can send over, and I know sledgecallier is in the process of editing together a video of the whole event. Also, if you asked MindCandy, they might let you use some of their footage? They had a few camera crews going about.. worth asking anyway Smile
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