unforum

[Ciaran_H]

Documentary-style video on ARGs?

[SirQuady]

Oooh oooh oooh! I'm in!

I can help with video stuff, i'll even edit the video together (but that'll mean setting limits on the video format, etc.)!

I'd love to be one of the people making this!

Though i have to point out, with all that stuff, 5 minutes will NOT be enough!

This'd be totally awesome!

Again, i say, I'm in!

[iworkhere]

cool!

[taozero]

I wanna help!!!! lol Seriously though, I can do a bit of narration if needed, and provide webspace to coordinate the effort/host the video if need be. Just let me know!

[catherwood]

You could start with the segments broadcast on news shows during the ILoveBees era, on networks such as G4/TechTV, at least for inspiration. I think we archived the bit with our own VPISteve Peters being interviewed. Much of the footage was specific to people answering payphones for ILB, and you couldn't use it for rebroadcast without permission, but it's an example.

(but i'm not volunteering to find the link, buried somewhere.)

[Ciaran_H]

Thanks for the replies.

catherwood: That sounds like a good idea, but I was hoping that the video could be as redistributable as possible, which for the most part means that for anything used in the video, we'd need to have the rights to use it. IANAL, but from what I know, for submitted content, this would be okay as long as it's made clear that by submitting content they declare that it's either public domain or that they're the copyright holder, and if the latter, that by submitting content they're granting a royalty-free non-exclusive license to use it in the video.

That said, using the news clip would be awesome if we could ask the broadcasters' permission to do so; even if it's just a small part of it. It would certainly get the idea out that ARGers aren't just a small circle of people.

You can tell I've been thinking about this, can't you?

I still don't actually know how it would work having a group of people doing it. My initial thought before posting this thread was that I would ask what people think of the video idea and then if it was a favourable response, I could get to work on putting it together. Somewhere in between starting and writing the first post, though, I had a "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we did this together?" thought, hence the final post.

I think I might roll with it, though. Previous experience has shown that doing things in groups always seems to produce better stuff than individually.

Since this video should represent the whole ARG community, I'm going to post over at Immersion Unlimited and see how the response is there. I'll include a link to this thread.

[SirQuady]

In the intervening time since i first replied, i've had a bunch of ideas. This'll be a long post, be forewarned!

1. Would we want to script it? I've never made a documentary before, but i figure we should script the narration, but what about the player responses? My thinking is that essentially, we should create a list of topics that we want to cover in the ARGumentary (nice name, no?). My ideas for topics include (just ideas, add/take away is fine!):

• Basics: what is an ARG?
  
• How do you play?
  
• History of ARGs
  
• Basic tools every ARG player should know (Google search, ROT encryption, basic cryptography)
  
• What is TINAG (I was thinking maybe Dave Szulborski could do this If he wants to! )
  
• How to get involved/Where do i find ARGs/what websites (Unfiction, Immersion Unlimited, ARGN, etc.)
  
• Who makes ARGs?
  
• Some warnings about ARGs (you will have fun! You might start getting paranoid! (Is this an ARG?))
  
• etc.
  

I figured that these could be explained via a mix of player interviews, pm interviews, photos, videos, narration (i'd be fine with narrating to, if you want). It would be really nice to get a good mix of these. As well, it'd be AWESOME if we could get some video from previous ARGs (i'm kinda thinking of any grassroots ones that had video (ok, im also thinking of The Art of the Heist )).

2. I was thinking of a script for the narrartor/whatever; Just a few ideas:
-Start with a basic sort of background about how the Internet gave birth to ARGs, ex. "In ____ [year], ________ [person] created the massive thing we now call the internet. The internet has created many things that wouldn't have been possible before it, such as: Blogs, Collaborative projects, such as Wikipedia, chat programs, and much more. One of these things, is something you may have heard of before: Alternate Reality Games........"
or
-Just a basic starter, ex. "You may have heard of something called Alternate Reality Games, or Immersive games, etc....."
or
-The epic starter, kinda like the opener for Dave Szulsborski's (pardon my poor spelling) book, This is not a Game: ex. "Have you ever seen a movie, or read a book that was so real that you wished you could add yourself into the story, influencing and changing it as you went along? Now image that you could...Imagine a thing, that we call, Alternate Reality Gaming......"
or
-A combination of these.

I personally don't like the basic starter, but the history one and the epic one i both like. It all depends on our intended audience and meaning.

3. I was wondering if we should maybe, as an idea, and for the ambience, should film these narration parts out in the public. Translation: the narrator isn't just a freakish, disembodied voice, but a person who talks to the screen. What i mean by public, is that ARGs' rrrrrreal life (mmm, delicious rolling rrrrrr's!) events happen in public, so perhaps we should film different parts of the narration in various public venues. It'd be nice to even get some places that have been really featured in ARGs, as a nice tie-in for the ARG veterans watching the ARGumentary. Some examples of this would include an area with payphones (ilovebees!), an Audi dealership (Art of the Heist), a graveyard (Last Call Poker), but i'm not sure about any others.



Allrighty, my massive post is over...for now (muhuhahah!). Just shout out with any objections you have to my ideas, i dont mind!

Allrighty!

*EDIT*

[MageSteff]

[SirQuady]

Nice! I bet we can get some Treo videos from The Art of the Heist too!

[Ciaran_H]

Firstly, apologies for the delayed reply. I thought I had replied already to this, but evidently not.

First things first; annoyingly, I haven't yet been able to post at Immersion Unlimited since I haven't had my automated registration confirmation email. Maybe somebody who's already registered there could post there instead of me?

SirQuady: I love your ideas! The topics you've listed are good ones, although I think the "You will have fun!" warning could be a bit too cheesy.

I think it's probably a good idea to set a specific length of time to aim for for the video and then from there work out what topics we want to include. My estimate of 5 minutes before was based on basically two factors: Given that my initial idea was to produce this on my own, I figured 5 minutes could be short enough for me to actually do it. Of course, that doesn't really apply now.

The second factor was the fact that the music that inspired me to think of this was 5 minutes long. (The linked file is in IT (Impulse Tracker) format; if you can't play it, I've made an MP3 version of it and uploaded it to my site. Winamp can play the IT version, though.)

I figured that the music would make perfect background music. We'd need to ask permission, of course, but that can probably be done without too much hassle. Actually, I already had a vague outline of how the video might go with the music. But I haven't spent much time on it, and like I say we should ask permission before planning anything anyway, so I don't mind if we don't use it.

However, it would be pretty awesome to snatch the quote that it uses; apparently it's from a 1950 movie called "Harvey" (third quote on that page).

With regards to the narrator intro text, I like your "epic starter" version the best. It's exactly the sort of thing that would draw people in. Let's take that music above for a moment and I can show you what I mean:

[Ciaran_H]

I hope this doesn't seem like an attempt to control this whole thing (you'll see why later) but I've set up an FTP account for possible submissions to the video:

Server: argvideo.theblob.org (70.85.16.85)
Username: argvideo
Password: ilovebees

This FTP account has a few restrictions:

* You can't download files, only upload them.
* You can't create new directories.
* You can't delete files.
* You can't overwrite existing files.

Right now, it's set up so that I can look at the files when they're uploaded, and move them to http://argvideo.theblob.org/ if they're okay. I'd do this as quickly as I can, or reply in this thread if there's something wrong. If anybody else wants to help to do this, let me know; although I'm okay to do this myself, I'm happy to let other people help.

This isn't because I don't trust you, but rather for a few reasons: mostly because in case the details spread out beyond Unfiction, nobody can use the site as a general FTP warez site. You're also automatically protected from viruses, etc. Nobody can delete anybody else's submissions. With that in mind, you can feel free to upload anything.

If you have any special instructions regarding anything you upload (if, for example, you want to cut some parts from a video file you upload before it goes public, but you can't do it yourself), you can either make a post in this thread, or upload a text file with the same name as your files with your instructions. (If it's not too secret, it's probably better to post in the thread as that way non-one can impersonate you.) Either way, before I move the file to the public area, I'll act on your instructions.

As I say, I'll make files available for download from the web site as soon as I can. The site currently has 1.7GB free on that partition, so don't worry about uploading anything too big.

If anybody has any objections to this, let me know.

[SirQuady]

Sounds good! The FTP account, i mean.

As for the length of the documentary vs. the 5 min. long song, we can fade out of the music, and just use it as the opener, or, i think, as an opener and a closer to the documentary. I have some other song ideas that might work too.

I'm going to see about scrounging together a peliminary video of the opening, with that song (which is a pretty cool song, by the way!). When i do finish it, i'll try uploading it to your FTP account. The only thing is, i'll have to be at a friend's place or something to upload it (stupid dial-up )

[Ciaran_H]

Cool. I'm going to try doing something as well. One request: When you upload the video, could you include the project file for whatever program you're using if possible? That way others can mess with it too if they want.

[SirQuady]

Sure! I'm using Windows Movie Maker. I have a version done of the opening! I just have one question, Ciaran. When you said:

[SirQuady]

Anyone else got any ideas for any part of this movie? Don't be shy!