AMV Salad 4: TV Dinner (next stop - Nekocon)

[Gaelstrom]

I'm very very sorry I didn't get to meet most of you in person. My Thursday flight that was supposed to arrive at 3:30 ended up being cancelled and I had to fly into Raegan, metro to amtrak only to find out no more trains ran at 11:30, then through miraculous serendipity taxi all the way to BWI with a woman who was gracious enough to drive us downtown if we covered the cab, which we were told would be at least 100 bucks, but ended up being exactly 50, thank god. I was lucky I got any sleep Thursday night at all.

You'll all be happy to know I recorded the AMVS4 premiere as well, reactions included, for those of you who weren't able to make it to the event, and for timing analyzing and such. I gotta say, that room SUUUUUUCCCCCKKKED!! We MUST find a way to guarantee we never ever show fanparodies in a rectangular dual-speaker setup ever again. Professionally cut audio is the only type that even has a chance of being heard, like our clips were. We were very lucky in that regard, but even then a few faltered in the face of the reverb. Some of the jokes in the ones that cleared the room were great if you could hear them, but you just couldn't make it out so everyone started leaving. Sad really.

For me the sad part is, the censored POS was pretty funny, but with the reverb causing everything to be so muffled, the censor sounds started coming too close together as I was afraid of and killing the narrative. The uncensored in this situation would have probably worked better unfortunately. Hopefully next year on the replay we get a room that will not screw things up. Oddly enough, the off-handed idea I put in for the final text box about 'exploding 2 days after the warranty' caught everyone. I was completely surprised, I'd totally forgotten I even put that there ^^ If we can get away with it, I'd like it if we can upload the censored and uncensored versions to AMVS.org. Had a good hour long conversation Friday night with Scott too about the AMVS4 troubles and censorship and just chatting about what he's dealing with now and such. Enlightening stuff.

Speaking of which, I'll be uploading the recorded premiere for creators later on when I can get it off my camera. Now here's the thing. Whatever you do, you can never, ever, ever post the recording anywhere. You can of course show family and friends but please don't send it to anyone. I got permission to do it only with that promise, otherwise Otakon could be fined... a lot. Technically Scott joked with me that I shouldn't have told him, but ya know... I'm an idiot. But since it's really just for our studying of the reactions and creators' use, their lawyer said it was authorized. I just really need to stress that it's for all of our personal use and not for upload anywhere, otherwise we could get Otakon fined a good chunk of money.

Now... who else liked the Gundam one ^^ I was all 'please be good, please be good!' and then that first line " ...Hmm.... I seem to have bolted myself to this missile..." Priceless. Had its slow points, but I was impressed.

Edit:

When that guy asked us to stand up, I noticed that some of you were really in the back.

I was in the front, I didn't see anyone else. I don't even remember being told to stand or raise hands on Saturday. I was asked to stand up on Friday and was COMPLETELY alone, and then asked to say a few words up front... pretty embarrassing, mic broke, was screaming, nobody could hear me... came back on, said some shit I didn't remember and went and sat down ^^ Hopefully somewhere in there I told them to have fun and join in or something inspirational.

[Squancho]

I'm going to sleep right now but I have to say this.

I spoke to Scott a bit after the Salad premiered (and after sending the news to friends and Facebook). He said we ALMOST got played Friday night instead because he couldn't get one of the main parodies to work on his system so he had to pull up some repeats from past years to fill time. He did say that he was impressed with the turnout and reaction so keeping us on Saturday was the right decision.

The AMV gods smiled on us yet again.

He told me he has grand plans for next year (which he also spoke to Gael about - you wanna help explain this one?) which include another type of multi-editor project. I think this would be an awesome chance for some of you to step up to another level by joining in. Details will be forthcoming but right now we need email addresses from any of you who would be interested in knowing more about this project. It's gonna involve people like Team Four Star as well as other editors from around the world. So PM me your email addresses and I'll send them to Scott by the end of the week.

Keep in mind this will be in addition to AMVS5.

I'll never get over it - 1200-1300 viewers! And it's clear they want more. Which is a good thing because, otherwise, Scott would have probably asked for the removal of the "Hypnotoad" ending. He joked about how pretentious and presumptive it was that we threw that in but "unless you don't actually do another one or I decide I hate you, which is unlikely," it's not a big deal.

Well, that's all for now. The AMVS5 thread goes up later today. I'll link it from here when it does.

Let's have another awesome project for Otakon 2011..!

[MaggIvy]

I'm glad to be a part of it, even though I didn't make as many entries as I wanted in due to lack of time, I definitely want try again next year if I can come up with something.

[Gaelstrom]

I wanted to add something to this for you all by the way. As the only one of us (as far as I know) who saw the Otakon 2009 premiere of AMVS3, I have to give you all a comparison. AMVS4 surpassed it in general quality without any two ways about it. I honestly was a humbled by how intriguing the audience's joke timing was this year. AMVS3 nearly all the timings I expected were hit, this year, I learned many new things. I cannot tell you how happy I was I recorded this year, it will help us out a LOT I think. We need to keep in mind the audio screw ups being a factor in the timing, but still, it should give us a new way to examine things.

AMVS3 when the end came, there was laughter, and there was sitting, and a little discussion. There was definitely a general air of enjoyment, and of course as usual krvabo your logo gets everyone riled and into it. Several others as well. This year as all of you who were there saw, was... a tad different? ^^ I can tell you that the cheer AMVS4 got after the final geico ad and the declaration of AMVS5 next year was what I desperately had wanted to hear last year. It was so uplifting. I'm so glad this time some of you could be there, and I could also record it for those of you who missed it for Iron Editor and such.

I'll be recording every year as long as I can be there I think. I didn't find out I got permission to record until AFTER I recorded it so... yeah. I kinda kept it by my chest so it couldn't be seen and didn't want to risk looking at the crowd. You're gonna hate me though, my heart was pounding, so the video vibrates a lot And you'll hear me desperately trying not to lose it, sorry about that

If as Scott says, next year is the year of the fan parodies, then it may be worthwhile to submit a request for a private screening of AMVS3 and 4 in a video room for an hour. If we do a showing mid-day on friday or saturday, not interfering with Iron Editor and AMV contest or Masquerade, we could fill the room again easy.

[moonbunnychan]

Agreed on the room...man that was bad. I'm glad my worries about it being over in the Hilton were unfounded though.
A lot surprised me, actually, as far as what got really loud laughter that I wasn't expecting to, and a couple that didn't though I think that was more the fault of the audio. I don't think a single thing went by that didn't get a good amount of laughing. It was a shame though that the Cowboy Bebop bounty hunter one got pretty much missed due to people laughing still from before it.

I'll be interested to see that video and see if my memory of that night matches the video, because in my memory it was epic.

I'd gone to the AMV Hell 5 panel, which, granted that's still a work in progress, but Salad actually seemed to get much more laughs and positive responses then it overall.

I saw Deuce a couple of times, but I knew him already so I could pick him out from a crowd. And by absolute fluke Kireblue was sitting directly behind me at the AMV contest and we found this out via DS Pictochat. lol.

Glad they let the hypnotoad thing stay in, it got such a big reaction, omg. Way more then I EVER thought.

[Kireblue]

I was in the front, I didn't see anyone else. I don't even remember being told to stand or raise hands on Saturday. I was asked to stand up on Friday and was COMPLETELY alone, and then asked to say a few words up front... pretty embarrassing, mic broke, was screaming, nobody could hear me... came back on, said some shit I didn't remember and went and sat down ^^ Hopefully somewhere in there I told them to have fun and join in or something inspirational.

On Saturday, right before he started playing the videos, Scott asked all the creators to stand up. I was sitting in the second row on the left side of the room. Were you on the right side?

[Squancho]

I didn't get in until the POS clip started. I was running from 1st Mariner and approaching the room when I heard the "Lucky Channel" opening theme. I keep forgetting about the connection between the sound source and Chii being a "machine." I'm glad I was among the minority. I think the best laughs came with "Why can't you work like a normal machine?"

Can't wait to bring this to Nekocon. Gonna promote the hell out of it and don't believe I won't use the Otakon experience as a device.

[Gaelstrom]

On Saturday, right before he started playing the videos, Scott asked all the creators to stand up. I was sitting in the second row on the left side of the room. Were you on the right side?

Were you really!? Damn, I'm blind then... I was on the front left, 10th-ish row back. I don't remember much from the very beginning honestly, I was so nervous

The reason the best laughs came with the 'normal machine' section was because of the subtitle ^^ The 'POS will explode two days after warranty expires.' I was sad though, I thought it'd land better. I really would like to see it in a room with higher volume and better acoustics to see what difference that makes. It was hard to hear a lot of everything because they were trying to keep the volume down to reduce reverb, but all it did was hurt more.

I think both the Sony POS and Haruvi Baadoman actually landed well, but the feeling I got while sitting there was "oh my god, they're actually stopping themselves from laughing to hear the narrative." The 'moon him' section I didn't hear a reaction up front, but in the back I heard some. And in the credits enough people knew the 'did you get that thing I sent you' joke and laughed ^^ Those were both major challenges for me, to see how they'd land. They may not have gotten the lulz of Geico, but I got this air of general humor coming from the room with them on, which was pretty much what I expected. If nothing else, POS definitely seemed to get them ready for the main section. It did actually get some cheers and applause on its own, presumably they thought it was a stand-alone, but it still means it got some people

I'm really curious how my recording will measure up to your experience of the laughter in the back of the room as well. Since it's by my chest I tend to block some of the laughter I think, but you still get the gist of it. If you play it at Nekocon, Deuce, maybe you too could record it from somewhere more opportune so we get even more reaction. I'm going to attempt to get AMVS3 and AMVS4 playing at Sabotencon here in Phoenix. It had a decent collection of people last year, definitely in the hundreds at least. They do their con on Halloween, so you wouldn't BELIEVE how many people were cosplaying there. If Sabotencon keeps doing Halloween, they may or may not become humongous for the cosplay community and grow their con from that basis.

Now Deuce... you made me need to change my shorts. Please clarify... do you mean to say there's a fanparody project forming with elements of Team Four Star...?

[Angelyco]

I did end up staying Iron Editor and missing the AMVS4 premiere. I was hoping I would have met some of you during Iron Editor, but no dice. I did get to meet Gaelstrom during the Overflow though, complete luck that he was sitting behind us

I can't wait to see the reaction video.

[Squancho]

Don't quote me on anything about the project Scott has in mind. I think he's still working out the details but it SOUNDED like Team Four Star would be involved. Either that or they would have another premiere of some kind next year. But yeah...anyone interested in finding out more need to PM me their email addresses within the next few days...