Lightsaber Videos

[zourtney]

Like a YouTube befriending? I say go ahead and spread the randomness as far as you can, unless you find the person creepy or insulting.

We also have a Twitter account (@randomnets). Feel free to post to that, too. (BTW, YouTube upload are supposed to tweet, but it seems broken...)

I was kind if considering making a Facebook account. I generally avoid Facebook, but we could add little, like "like" buttons, and, like stuff.

I didn't know the videos had sound until last night. How did you do it? It's pretty sweet. I recommend adding them to a "playlist."

Oh, one last thing: I uploaded a montage of Francine gravel pit videos. It's nothing special, but I figured that was better than uploading a dozen individual clips. Let me know if you have suggestions. I might do more, too! Like Francine videos from Nick's backyard, go-karts, etc.

[Cody]

Oh the sound....

So I know there are about 50 better ways of doing this, but I chose the hard way because I guess I am difficult...and because the trial of Adobe Premiere was 1.2 gigs or something.

1- So what I did was load the video into VirtualDub and save the original audio into a file.
2 -Then I took that file and loaded it into Cool Edit for something to work from.
3- And then...going back to Virtual Dub I would go through the video frame by frame until I found the point at which a sound should start and throw one in. I got the sounds from a few nifty free sound packs I found on some site I can't remember the name of at the moment.
4 - After that I just saved the multitrack session into a single .mp3 file and loaded it into Virtual Dub.

This, of course, requires a massive amount of tiny tweaking and can get rather frustrating. But hey! Everyone, including one of the guys on YouTube, said the sound was great so I guess it doesn't really matter how it's done.

[zourtney]

I feel another tutorial brewing

[Nick]

Yes!... another page that might actually get read. As opposed to the rest of the site.

Historically, the rice your ride and foam sabers pages have been the hardest hit. A tutorial on making said video effects should do just a well.

Go for it!

[Cody]

New video up. The description kind of explains what I did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDf929ppykQ

I know it's not perfect and the sound might not be quite right, but hey. I had to take a video of me doing my spin thingy and then a video of where I was without me in it and then mask off the stick where I didn't want it visible so you saw the blank video in those sections instead. If that made any sense. Anyways, another neat trick I learned.

[zourtney]

There does seem to be an excessive amount of woo-woo sound during the twirls, but maybe that's just me. Anyway, that's pretty awesome!

Tutorial time we should definitely do something with this!

[Nick]

That's cool. We should film some dueling, some car chases through the woods and dress some midgets like bears! 
Perhaps even set up a complete green-screen someplace....

For the woo-woo sounds, you might need some little generator that will create a sound based on relative velocity of the stick and length of swing. Generating  different sounds based on weather the saber is traveling parallel with the camera or towards/away from the camera too.
Then you could have rather even sounds for slow movement and more of a bell-curve of intensity for faster swings.
Buts that all probably a bit much for now. And would take work.

Anyway. Keep it up!

[zourtney]

Dude yeah! We should make some videos in the woods! That, and I really just want to waste some time up in the woods. But what should we make?

[Nick]

Recreate the speeder battle with gokarts?

[Cody]

That would be great if they worked!

Edit - And I somehow managed to make another video, outside this time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyuurbLjc2c

Don't think I am going to be able to come up with many more of these. At least not by myself.

[zourtney]

Awesome! I like it. Now let's do two!

[Cody]

I need some good ideas of what to try and make. I'm all out. 

[zourtney]

Obviously you need a sparring partner. I suck, but would be willing to try.

We could also make an honest attempt at the "OH NO! The steering wheel fell off"....but that's easier said than done.

[Cody]

Both would be fun. Not sure how I could help with the steering wheel one but I watched it the other day and it actually made me laugh. So yeah, it is unnaturally funny. And Nick's green-screen idea = awesome...even if it's not exactly practical or useful!

As for the sparring thing, I don't think either of us need to be too great at this point. It's not like I am looking to make something "epic" at the moment. Mostly I just want to see if I can pull it off and make it look good. And the trial days are tick tick ticking away...I'm going to be sad when they run out.

[zourtney]

Yeah, you should at least take some screenshots while you're using it that way you can make a Randomland page later. What other kinds of things can you do?