The Revolution and You(tube)
Posted: Sun Jan 12, 2014 6:32 pm
** UPDATE **
There is now a wiki for this project which includes guides on how to record and share footage with us. Click here!
*** *** ***
LET'S MAKING VIDEOS. I propose that we get as many people as we can recording footage from their session, converting the good missions to Youtube res (MP4 ideally), uploading it to an FTP server that I can provide if needed, then making a roster of volunteers to assemble the footage into full-feature, multi-cam, annotated (and perhaps even commentated!) videos of each noteworthy mission, using a method of our devising. This would also make it easy to pull out a highlight reel, and shorter videos of any particularly interesting events. Then we upload this to a central Youtube channel (i.e. Folk ARPS?) in a regular, Youtube-show-ized format. Why?
* It would basically make awesome TV, I think.
* I and hopefully you would find it fun to do.
* Allow people to share editing work, i.e. particularly enthusiastic editors can get out the raw footage that others might not have time to work with.
* Provide a full, high-quality record of our doings, both for comrades who missed a particular session or who want to see their performance in glorious technicolor, and for the general public and prospective recruits. Also more fodder for the YiR videos.
* Attract a sizeable Youtube following by taking full advantage of the medium and setting ourselves apart from the increasing swell of Arma videos.
* Set ourselves up to take advantage of other things potentially. Live multi-cam streaming and commentary? New spectating options and other things in Arma 3? Doing more things with the larger Arma/video-game-game-video community?
* Grow bigger. Have more people in sessions, more mission-makers, volunteers, donors, cross-clan play, etc. Take over the whole world(???)
That last one in particular is of course something that would need to be addressed by the party as a whole if it's felt it needs to be approached with caution. Also, perhaps people wouldn't like to feel they're 'on camera' all the time? We can take steps to ensure that only game-related talk is shown (e.g. finding a way to record TS seperately?), and I would hope that people would feel comfortable getting into the mission on its own terms with the recorders just adding to the awesome-factor, but perhaps people will feel differently? Thoughts?
Anyway, in terms of technical things: with PCs being what they are nowadays, we already have several comrades able to record video and I'm sure we could find several more. Shadowplay and DXTory seem to be good recording solutions but there's always FRAPS or various free options. The conversion can be done, I believe, in Handbrake, or in Premiere or other software. So one first step to take would be to write up a quick guide for anyone to capture videos and preferred formats.
For hosting, I'm happy to pay for an FTP server to keep things simple - any recs for cheap hosting? Alternatively, we could maybe do it through Youtube, either the main Folk ARP channel or a separate one. Super, Host-type people, how possible would using the official one be? I have the option to download the MP4 of my videos in the video manager, and you can add multiple managers to a channel, and you can upload videos privately, so I presume we could share the files that way? Also any comrades with video editing software could knock an ident at the front and back before uploading, and we could make only those public, labelled as '$NAME's view, such-and-such mission, something like that. Or would running it through YT multiple times have quality implications? Anyway.
Then we'd need to do the editing. I'm sure I could manage at least one long mission a week plus some highlights and probably more - is anyone else interested in doing the same? If so, we should probably share our techniques and presentation ideas, maybe put together some rough guidelines for how to handle it.
So yeah, I'd love to take this on and see what we can do with it, anyone else? I have plenty more I'd like to hear all y'all's thoughts on, but for now let's get the issues above settled and starting making this happen! Unless anyone sees any major problems.
By the way, this isn't meant to in any way dislocate anyone who's already doing such fantastic work on the Youtube front. Anyone would of course be free to use their footage to make their own videos as well! I just think there are some new ideas we can use to make even more cool stuff by working together in the true spirit of the agrarian revolution.
SO:
* Who's interested? Can you do recording, editing, or both?
* Would Youtube work for video hosting, do we reckon? If so, can/should we use the official channel, or a separate one?
* If not, who knows of some cheap FTP hosting? Or AkKind, would your FTP server perhaps be able to handle that, if we chipped in for costs?
* Does anyone have any other thoughts?
There is now a wiki for this project which includes guides on how to record and share footage with us. Click here!
*** *** ***
LET'S MAKING VIDEOS. I propose that we get as many people as we can recording footage from their session, converting the good missions to Youtube res (MP4 ideally), uploading it to an FTP server that I can provide if needed, then making a roster of volunteers to assemble the footage into full-feature, multi-cam, annotated (and perhaps even commentated!) videos of each noteworthy mission, using a method of our devising. This would also make it easy to pull out a highlight reel, and shorter videos of any particularly interesting events. Then we upload this to a central Youtube channel (i.e. Folk ARPS?) in a regular, Youtube-show-ized format. Why?
* It would basically make awesome TV, I think.
* I and hopefully you would find it fun to do.
* Allow people to share editing work, i.e. particularly enthusiastic editors can get out the raw footage that others might not have time to work with.
* Provide a full, high-quality record of our doings, both for comrades who missed a particular session or who want to see their performance in glorious technicolor, and for the general public and prospective recruits. Also more fodder for the YiR videos.
* Attract a sizeable Youtube following by taking full advantage of the medium and setting ourselves apart from the increasing swell of Arma videos.
* Set ourselves up to take advantage of other things potentially. Live multi-cam streaming and commentary? New spectating options and other things in Arma 3? Doing more things with the larger Arma/video-game-game-video community?
* Grow bigger. Have more people in sessions, more mission-makers, volunteers, donors, cross-clan play, etc. Take over the whole world(???)
That last one in particular is of course something that would need to be addressed by the party as a whole if it's felt it needs to be approached with caution. Also, perhaps people wouldn't like to feel they're 'on camera' all the time? We can take steps to ensure that only game-related talk is shown (e.g. finding a way to record TS seperately?), and I would hope that people would feel comfortable getting into the mission on its own terms with the recorders just adding to the awesome-factor, but perhaps people will feel differently? Thoughts?
Anyway, in terms of technical things: with PCs being what they are nowadays, we already have several comrades able to record video and I'm sure we could find several more. Shadowplay and DXTory seem to be good recording solutions but there's always FRAPS or various free options. The conversion can be done, I believe, in Handbrake, or in Premiere or other software. So one first step to take would be to write up a quick guide for anyone to capture videos and preferred formats.
For hosting, I'm happy to pay for an FTP server to keep things simple - any recs for cheap hosting? Alternatively, we could maybe do it through Youtube, either the main Folk ARP channel or a separate one. Super, Host-type people, how possible would using the official one be? I have the option to download the MP4 of my videos in the video manager, and you can add multiple managers to a channel, and you can upload videos privately, so I presume we could share the files that way? Also any comrades with video editing software could knock an ident at the front and back before uploading, and we could make only those public, labelled as '$NAME's view, such-and-such mission, something like that. Or would running it through YT multiple times have quality implications? Anyway.
Then we'd need to do the editing. I'm sure I could manage at least one long mission a week plus some highlights and probably more - is anyone else interested in doing the same? If so, we should probably share our techniques and presentation ideas, maybe put together some rough guidelines for how to handle it.
So yeah, I'd love to take this on and see what we can do with it, anyone else? I have plenty more I'd like to hear all y'all's thoughts on, but for now let's get the issues above settled and starting making this happen! Unless anyone sees any major problems.
By the way, this isn't meant to in any way dislocate anyone who's already doing such fantastic work on the Youtube front. Anyone would of course be free to use their footage to make their own videos as well! I just think there are some new ideas we can use to make even more cool stuff by working together in the true spirit of the agrarian revolution.
SO:
* Who's interested? Can you do recording, editing, or both?
* Would Youtube work for video hosting, do we reckon? If so, can/should we use the official channel, or a separate one?
* If not, who knows of some cheap FTP hosting? Or AkKind, would your FTP server perhaps be able to handle that, if we chipped in for costs?
* Does anyone have any other thoughts?