Sheryl - you wrote "I assume you know that if the song is to really get exposure, it will eventually have to be re-recorded as a video by an anorexic, half naked bleach blond caked in makeup and making love to her computer screen. lol Are you talented with video software too? :-D"
How about... webcam shots of people looking into their screens as they are "on the hunt"? An assortment of facial expressions from hopeful and bemused all the way to shocked and disgusted. Some video clips - rolling eyes, rubbing eyes, slumping over. Still shots of expressions. Repeated motifs - the same person in the morning with coffee, the afternoon with a can of soda, the evening doing shots of tequila. There's room for main talent, an actress lip-synching the song while playing the part of looking in the screen like everybody else. Alternative shots - a whiteboard with a list of names along the top and criteria down the side, with matrix entries being filled in - return to the whiteboard from time to time as it is being filled in - video of the woman's hand furiously scribbling or erasing, changing her mind and un-erasing, then erasing again.
End it with the actress staring into the screen and then slowly breaking into a huge grin. Cut to a wedding photo.
The above is just to get the imagination going, not a definitive plan. You could crowd-source a lot of people's webshots and possibly get other material from public-domain sources.
As to video, I expect the Cartel has talent a lot better than me.
Ooops, just saw this! I was looking in on the other thread regularly, but hadn't had time to look at the main forum link the last few days.
Yeah, that would be funny!!!! :-) You have the software to do that?
I have some video software I haven't tried yet (vegas video 30-day trial http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/vegasfamily.asp plus some freeware) and a friend with a bit of equipment who has expressed interest in getting into video projects with me. As I said, I'm sure someone in the Cartel has the equipment and the chops to do better. But it's mostly about the content. Can you round up, say, a couple dozen of your friends (of both genders) and get a bunch of stills and short video clips of them mugging into the camera? (Do you have a web cam?) A variety of expressions. Wincing. Astonishment. Lust. Puzzlement. Disgust. On and on. The more content to chose from, the more likely a funny video could be pasted together. Go over the lyrics one line at a time and use your imagination. For example, "Daniel or Derek" - I'm picturing two frat boys goofing around, pushing each other to try to get into the center of the frame, or one giving the other a noogie, etc. Something very guy-like and utterly distasteful to 99% of the women out there. We could brainstorm a 100 snippets like that.
I've done some video editing; low-end software, but I've gotten paid for it, so I have the skills.
I'm foreseeing a problem with the raw footage. I didn't notice what the final song length was, so I'm guessing about 4 minutes? Even though web cams are generally low-quality video, we'll need better than typical web cam quality for the editing stage, so we're talking 30 frames per second, 640x480, uncompressed video. One second of this quality video is about 27 MB, so that's 6 or 7 gigs of video. That's too large to make internet transfer feasible, but putting it on CD-R or DVD-R and mailing it would work.
If we drop it to 320x240 for the stuff that's actually supposed to look like a web cam (the shots of the "daters",) drop the framerate to about 10 fps, and display the video clips four-up, one clip in each corner, we can cut the amount of footage to 1 to 2 GB, assuming double the amount of video, since we'd show a different clip in each corner and change a clip on certain beats of the song.
This assumes we have at least 4 minutes of the "white board" footage at the regular frame rate and dimensions, though... but if I could find a white board and convince someone locally to be a hand model, I could fill that. The white board footage would be shown in one of the other corners, simultaneous with the other clips, and would jump from corner to corner. I'd actually like much more white board footage, so I could double or triple the speed.
I doubt I'd be able to find someone locally who'd be willing to do the lipsync material, however. That would be an addition 6+ GB of material, or maybe only 1.5 to 2 GB if it's at 320x240 (but it should be at a full 40 fps.)
We'd also need other humorous, possibly non-sequitor, material to pad it out. These clips would appear intermittently in various corners of the screen. I could supply this, if need be.
Remember to get releases for anyone in the video and explain to them the video would be under the Creative Commons, and would probably wind up on YouTube.
A couple dozen live volunteers? This is where not having a social life catches up with me. Let me ask my brother when I see him this weekend. Maybe he can help me.
Actually, I just emailed him. He just made a video movie a few months back for the fun of it, so minimally he might have some ideas for me at least.
For a while I was thinking of getting a really good camcorder, but I have been thinking about upgrading my computer situation instead. But I'll see what I can do. Thanks!!!
>>4
Obviously, collaborative editing of 7GB is out of the question. Putting 4 clips at a time in the corners might work for some of the time, but it could be tedious if it went for a significant fraction of the song. As to the "white board" stuff, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. (Which proves my point - the Cartel has someone more appropriate than me to work on this!) I'm willing to provide some direct and/or non sequitur content (320x240x30fps video and much bigger stills) and just let you run with it. If you wanted to drop an occasional rough cut MPEG, I'd be willing to comment.
>>6
Same goes for Sheryl's brother if he wanted to produce the video.
Hmmm...well I've been asking around. Dad said his camera's video does a maximum of 640X480 at 30 fps, but it's not actually a camcorder, so I don't know how long it sustains that. Also my dad is pretty protective about his toys. lol However, the camera is also half my mom's, and she said I could use it. So we'll see. At least everyone seems interested in the project, which is not always the case with some things I run past my family.
My brother also replied to my email. He suggested I ask around for volunteers at the local drama schools. I kind of doubt that would be as easy as he thinks, judging from the problems I had finding volunteers for some other creative projects in the past. But he seemed positive about the idea as a whole. So maybe he will do some acting for me at least or help take pics... I hope. I think the advantage to something like this would be that it sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
So no promises that I can get all that footage, but I will look into it....assuming one of you or someone wants to do the editing.
PS If talysman actually wants to do the editing, then that would imply we would have more time for the project than a month (because he would not be using trial software), right? That might make it easier to get people involved as well.
It's a dangerously tedious plan as is, which is why I suggested non-sequitor shots to keep things interesting. The idea's going to need a lot of work to turn it into a decent video. Lots of subtle visual gags and motion on-screen to keep people's interest.
As for the whiteboard (which I write "white board" because spellcheck nags me,) I was referring to this:
> Alternative shots - a whiteboard with a list of names along
> the top and criteria down the side, with matrix entries being
> filled in - return to the whiteboard from time to time as it
> is being filled in - video of the woman's hand furiously
> scribbling or erasing, changing her mind and un-erasing, then
> erasing again.
I have a deadline to move in Jult, so if it takes more than a month, I may be hard to contact on-line. However, if we exchange addresses and the like beforehand, I should be able to continue the editing afterwards until I get back on-line.
Also, I have a strange urge to make the lip sync segment look like the Wang Chung video, but that's probably overkill
In theory at least, the lyrics are supposed to be funny on their own. I would think a good video would complement the words, not compete with them.
>>10 D'oh! (sound of donut smacking into forehead) I can probably talk my wife into letting her hand and forearm go on-camera. Let's spend as much time brainstorming and storyboarding as it needs. Hmmmm... I guess I'd better buckle down on the audio, eh?
>>10
Moving again?! Didn't you just go through that hassle last year?
Two years ago. This situation was only supposed to be for about a year, but I overstayed my welcome.
I have to remember to look out for the "post too long" links. I didn't actually see this entire post initially.
Good luck with your new home!!!
BTW, my brother just told me that he would help me take video footage, so we just need to agree on what sort of footage I should be taking. I don't want so silly that we lose the lyrics though.
I was thinking maybe a shots going back and forth between their back side looking the computers as a profile with bizarre or goofy people on their screens to images from the front where they are reacting to things.
Although you could also show their reactions from behind with the slumping postures versus bouncing around or whatever.
Anyway, I think I am going to go ahead and buy a camcorder because I mainly wanted a fast computer for some reasons that are no longer valid. I just have to figure out which one to buy.
If anyone has any suggestions of a good camcorder that works well with an old G3 Tower iMac, let me know. :-)
Cheers,
Sheryl
Talysman - you want to be the director on this? Then you should be "calling the shots".
Talysman, my brother and sister-in-law just gave me their old camera that takes video, so if you still want to do this shoot me a line at some point.
I seem to be able to mix audio with mov files from this camera in my audio program Metro, except that when I did that it cut the speed on the audio in half. I wonder if that is because the video isn't set for best quality. It sounded really funny. :-)
I must have just boobooed. Now it's working. Yea!
I'm going to have to play with this. This is fun! :-)
talysman just moved (http://urbeatle.livejournal.com/149834.html) so that's probably why you haven't got a reply yet.
In any case, I got my audio program to superimpose music files over mov video files, which this camera my brother gave me takes.
I was thinking that it might be funny to have stuffed animals as at least some of the online daters. Zed, did I email you that pic I took of my german teddy bear sitting in front of the computer?
The thing is that finding lots of legitimate actors wanting to do this might be difficult, but my two nieces have enough toys to sink a boat, and that could be quite funny.
Just an idea. Maybe we could even do multiple videos till we have one we like. That way we could just experiment and see what works. And maybe talysman could just edit it from whatever comes up. :-)
No, haven't seen the teddy bear. But that's a good idea. Unconventional videos are more likely to capture interest.
I'll send you the pic. See what you think. :-)
The dudes in the background looked interesting.
Oh, you mean Darth Tater and the piñata donkeys? lol You think they would make good daters too? It would have to be a closeup (they are rather small.) :-)
I've been meaning to buy one of those Spud Troopers too.
Hey Talysman, If you have any interest in mixing the Online Dating song to a bunch of stuffed animals staring at the computer screen like online daters, let me know and I will upload the footage I took while I was in Austin and had access to my nieces 15 million stuffed toys. lol That is, assuming that this project is ok with Charlie as well. I believe Major Zed said above it's ok with him?
Might not even work, but I did take some footage of that (just in case, considering that I don't get to Austin all the time.)
That seems reasonable... they can be intermixed with other clips, for a surprise.
Yeah, that's sort of what I was thinking too. :-) Especially since you can't really get a stuffed toy to show any particular expression on their face. It would good to have some real people in it too. The advantage to the toys, however, is that they aren't remotely camera shy. :-)
I've been playing with my audio/video editor with the animal clips along with this russian romance song "Elegia" that I made a midi of a year or so ago.
The program hangs when I try to export mov files the standard way. When I try to do it the less standard way, the resulting file works on my computer in Quicktime, but won't be accepted by sites like youtube or format converting programs as a genuine mov file.
It seemed to work when I exported it as an avi file when it was just a short file, but hung as a long one.
But if I could get it working just a little, then I could temporarily upload things to youtube in order to share ideas that might be funny in our video. You can limit who can view your videos on youtube, so I could do that without anyone in the public seeing anything.
I sure wish I had a faster computer and better software, but I'm having fun trying to find ways around the fact my computer is so slow and old. Makes it more challenging. Hahaha
Yeah, the sample MOV you sent me some time ago wouldn't play in Quicktime, and couldn't be imported into iTunes. I don't know what happened to it.
AVI's better, if I'm doing the editing.
The movs from my camera seem to work ok. It's just once I fiddle with them in Metro when they only seem to work in my QT program.