New Enhanced Edition - LACON 2009 - J2 Breakfast
Direct link to video. Link to YouTube channel. (34 videos available.)
At long last, I have a new J2 video up! I've been looking forward to sharing this one. Candygramme had an awesome, full-panel recording that she kindly shared with me for this project. It has 7 minutes of coverage I didn't find anywhere else, better video quality than the other videos currently available, and it isn't publicly available to the best of my knowledge.
Footage Notes
I put a * in the top-left corner of any section (no matter how brief) that only exists in Candygramme's footage. Most of the unique footage is toward the end:
There's a 27 second stretch starting around 20:51.
There's a 6 minute 19 second stretch starting around 24:31.
The rest are from very short sections; blink and you'll miss them.
My final edit is almost entirely from Candygramme's video and audio. I used less than 3 minutes' worth of footage from other sources. The recording is at a fairly sharp angle as you'll see in the sample screen shot below, but even when Jared and Jensen are angled away from the camera it usually had better visibility of their faces than the blurrier but more direct views from the other footage. If you've watched this panel in recent years, I hope you'll find this version to be an improvement.
Subtitles
As before, I'm using the new format with colored initials and white text. This will be the real test of the format because having both Jared and Jensen on stage at the same time makes the subtitles much "busier".
If by the end of April the new format seems to be working out ok, I'll start to VERY slowly work my way through my older videos to convert them to the new format. My plan is to work backwards in chronological order based on convention date.
What's Next?
The main panel videos from this LA 2009 convention. Unfortunately, none of the footage I have access to has the greatest video quality and the available clips are mostly short videos around 3 minutes or less each. The video police were reportedly being very vigilant in the main panels.
However... I will have better coverage than I expected. I found an unexpected treasure in the form of audio-only recordings of these panels. They don't have everything, but they're substantial clips ranging from 5 to 18 minutes long. They've been an enormous help with tying all the short video clips together in their proper order.
Candygramme and AgtSpooky have both also sent me some videos they'd saved back in the day that are now lost. Like the others, they're short and mostly low quality, but Candygramme's adds 66 seconds of video coverage that we would have otherwise been missing and AgtSpooky's has great audio that will help a lot in the sections those videos cover. Both will also give me more editing options which is always a good thing!
The audio-only clips cover Jared's and Jensen's solo and combined panels and they also cover Misha's panel. Because they'll help me to improve on the limited coverage from Misha's panel, I plan to do his too. This was only his second convention and I found it to be an interesting panel. It's been over a year since I've worked on one of his. His panel was on Sunday at some point after the J2 panels, so it will be the last one I do from this con.
The order will be: Jensen Solo, Jared Solo, Main J2, Misha Solo. The next video, Jensen's solo panel, will probably take me about 3 weeks.
Summary of Footage Availability for Main Panels
With all that old and "new" footage synced up, here's what I have...
Jensen's panel: 26 minutes. 73 seconds will be audio-only. There's one small gap where we miss a fan's question and the beginning of Jensen's answer.
Jared's panel: 20.5 minutes. 133 seconds will be audio-only. That audio helped fill in 8 tiny gaps that otherwise would have made this panel a disjointed, out-of-order mess. There's one small gap in the middle of Jared answering one question. I'd thought we were missing much more footage than we actually are. Thanks to the audio files I now realize it was just a really short panel, maybe because they got a late start that morning as mentioned in the Breakfast video.
Main J2 panel: 32.5 minutes. Over 7 minutes will be audio-only. There's one short gap after they finish answering the last question where they're giving their closing comments.
Misha's panel: 43 minutes. Over 12 minutes will be audio-only. There's a gap of unknown length about halfway through. Based on the typical gaps I could quantify between the other audio files, we're probably missing between 30 to 120 seconds but I have no way to be sure. Creation has an official 5-minute video from this panel on their channel. It has the only coverage I've found of the first two minutes and it has beautiful audio. They very kindly gave me permission to use it, so I was ecstatic about that. This will help my final edit be as complete as possible.
Regarding the aforementioned gaps, j2wiki had transcripts of the panels with Jared and/or Jensen from back when there was more footage available. Her transcripts cover the gaps, which is how I know they're short. I'll be able to add info in the sidebar about what's missing. I don't think I'll be able to offer the same for Misha's panel, but I haven't fully explored the fan reports for that one yet.
The parts with audio-only footage will be frustrating at times, especially in the J2 panel! There were some parts where they were obviously doing something visually that was making the audience laugh, and you can kind of guess what that might be from experience watching the panels, but you're left in the dark. In the sections where I have nothing but audio, I'll display static photos from the panel and/or maybe allow my sidebar to bleed into the main (empty) video section at times. I think I'll also put up a countdown so people who don't want to listen to audio without video know how far to skip ahead.
Before/After Comparison Photos
If you're unfamiliar with this project...
Check out the pinned post on my blog. It has more details about what I'm doing. I also keep it updated with links to all my videos and a note about which panel I'm currently working on.
